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Birthdays Over :: 3rd April 2004

After toiling for days planning and strategizing and coordinating the birthday plans...it's finally over. After days of patting myself for an adequate job done raising my 2 kids, I am done with it! People think it's really cute, funny, coincidental...even well-planned, that both my boys were born on 1st of April, they find it quite unbelievable that that's also my mothers' birthday!

When I tell them this, they blink for like 10 seconds, trying to see if I am trying to pull a quick one of them on April Fool's day. But as soon as they see the seriousness that I have mastered for the past 2 years, they realize that it's not a joke. Both my boys do share the same birthday and so does my mom!

Then they think it's really cool and to a certain extent, I think it's pretty cool too but then there are certain things that all of us people who don't share a birthday like this with our loved ones cannot comprehend and don't think about.

Like, for instance, will Josh and Jed ever hate the fact that they will NEVER have a birthday FREE FROM EACH OTHER? I mean, birthdays are special days for all of us since it rolls around only once a year. Most of us would make special plans to do special things on that day. But how does people like my sons and mom feel when they will never again have a birthday without sharing it with each other. If we share the same birthday with a superstar, we're proud and shout about it. If we share it with a stranger, we talk about it a while and then forget about it. If we share it with our friends, we still celebrate it seperately. But if we share our birthdays with our loved ones? Erm, it's pretty hard to break away from. How do you tell your brother that you don't want to share a birthday with him? If my mom ever wanted to celebrate her birthday, how will she ever tell me that she wanted to celebrate it ALONE...without celebrating it together with my boys...she can, but how does she say it in a way that won't hurt my feelings, you know what I mean?

And then there's the issue of how many cakes should I buy if we're celebrating it all together. If I get only one cake for all of them, I would have to ask the person who writes their names on the cake to make space for 3 persons. If I get 2 cakes, what about my mom? If I get 3, we're having cake for breakfast, lunch and dinner for the next week! And it's not something to look forward to when your kids favorite cake flavor is nothing but CHOCOLATE. Eating choc fudge over and over again can make you want to puke! Furthermore, there's the your-side-and-my-side issue. In our culture, my sons belong to the Tan family side. So, theoratically, we should celebrate it with the Tan family. And if we wanted to celebrate it together with my mom, my mom would have to come over to celebrate it with us. But normally, she wouldn't want to. There's the issue of WHERE IN THE WORLD SHOULD WE HAVE THE CELEBRATION? Here or There?

So, what did I do in the end? On the day itself, my mother-in-law cooked the eggs and a decent meal to indicate or celebrate the kids' birthdays in a small way. And at night, we went out to have dinner with my mom to celebrate her birthday and the boys' as well. After that, we come home and blow and cut a cake at home with my husband's family. The frst cake was a simple cake that (yes, chocolate cake) that I bought from one very popular cake house. Then, to show that there's 2 persons sharing the cake, their names are on the cake PLUS there are 2 tiny dinosaurs placed next to their names to indicate 1 dino for each boy. First, we put 4 candles on it and then sing a birthday song for Joshua. He blows the candles. Then we remove 2 candles, sing another birthday song for Jed and he blows the candles. I have to clamp my hand over Josh's mouth everytime Jed tries to blow the candles cause BIG BRO cannot stand the sissy way Jed blows the candle. It takes Jed almost 10 seconds to blow 2 frigging candles out. And he had 4 candles to blow and it was...well, a piece of cake!

Tonight, we celebrated it with a simple dinner with my husband's side. And Josh had requested for a Pony Cake beforehand and I have already ordered this cake already. Thanks to the 'my little pony' series, my son wants a "Sparkleworks" cake, so, I searched the web and saved an image of the pony and sent it via email to the cake-maker to have it made. The cake was beautiful, so beautiful it is that when everyone demanded to have a piece of the cake, Josh said "No, Sparkleworks will feel sad".

That's very typical of Josh cause he's the softie in the lot. Jed couldn't care less if there was a shark, fish, Nemo, Pony, Blue....whatever on the cake, he just couldn't care less! But Josh is the real softie among all of us. Maybe he's just a lot more like me that's all.

I am not complaining about this affirmation-seeking creature that I now call my son, I am more than pleased that I can go back to the auntie who was giving me the look and shove something up somewhere, you know what I mean? And thankfully, I don't have to sue anyone for giving me wrong advice about parenting. I am just glad I rode this through and made it this far.

For convenience and practicality's sake, my kids will receive clothing as presents from both sides of the family. So, on their birthdays, what clothes do they wear in the event that I didn't get them Birthday Suits? I mean, I am quite sure they won't say anything about it but hey, I wouldn't want to make anyone feel unappreciated on the great day like April Fool's Day, rite? So, ended up I let the kids wear the clothes that my sister/mother bought when we went out for dinner with my side of the family. And clothes that my mother-in-law bought when we went out for dinner with my husband's side of the family.

I am just thankful that it's all finally over. For one thing, I am thankful that the worrying, planning and organizing is over...there wasn't really much to plan but there was lots of think about, though. The anticipatin, the wait and anxiousness and also excitement is also over now. My boys are officialy 4 and 2 now.

Till next year......

:: Marsha ::