Not everything I do is well received by my family. That’s no surprise considering I’m a minimalist freak who likes to eat healthy vegan meals most of the time. Guess how many kids would like to have me for a mother?
One of the things that caused uproar in my family was a tradition I started six, seven years ago. Up until that point, I used to wake my daughters up on their birthdays with a plate full of cupcakes and a “Happy Birthday” song. Later on, we’d go out to a kids’ restaurant and we’d share a full-size birthday cake. Everybody was happy. And hyper.
That all changed when I decided that too much sugar was, well, too much sugar. I wanted to do something different. On the morning of my oldest daughter’s birthday, I woke her up with a plate full of different kinds of berries playfully arranged to look like a cake and a birthday candle in the middle. My daughter was not impressed. Actually, she looked at me like I had just played a prank on her. She waited patiently for me to produce “the real cake.” Needless to say, that didn’t happen.
Long story short, that morning a new tradition started.
My daughters have come to expect their fruit plates on their birthdays. They make fun of me but they are actually enjoying them. And, what made me really happy was that this past week, when my birthday came around, they woke me up with a bowl full of strawberries and a single candle in the middle. They looked very proud of themselves. It was a beautiful start to my day.
In the evening, we went out for dinner and decided that nobody should eat completely healthy on their birthday. Not even I. So I ordered a big hot fudge sundae and eat most of it. I was hyper. And happy.