At her new school the kids don’t bring special treats on their birthday. (And you rightly ask…is this killing me?!? to which I answer yes, yes it is.) I mean, she came home one day talking about the parts of a lady bug and I was all like “Hey, I have a lady bug cookie cutter, Hey, I just made lady bug cookies…I’ll just make some lady bug cookies for all you little lady bug learners.” And then I was reminded that there are no special treats. No special treats. No special treats.
Sometimes it takes me a few times to get it through my head.
But I’m really okay with this, I think. That’s because what they do instead of the treats taps into my second favorite thing behind making cookies, and that’s books. Every other Friday is a school assembly, and every other assembly the parents are invited, and this Friday is that day. And on the second Friday assembly of the month the kids who have birthdays during the month donate a book of their choosing to the school library and they get to put a special bookplate in it and present the book to the entire assembly. August birthdays get in with Septembers, so E’s bit is this Friday. I think she’s kind of excited. Me? I’m super excited! Books! Kids talking about books! My kid talking about a book! Where’s the video camera?
So here’s the little sign she made to help her through her introduction to Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey. (She’s listed a few good reasons she selected it on the back for reference.) And she added a few photographs of the ducklings from our recent trip to Boston. Brownie points.
And if this shy little bug gets up in front of that big group and tells us a little bit about the book then I’m more than okay with the no treats deal. Much more than okay with it.
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By the way, two minutes after this photo was taken she was a pile of sobbing five-year-old mush again. It was, after all, two minutes after seven.