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Recently I was reading something a birthmother wrote about her daughter’s first birthday party. At the party the adoptive mother asked her to light the candle on her daughter’s birthday cake. To some, this may seem like a small thing but to her it meant so much.
Reading her words got me to thinking about a birthday tradition in my open adoption involving birthday candles.
In my family, we’ve always just used basic, generic stick birthday candles and we put the appropriate number on the cake but Charlie’s family uses the candles that are an actual number on their birthday cakes.
At Charlie’s first birthday party, A. had a number one candle on his birthday cake. After the party was over, A. had the candle in her hands and came over to me. She explained that each year she saved Charlie’s sister’s candle and now she would be doing the same for Charlie. Charlie had two birthday parties that year and she had already saved the number one candle from the first party so she was offering me the candle from that party. Of course, I said yes and thought what a great idea it was to save the candles each year.
The next year, the same thing happened. She gave me the number two candle. Then on Charlie’s fourth birthday we decided to change up our tradition and have Charlie and family come to my house for his birthday which meant I would be making the cake so of course, when I went to buy candles for his birthday cake, I didn’t think twice about buying the number four candle.
It’s been a neat tradition each year and it’s nice to know that both A. and I have a candle for each year. It seems like such a small little thing but it means so much.
That’s a great idea! I’ve given our birth mom a few of our son’s baby teeth as they have fallen out. I thought there are so many, why not share some with her. she has given us the greatest gift ever!