Cake and Goody Bags
The next following day is Justin's actual 4th Birthday (8/21). We bought a Baskin Robbin's Ice Cream Cake for Justin's daycare class. I am lighting up his candles right now.
The night before we made goody bags for his classmates and that was an entirely different ordeal. I have come to realize that most kids do not become popular because they are cool...they become popular because their parents help them to be cool. Unless the kids are genetically beautiful...then the parents can generally be whatever. Even at a young age I realize how much of our efforts as parents can mold the the status of our children's popularity. For instance...I have had parents of Justin's classmates come up to me asking if I was Justin's Dad. I thought these parents wanted to just introduce themselves because our children play together, but it turns out that their kids talk quite avidly about me at home. "Justin's Dad does this..." or "Justin's Dad does that..." I take Justin to school pretty much 99% of time and pick him up as well. While there I converse with the kids...act silly at times...or read them a book or two before I take off. I never really think about it, but I guess the kids like me for that. I have this one kid named Larry who used to bite Justin...one day I get fed up with it and I talk to Larry about it...I asked him if he was friends with Justin which they were...and I asked him nicely to use his words instead of biting because friends don't bite each other...for the next 2 weeks I would ask him if he bit Justin...for the most part he didn't, but one day he did and he lied to my face denying it. I told him I knew he did and that he should say sorry...he was so stubborn and didn't want to apologize...so I told him, " I know you bit Justin and I'm not mad, but I am disappointed that you lied to me...but you know Larry...I know you are a great kid...so when you are ready you tell Justin you are sorry." It turns out that the next day he went to Justin and apologized. The funny thing is for at least 2 weeks everyday we would come up to me smiling and tell me that he didn't bite Justin today. To this day...every time I see Larry he runs up to me with a big smile and gives me a big hug and says, "Hi Justin's Daddy!" Where am I going with all this? I'll tell you near the end. Right now let's get back to Justin's Birthday at school. Here I am bringing over Justin's Birthday cake over.
Here we are all singing Happy Birthday to Justin.
The night before we made goody bags for his classmates and that was an entirely different ordeal. I have come to realize that most kids do not become popular because they are cool...they become popular because their parents help them to be cool. Unless the kids are genetically beautiful...then the parents can generally be whatever. Even at a young age I realize how much of our efforts as parents can mold the the status of our children's popularity. For instance...I have had parents of Justin's classmates come up to me asking if I was Justin's Dad. I thought these parents wanted to just introduce themselves because our children play together, but it turns out that their kids talk quite avidly about me at home. "Justin's Dad does this..." or "Justin's Dad does that..." I take Justin to school pretty much 99% of time and pick him up as well. While there I converse with the kids...act silly at times...or read them a book or two before I take off. I never really think about it, but I guess the kids like me for that. I have this one kid named Larry who used to bite Justin...one day I get fed up with it and I talk to Larry about it...I asked him if he was friends with Justin which they were...and I asked him nicely to use his words instead of biting because friends don't bite each other...for the next 2 weeks I would ask him if he bit Justin...for the most part he didn't, but one day he did and he lied to my face denying it. I told him I knew he did and that he should say sorry...he was so stubborn and didn't want to apologize...so I told him, " I know you bit Justin and I'm not mad, but I am disappointed that you lied to me...but you know Larry...I know you are a great kid...so when you are ready you tell Justin you are sorry." It turns out that the next day he went to Justin and apologized. The funny thing is for at least 2 weeks everyday we would come up to me smiling and tell me that he didn't bite Justin today. To this day...every time I see Larry he runs up to me with a big smile and gives me a big hug and says, "Hi Justin's Daddy!" Where am I going with all this? I'll tell you near the end. Right now let's get back to Justin's Birthday at school. Here I am bringing over Justin's Birthday cake over.Here we are all singing Happy Birthday to Justin.
And Justin blowing out his candles. 
Lastly, his classmates and his teacher Angela applauding after he blew out his candles. 
I guess Nancy took this picture of Dylan chilling while all the festivities were going. He likes Justin's school because there are new toys that he hasn't played with.
Coming back to what I was talking about earlier. Well...this morning (the next day after his b-day at school)...I guess it turns out that everybody in his class is still talking about Justin's Birthday because of the goody bags. As I walk Justin in...all the kids say, "Hi Justin's Daddy!" and then a couple of the girls in his class come up to Justin and say, "Thank you Justin for the goody bags...I really liked it." Now make notice that Nancy put some effort and thought into these goody bags. These were goody bags that Nancy said she would love to get...assuming she was a kid. Then the boys in his class got involved by saying that the Nascar cake tasted really good and looked cool. Even the teachers talked about how his ice cream cake tasted good. We had half of an ice cream cake left over...so we left it at the school and told all the teachers to have a slice. Nancy picked out a good tasting ice cream cake. Anyways, because of our actions Justin was really popular for that day. What is the moral of this story...Be involved in your kid's life as much as possible. Do it not to make your kids popular, but know that your actions may change their destiny on the social ladder. It goes the same in relationships...you can make your significant other shine like a star or stink like moldy cheese.
posted by Tiger Meets Panda @ 1:03 AM
4 Comments
4 Comments:
Happy 4th Birthday, Justin! What a great story about Larry. Maybe next time you can post a picture of Justin and Larry together.
Hi John and Nancy,
So what was inside the goody bag? You've got to tell me so I can get it for my kids' birthday party! I do agree that parents can make such a difference in their children's social lives. I read somewhere that outgoing kids had parents who taught them how to interact with other kids. Jin also says he loved to hang out at the home of this one high school friend because his mom was such a great cook and was always making something yummy for all the kids coming to play.
Hi Chiori,
Sorry for the delay in revealing the content of the goody bag. I missed 3 days of work due to illness and as you can imagine, I had tons of work to catch up when I got back to the office. So, what's inside the goody bag? Normally, I tried to make sure that the bags have identical contents. You probably know how kids are when their stuff is not the same as their friends'. But this time the bags did not all have the same items. I had some left over items from prior occasions so I decided to mix and match. Each bag had 5 or 6 of any of the following: Dora coloring book with crayons; Dora sticker book and stickers; rubix cube with superhero or princess designs; yoyo that lights up; bubble blower; mini uno game cards; pencil/eraser/note pad/pencil sharpener set with various character designs; water-filled telephone-shaped toy game; play-doh; wooden cars; mini tic-tac-toe game. We ended up having boy-only bags, girl-only bags and unisex bags. I know this sounds bad, but we also put in 3 dums dums lollipops and a miniature bag of sour patch kids (my favorite).
By the way, I got all of the items from the toy district in downtown L.A. The stores there have all sorts of items at very good price. Is there something like the toy district in New York?
Oh my gosh, that does sound like a great goody bag. Even I would love to get something like that! I don't know of anyplace like the toy district in New York. But in New York, every place imaginable has a "kid birthday party" service. It's not only at places like pizzarias and ice cream parlors, they do them at museums, art galleries, sports gyms, public parks, etc. We have to start thinking about our kids' birthdays soon. Fortunately, the first floor of our building is The Litttle Gym. (It's very similar to Gymboree.) So we're thinking it'll be really easy if we do it there.
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