The Blind Leading the Blind

Now with Facebook, it's not uncommon to have five friends sharing a single birthday, but a week with five local birthdays to celebrate is still heavier than normal for me. March seems to be a busy birthing month, hence this was a busy frosting week.

On Tuesday, a few of us from church went to visit a friend who lives a ways out of town for her special day. Some Jehova's Witnesses have recently befriended her and started telling her about their faith. She told us they don't observe birthdays, or any holiday for that matter, because Jesus didn't. Which sounded awfully silly to me, 'cause Jesus didn't get married or have kids, or do many things they probably don't avoid. But then I started racking my brain for birthday parties in the Bible, and I couldn't think of a single one. Weird. When did celebrating one's birth every year become tradition, and why? Well, Rosa has clearly not converted to Jehova's Witness yet 'cause she thoroughly enjoyed her strawberry ice cream cake and our little visit, but I think I might start using the lack of Biblical birthdays as one of my many reasons to skip getting older each year.

I'll be happy to celebrate others' though, no need to push my new beliefs on anyone else, especially if they're offering me cake.

Here are a few of the cumpleañeros this week, enjoying their cake in the traditional Bolivian fashion as everyone chants, "Que la muerda!" (Bite it!)

Amongst all the celebration of births, Angie became particularly interested in the birds and the bees, "Mommy, I know where babies come from, but how do they get in there?" Oh my! It was a conversation I'd been anticipating/dreading/putting off for awhile, but with that simple question, it was time. Has a less prepared mother ever discussed this with her daughter? At least I have all those years of biology in my favor. So, we went out to dinner, just the two of us, and we had "the talk." "When a mommy and daddy love each other very much, and they're married..." (probably not necessary for most of you to add that last part, in case you're starting to prep in front of the mirror for this fun chat, but this mommy's not married so some clarification was in order.) It was way easier than I expected. I'd heard someone say recently that if you tell little kids the facts of life they think, "Oh, that's grown-up stuff it doesn't apply to me." If you tell ~10 year-olds they say "Ooooooh, gross!" And if you tell 12-13 year-olds they think "Oooh, but hmmmm..." Angie seems to have been in between the bottom two reactions, she didn't even flinch. Probably didn't hurt that it just seems kind of natural with all the dogs, cats, chickens, and turtles around here giving her a live demo (my castration efforts haven't been as successful as one would hope.) When we got home from dinner we watched our normal Sesame Street podcast before bed, she elected "Word of the Day: Amphibians" with a special focus on the part about the tadpoles. ;)