A birthday, at home and abroad

I always felt bad for the kids who had birthdays in July.  Nobody was around.  Maybe they were at camp, but it wasn’t the same.  It wasn’t getting up early, having your favorite breakfast, lunch and dinner.  It wasn’t a birthday party with your friends and your presents and your cake.

It’s made even tougher when you have a birthday in a new school, new city and new country.  Your parents are still there, but so are your sisters and there’s the Facebook notes, but most of the birthday wishes come much later in the day, when everyone gets home from school and logs on, and you’re getting ready for bed.

It can’t be the same.  At home we have traditions, there’s Beni-Hana.

So we do our best, Mommy let’s them have cupcakes for breakfast, but in the new house we can’t find any candles.  There are presents, but we expect fewer people at school know it’s his birthday.

But then everything is new for this birthday and sometimes new is better.  There are still presents and the big singing wake up.  And for some reason all the kids at school know it’s your birthday because Facebook told them.  And then we take an hour tube ride to Fulham Broadway to go see our new home football team play, Chelsea.  And instead of traffic to FedEx Field we laugh at the people trying to pile into an overcrowded/heated train.

And the stadium is like Fenway or Wrigley, right in the middle of a neighborhood.  And instead of Beni-Hana we have burgers and fries as we walk with the throngs to our seats.  And our team scores and we jump up and can feel the stadium ride and shudder with glee.  And after the win we run to the store and buy jerseys and scarves and balls and mugs.  We have a team.

And at the end of the night we tell Mommy all about our experiences, the stadium, the crazy German opponents with their flags and their chants, the tube ride, the store, the food, the pitch.  And he tells us what a great day it was as he gets into bed with his 300 Facebook messages.

Parents always lament how much older the kids are getting.  But we have done this since he was 6 months old (I can’t believe how big he’s getting, I can’t believe he’s walking, I can’t believe he’s in grade school, middle school, high school).

And he soldiers on with a big smile, because no matter what, when you see your birth date on the calendar, or in the paper or you write it at the top of a pop quiz, you know, in your heart, that it’s still your day.