The Tales of An Anglo-American Mormon Family: Birthdays

January and February are big birthday months for the Bleakley family. Two birthdays in January, and two in February. There was a stretch of many years where I just gritted my teeth and tried to get through four birthdays within a 30 day period - presents, parties, cakes, balloons, birthday dinners, birthday breakfasts, blah blah. Not ever seeing the need to spend more money than is absolutely necessary on a party, we always do the 'do-it-yourself' kind: at the house, homemade cake, with old fashioned party games. It might be boring but I always justify this no-frills approach by telling myself that kids these days are way too stimulated and it is good for them to be bored.

But these boring parties are still really stressful to execute, because you have a large group of screaming, hyper children who you have to organize and entertain and discipline and, well, babysit frankly. This situation has been known to bring both Tim and I to our knees. The most famous story is when Imogen had her fourth birthday party. Tim spent 90 minutes trying to do party games with a bunch of four year olds while I escaped to the kitchen to do the food. It was an excruciating exercise in herding either unwilling or uncomprehending cats, while at the same time keeping up the pretense of being Mr. Happy and Mr. Fun and Mr. Resourceful all rolled into one. Anyway, it nearly killed him. The whole experience brought on a terrible migraine, and he had to come home early from work the next day because he was still suffering mightily in body and spirit from it all.

Anyway, so this is how I still face children's birthdays: it's gonna be bad, it's gonna be exhausting. But the kids are getting older, and things really aren't as stressful as they used to be. This year, Verity only had two friends over for her party. It was really just a glorified play date, with a spaghetti dinner at the end.

Verity's birthday was special this year in that she was 6 years old on February 6th. That will never happen again so best make note of it while we can.

Verity on the morning of her birthday.

Verity at her birthday party with her friends, Sophie and Anatasia

In between Verity's birthday on the 6th, and Abigail's birthday on the 22nd, lies Valentine's Day. I always make each child a homemade Valentine's card, and a personalized heart-shaped sugar cookie, along with a bag of special Valentine chocolates and treats. Tim usually gets some kind of special meal as well. This year it was breakfast in bed, and it was pretty fancy: goat's cheese omelette with sun-dried tomatoes and fresh herbs; smoked trout gratin; orange, grapefruit, and lemon salad on a bed of watercress with a lime dressing; homemade orange and apple marmalade; sourdough baguette slices; and last but not least, Neufchatel cheese imported from France, in the shape of a heart. Yea!!

Tim's Valentine breakfast in bed

Abigail on her 17th birthday, with the famous apple dumplings

Then it was Abigail's birthday. 17 years old. Very, very hard to believe. It was rather low-key, but with several different celebrations: one was a trip to the mall with friends, which included a disturbing foray into Victoria's Secret; another was a miniature golfing expedition with another set of friends; and finally, a day at home with the family, complete with a roasted dinner of pork, applesauce, roasted potatoes, roasted butternut squash, red cabbage, and apple dumplings for dessert. Food is very important to us, and Abigail has inherited the 'food means celebration/special occasion/relaxation/love' gene.
A month later, on March 27th, it was Georgiana's 10th birthday. I can just about handle Georgie's birthday because it is a whole month after Abigail's, and 5 months away from the next birthday, which is Imogen's. But it turned out that I didn't need to worry. Georgie is developing into a very mature, very creative, and very organized girl. It turned out that she did the guest list, the invitations, and the party activities all by herself. And, I had extra help this year. On March 24th, Emilia, our 14-year-old exchange student, arrived from Germany. She was a great help in entertaining Georgie's friends. All I really had to do was make the dinner, and the birthday cake.