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Shawna
“Happy Birthday!”
The shocked look on my now seven-year-old son’s face is priceless as he walks into the room. Last night after he went to bed, Mom and I hung streamers all over the living room, along with a Happy Birthday banner and balloons. I try to make a big deal out of Noah’s birthday every year, and I love seeing the joy on his face.
“Would you like some pancakes?” I ask, wrapping him in a hug.
“Yeah!” he says. Jumping back from me, he hops up and hits a balloon above his head. It goes sailing across the room, knocking into the streamers and a couple of other balloons in the process. “Did you do all this?” he asks, leaping up again to hit another balloon.
“I sure did. And Grandma helped me,” I reply as I turn and walk back into the kitchen to make pancakes. “It’s a special day, and special days require decorations!”
As I begin making pancakes, I hear the sound of Noah’s laughter mixed with him jumping around the room and hitting balloons, and it brings a smile to my face. Considering life hasn’t always been easy for us, I’m proud of the kind, polite, smart little boy I’ve raised. Lord knows it’s been an uphill battle for me so far. Luckily, my family has always been supportive. I could always depend on my parents’ support, and although my dad isn’t with us anymore, my mom is my rock. Neither Noah nor I would be who we are today if it wasn’t for her.
“Noah, be careful.” I hear Mom’s voice in the other room. “I don’t want my vase of flowers to get knocked over.”
“I’ll be careful, Grandma,” Noah says as I hear the whap of another balloon.
Mom saunters into the kitchen. “Well, he seems to be having a happy birthday so far,” she says as she approaches me and kisses me on the cheek. “Happy birthing day to you, dear.”
“Thanks, Mom,” I reply, flipping another pancake. She always wishes me a happy birthing day. According to her, it’s just as much a celebration for me as it is for Noah. “Would you like some pancakes?”
“Sure,” she replies, filling the coffee pot with water.
“So I’m going to take Noah to school, along with the cupcakes for his class, then I’ll go straight to work from there. I’ll order pizza when I get home this evening so we can have that for dinner.”
“Sounds good. I’ll make his cake today so it’s ready for dessert.”
“Thank you.”
Mom bakes Noah’s birthday cake every year, just like she did for me growing up. I may be biased, but she bakes and decorates the best cakes I’ve ever had. Over the years, people have actually hired her to bake a cake on several occasions, so others must feel the same about her talents. She almost always agrees to do it because it’s a hobby she enjoys. I wish I could say I inherited her abilities. While I can manage to bake a cake pretty well, it’s the decorating part that I always screw up. Somehow, I always succeed in making it look like a five-year-old frosted the cake.
Forty-five minutes later, after enjoying delicious pancakes for breakfast, Noah’s sitting in the back seat of my Civic. He has the grocery bag full of mini cupcakes to share with his class on the seat next to him. I can’t believe he’s already seven. Time needs to slow down.
As I pull out onto the main road that leads to town, Noah asks, “Mom, are we going to the pumpkin patch this weekend?”
“Yes, of course,” I reply. “It’s tradition to go the weekend following your birthday.”
“Okay, good. I want to get a big pumpkin this year and carve it into a scary face!”
Surprised by his comment, I glance at him in the rear-view mirror and am suddenly struck by the realization that my little boy is not only a year older now, but he actually looks older to me. How is this possible?
“You don’t want to paint your pumpkin like you usually do?” I ask, hoping I can convince him to stick to our usual plans. “You always do such a good job of painting them.” I have to admit, I’ve been dreading this day. I stopped enjoying pumpkin carving when I sliced my hand open in the sixth grade. There was a lot of blood, which freaked me out, and I had to get ten stitches. I swore I’d never carve another pumpkin in my life, and I haven’t since that day.
“Nah, I want a jack-o’-lantern this year. I want it to light up and look scary.”
Noah is unaware of my fear of pumpkin carving, and now is not the time for me to explain it to him since we’ll be at his school shortly. I’m also conflicted over what to do about the situation. I don’t want to pass my fears onto him based on my own childhood experiences. After all, it’s a pretty common practice for people to carve pumpkins, so why should I deny my son the experience? But I don’t know if I can bring myself to do it.
Ugh, sometimes being a parent is hard.
“We’ll see, bud,” I tell him, which is my usual response when I don’t want to flat-out say no right away.
I pull into the school parking lot and follow the line of cars full of kids being dropped off by their parents. “Can you handle carrying your cupcakes to class all by yourself?”
“Yeah, I’ve got it, Mom. Don’t worry.”
Oh, my heart. Noah’s come a long way since this time last year. On his sixth birthday, he
still wasn’t one-hundred-percent comfortable walking to his kindergarten class by himself, so I’d park and walk him to his classroom door every day. He also needed me to carry his birthday cupcakes for him because he simply wasn’t strong enough to do it on his own.
