May 21, 20214 min read

4th Birthday

Another pandemic birthday, celebrated by adding 'DIY spirit', Bubu had all year-round!

Here are some of the things we did to make Bubu's birthday more personalized and fun. Love how simple ideas can add so much joy!

Pandemic is still on, a lot of our friends are still awaiting their first shot/vaccine. We are also not comfortable hosting a big group of people. However, to make life easy as both of us are working, we sent Bubu back to Montessori in September 2020. Here are some of the things we did to make his birthday more personalized and fun. We will also take a road trip to Palm Springs end of May to celebrate both Bubu and my partners birthdays this month.

Theme

I decide the theme based on what Bubu enjoyed the entire year. This past year Bubu was all about DIY. When Bubu was home for 5 months during shutdown, to keep him occupied, I had lot of DIY's planned for him. He now loves to draw as soon as he gets home. He won't eat if he does not finish his drawing for the day. On weekends we inevitably end up doing some art or craft project. So obviously the theme had to do something with DIY, painting, craft, art in general.

Decoration

During my childhood, my parents would stay up late at night and decorate the living room with streamers and balloons. It was their way to surprise me on my birthday morning. I used to love it, I felt special and also appreciated the effort put in for me. Now it's my turn to continue this tradition. I do the same, decorate the night before Bubu's birthday. I love making my own decorations. For this years 'DIY/Art theme', I made these huge paint blots/splatters and stuck them on the background wall. It was very easy, just draw a paint splatter and drops to give a realistic effect. However, the cutting took 2-4 hours and sticking on the wall took 2-3 hours, as there were so many pieces :P ikes! But a DIYer got to do, what a DIYer got to do ... especially once the idea looked great in the head and also you are half way into it ;P. I was also going to try making a ballon arch this year. I had brought all the supplies but I did not have the energy as the setup took so long.

In the morning we had set time with family for a video call + cake cutting session! This included both our parents aka Bubu's grandparents and our sibling's family (Bubu's aunts). My mom also did Ovalni, an Indian tradition done on birthdays, over the video call.

So basically 6-9 hours of all the DIY decoration only for surprising Bubu and to be used for a 30 mins video call.

I think it was still worth the effort just to see that smile on Bubu's face in the morning.

Update: This background was up until October as Bubu did not want to take it down. Over all justifies the effort that I put in it, right?

Cake

This year I made a Train brownie cake, on Bubu's request. We had brought him a train set last year and he has played with it religiously every day. It goes in all the cityscapes he builds. For him the most exciting part is making different track shapes. "Train" did not go with our DIY/Art theme, but he is the birthday boy after all. The only thing I did, to maybe slightly match the theme is add different colors. I just baked brownies cut them in rectangles. Staked them to add height. Used store brought whipped cream, mixed it with natural colors to make it various colors. The natural color were turmeric powder (yellow), beetroot powder (pink), spirulina powder (blue), acai berry powder (purple), moringa powder (green). For the grass I used desiccated coconut and for wheels dates cut horizontally to form little circles.

Outfit

As always the outfit was a formal set from Carters. Added a bowtie and hat to give it an edge. Shoes are from Jack and Janie (sale) went so well with the colors in his outfit.

School celebration

I love Bubu's school. They follow the Montessori way of celebrating. They believe Birthdays are celebrating the birth of the child, not about cake and goodie bags. To cultivate this, they do not entertain cake/cupcake or even goodie bags. Instead you can send a chart with the birthday kids pic from each year. This helps the kids to see the development of this little human. Fruit's to share with classmate. And you can give a small token thats useful like stationery.

We made a big chart with 5 pics from each year. I used the leftover paper to add the DIY/Art theme to this chart too.

For fruits we shared Bubu's favorite fruit, strawberry's. To make it extra special I also added couple boxes of vegan whipped cream to serve as dipping sauce. The return gift was very special. I requested the class teacher to conduct an art class on Bubu's birthday. We brought wooden cars for the entire class. Bubu hand picked these with me at the store, so it was a mix of all the shapes he thought his classmates will like. Each kid got 1 car and was asked to paint, in whatever way they like. A lot of parents told me later that their child felt the gift was extra fun as it made them feel they got to paint their toy.