What my Daughter Remembered from her Birthday Party

It isn't always the big, fancy, expensive gifts that impress our children the most, like we often think they will.

This past Saturday, just one day after my daughter's 5th birthday party, my step mom--who couldn't be at her party--asked her what she had gotten for her birthday. Her response: "A cake, balloons, and decorations."

Not a new bike.
Not cute outfits.
Not new shoes.
Not a baton.
Not a new Cat in the Hat book, coloring books, or crayons.

It was the cake, balloons, and decorations that she remembered.

My step mom, knowing from what I had told her on the phone that we had given her a new bike, then asked her, "Didn't you get something you could ride on?"

My daughter's reply: "No'p."

I laughed, thinking she was kidding around and said, "What!? Yes you did. What did daddy roll into the living room?" She looked thoughtful for a minute, then said, "I don't know."

So I asked, "What did daddy give you the horn for?" She thought about it and still didn't know. So then I asked, "What did we put you on top of so you could ride it?" The right answer then came, though still with hesitation, and not with much enthusiasm, only a little smile: "A bike!"

Then when I asked her about her other gifts, she couldn't tell me about those either, but said the name of her younger cousin, whom she loves and was able to play with that night.

I admit to being quite bewildered at how much I had to prompt her to get her to talk about not only the bike, but her other gifts as well. Not that she didn't appreciate them. Every time she sees her bike outside now, she gets excited and wants to ride it, and she is enjoying her other gifts as well. But it obviously isn't what made the most impression on her at her birthday party.

Instead, it was the cake, the balloons, and the decorations. And playing with her cousin.

Kind of puts things in perspective, doesn't it?