Tag: birthday

Lost in Translation

Published on by Laura Nicole Diamond4 Comments

It was the vehemence of the assault that surprised me. The attacker: my son. His weapon: my birthday cake.

My birthday was last week. With Maria in our family now, I knew this year would be different than the usual last-minute birthday cards. Birthday celebrations in Guatemala have unique traditions, which I learned about one afternoon during a front yard soccer game a few days before my husband’s birthday.

Maria, who had joined our family two weeks earlier, called me over and whispered in Spanish, “I have an idea for Christopher’s birthday. I’ll wake up at 4 a.m….” Wow, I thought, is she going to prepare a feast for when he awakes two hours later? She’s amazing! “And I’ll wake up the boys at 4 a.m.,” she continued, “and we’ll come into your room at 4 a.m. and sing songs and pour ice water on him!” Her face was overtaken by a huge smile.

Which I had to snuff out, even if it was culturally insensitive. “No. No way. Do NOT do that. He will not like that.” She took the note, and instead made a huge, colorful birthday banner, taped to the dining room wall after he went to bed. Lovely. Two weeks later, we celebrated my older son’s birthday in a similar way. No middle of the night birthday anarchy. I had protected them from this particular cultural exchange.

Cue my birthday. I had seen hints that Maria and the boys were at work on an art project, heard giggling and whispers, and was happy the three of them were getting along so well. On the morning of my birthday, I woke up to the sounds of them scampering about. I felt content, not only because I knew there was something special planned for me, but because this experiment of welcoming a stranger into our family was succeeding beyond my wildest dreams. I had never expected my boys to come to love Maria, nor so quickly.

At 6:30 a.m. Maria and the boys entered our bedroom. Aaron held a beautiful cake that read “Happy Birthday Laura” in flowing red icing script, and candle flames lit the dark bedroom. Maria held an iPad playing “Happy Birthday” in mariachi style. Emmett held a camera, recording the moment. I felt loved and appreciated.

I made my wish, and then I blew out my candles. Before I could inhale my next breath, I was inhaling my cake and my son’s fist behind it. He pushed the entire quarter-sheet cake up onto my chest and chin. That was their plan. Ha ha ha. Feliz cumpleanos.

But my 14-year-old kept going. He grabbed the cake and shoved it at my head. Cake flew everywhere: on me, my pillow, the bed, the floor, the rug. When he finally stopped, the cake was destroyed. I was crestfallen. Either he had misunderstood Maria’s instructions and innocently taken it too far, or he had become overcome by aggression over every fight about too much screentime.

It felt like the latter — “Does he hate me that much?” I wondered. I tried not to cry. The kids sort of helped Christopher clean up. I got in the shower. Though I tried not to let it, it colored the rest of my day, a charcoal hue that came with me on a hike underneath otherwise blue skies. I tried to shake it off. By day’s end, we had moved on, and eaten the entire cake.

A few days have passed, and I’ve recovered from the hurt feelings. I still don’t know if the intensity of the cake attack was motivated by suppressed anger, or the thrill of permission to run amok. I look for a lesson regardless, something to salvage.

Perhaps it is this: I have entered the era of Mother to an Adolescent. There will be friction and misunderstandings, disagreements and disputes. But at the end of the day, we come together. We share the ample sweetness there is, in all its delicious imperfection.

birthday cake

How To Celebrate A 7 Year Old’s Birthday

Published on by Laura Nicole Diamond1 Comment

Easy. Start with dinosaurs, finish with giraffes.

We have two summer birthdays in our family. My son Emmett and my mother-in-law Joyce have back-to-back July birthdays, which we frequently celebrate together during summer vacation. Before you shed a tear for the poor child who never gets to bring cupcakes to school for his birthday, please know that he ends up with multiple celebrations of his joyful birth each year – one with friends in California before our trip, and another celebration with Pennsylvania family on the real day.

This year his dream was to have a sleepover at L.A.’s Natural History Museum in its New Dinosaur Hall. I don’t know how brave you are, but I would be skittish sleeping with a T.Rex triptych – baby, juvenile and full grown – hovering over me. So I didn’t expect a single friend to jump at this idea. Instead, we told Emmett we’d take him to see the dinosaurs, and another day he could have a party with friends at home. That is how he ended up with three birthday celebrations: those two events and on his actual birthday, a Six Flags Wild Safari V.I.P. Tour in Jackson, New  Jersey. All together now: Life is good.

As an Angeleno, I’m particularly proud of our new dinosaurs. The Natural History Museum keeps getting better, far surpassing my childhood experiences of it. For years we watched scientists patiently build these dinosaurs, and they have finally come to fruition, along with a lot of interactive exhibits. My favorite is a video of the self-taught paleontologist whom L.A. County long ago sent to Montana in search of its own T. Rex, rather than purchase one already unearthed by another institution. Later they may host birthday parties, but until then, just bring a picnic and a soccer ball and have a party outside on the massive lawn. Happy Birthday Part 1.

The only animals involved in Happy Birthday Part 2, were the dozen six-year-old boys running around playing Red Light/Green Light, jumping on a trampoline and eating pizza and cake, so let’s skip ahead to Happy Birthday Part 3.

We all use Emmett’s passion for animals to connect us to our own animal instincts. While most visitors to Six Flags Wild Animal Safari in Jackson, New Jersey drive their cars through meandering dirt roads throughout 350 lush acres, past 1500 animals representing 52 species from 6 continents, ogling creatures from bison to Bengal tigers, and from emus to elephants, those guests are required to stay in their cars with the windows rolled up – just in case. We splurged for the V.I.P. tour, which allowed eight of us to get in and out of our two guided Land Rovers (painted like zebras), stand within three feet of lions and tigers, pet Roosevelt Elk, giraffes and a rhinoceros, and feed various animals fruits and raw vegetables as we went.

I have never seen my children voluntarily let a raw sweet potato touch their teeth, until today, when they decided to feed the giraffes mouth-to-mouth. I think they would have taken them home with them if we could have sneaked them out.  Animals aside, Emmett was over the moon simply because he got to sit in the Land Rover’s front passenger seat, another birthday perk.

And so the first day of our two-month travel adventure begins with a theme we hope will carry us through: experience the unfamiliar, get out of our comfort zones. I must confess, however, that as I write this, I am quite comfortably sitting in the air-conditioned home in which I became engaged to my husband nearly 14 years ago. So there you have it: a perfect balance of creature comforts and wild creatures – and another birthday to remember.