The Wilful Sunflower

Blink and I are here to celebrate Mom's birthday, which falls on Thursday. In our family, birthdays have always been significant dates. When I was in primary school (ages 7-12), Mom used to organise small birthday parties for me. We'd invite my closest friends and we'd play games like "The wind blows" (Blows where?), "Pass the parcel", and "Musical chairs". Mom would bake me a cake and decorate it with butter sugar icing -- yummy! -- and make jelly, and I can't remember what else. *slurp*

I like the way we celebrate birthdays rather than Father's Day and Mother's Day. Father's Day and Mother's Day belongs to fathers & mothers all over the world, but a birthday is special and belongs only to that one person. Know what I mean? Of course lots of other people also do happen to be born on the same day, but we don't know about them, so that's okay -- it's not like there's a mass celebration, right? :P

Then again, my family being rather low-key, we don't have big celebrations or anything like that. Usually just a cake, and a family dinner in some nice restaurant. I try to be around for my parents' birthdays because I figure I'm only going to visit them a few times a year anyway, so I might as well visit at a significant time... it's my way of showing them that I care. Mom always tells me that she's looking forward to seeing me, and Dad seems happy to have me around (although, being Dad, he doesn't actually say anything!).

I know as parents grow older, they fear that they're growing redundant... it's like they've outlived their usefulness coz they're no longer needed, y'know? And I've heard stories of parents complaining that they've been forgotten by their children, that their children don't seem appreciate all they've done, don't come to visit them, and they (the parents) are just left all alone. I don't want my parents to ever feel that way.