Friday night we celebrated Benjamin's 18th birthday. We don't have elaborate birthday traditions in our family but we always celebrate and look forward to birthdays. The birthday child always has the option of breakfast in bed and often gets to choose the menu. On his special day his siblings do all of his animal and house chores for him. Depending on the child he sometimes has a birthday party with friends, or a birthday party with cousins, or just a fun activity with immediate family. We bake a birthday cake, and sometimes the birthday child actually wants to make and decorate his cake all on his own. Occasionally one of the kids will request a birthday pie or apple crisp instead. I think we even had a birthday watermelon once for our Dad's birthday. Often we have a special dinner that is a favorite of the birthday child.
Not long after Jerry and I were married we were browsing in a Pier One Imports store and found a colorful plate and cup that both of us loved. We decided to buy it and call it our "special plate" and use it for special occasions in our family. The special plate is used at dinnertime for the birthday child, and even grandparents and special visitors to our home have occasionally been honored to use the "special plate" at dinnertime. Benjamin used the special plate last night for his special birthday dinner. This will be his last birthday dinner at home for two years. We will miss him but are so grateful for his desire to serve a mission.
One of our most treasured birthday traditions is opening cards from the grandparents with the whole family. Grandma and Grandpa Winters always send homemade cards along with balloons which is a hit with the younger children. Grandpa and Grandma Vance have a real knack for finding super fun cards that often sing to you. And Grandpa Vance is the star of every card opening session. Why? Because he writes "Roses are red" poems in every birthday card to children and their spouses and grandchildren too. Years and years of birthdays and he keeps coming up with new and creative poems to make us laugh. We try to keep all the cards in the childrens' keepsake boxes so that they will always remember their Grandpa and his poems. The birthday child looks forward to special phone calls from grandparents on both sides as well.
In the March 1986 Ensign (no author mentioned) it says,
"Family traditions are like spiritual and emotional cement in the foundation of a happy home. They create fond memories, and these memories bond us together as nothing else can."
I have fond memories of birthday traditions in my own home when I was a child. My mother used to bake fun cakes in neat shapes. One year I had a cake shaped like a princess. I remember one of my brothers having a rocking horse cake. And for those who wanted she would always make the most delicious angel food cake with lemon glaze. When we were younger we enjoyed birthday parties with our friends with traditional games like pin the tail on the donkey and musical chairs. As we got older we were sometimes treated to a dinner out at a restaurant. I always felt so special and important on my birthday. And still do. My parents make me feel loved every day, but I can always count on them remembering my birthday and taking special care to let me know that they are so glad that I was and will always be their daughter.
Elder Russell M. Nelson addressed BYU students in a devotional (March 29, 1987) and said,
"I watched some three-year-old children playing one day. I saw them lapping water from the sidewalk after it had spilled through a neighbor’s garden. I suppose the germs they ingested were incalculable in number, but not one of those children became ill. They were defended by their bodies. As soon as that dirty drink reached their stomachs, hydrochloric acid went to work to purify the water and protect the lives of those innocent children."
The entire address was about the magnificence of the bodies that our Heavenly Father has created for us. He talked about our senses of sight and hearing, our hearts and our brains and our body's amazing ability to repair itself. He also gave the above little story to demonstrate how well our body can deal with germs.
Recently, David became safe on the stairs. We don't have them blocked off anymore as I feel comfortable letting him climb from our main level up to the bedrooms whenever he wants to. He is surely enjoying this new freedom and the ability to explore a little. During the day our family spends most of our time on our main level. Since there is not often someone upstairs to keep an eye on David in his explorations I've been trying to get everyone to keep the bedroom and bathroom doors shut when they are not up there….especially the bathroom doors.
We are not very good at it yet.
This morning we found David upstairs in the bathroom brushing his teeth…with his sister's toothbrush. Ok - that's no big deal. But he was having a grand old time wetting and rewetting the toothbrush in the toilet in between brushings. So disgusting!! His onesie was sopping and he was so so mad when we found him and took his toothbrush away.
How grateful I am for the magnificence of the human body. My children have all been exposed to all kinds of germy things as they've grown up, and they all seem to survive. Yes, we need to keep our homes clean and sanitary, yes we need to practice good hygiene… but germs happen. Little children explore and do messy things. Thank goodness for our body's built in self defense system.
A long time ago I read in a book that every child needs a "hill and a hole." What they meant by that is that children, by nature, all love wild places…places where they can dig and climb and get messy without being told how to play or where to play…or where not to play.
When we moved to our home here over fifteen years ago our yard needed some leveling. We have an acre of property and so, since we had the space, we had the backhoe guy build a nice big hill in the very back of our land with the extra dirt from the leveling. Over the years that hill has provided so much fun for our children. In the early spring wild grass covers it making it an ideal hiding place. In the winter, covered with snow, it becomes a great mini sledding hill. They build jumps at the bottom to get an even wilder ride. One year, after reading the Great Brain by J.D. Fitzgerald, Brandon and Kyle decided to dig a cave into the hill. Wearing their protective safety goggles, they looked very official. It's also used as a "lookout tower" by children using binoculars.
In the back of our property we have one corner where we have dumped rocks through the years that we have removed in the course of landscaping our yard. Our children have turned that area of the yard into their own secret fort area. They've dug a big hole and covered it with spare boards to make a hideout. Rocks are used to create rooms and lookouts. The game changes every time they play. Sometimes they forget about the fort for a while and when they rediscover it the game starts anew and is fun all over again.
Our big old dirt hill may not be the most aesthetically pleasing aspect of our yard, but it has provided hours and hours of fun for our children and their friends. "A hill and a hole" has been a blessing to our family.
