The Half Birthday That Never Was

 My third graders threw me a "surprise" "half-birthday" "party".  That's right. Each word deserves its own set of quotation marks because the whole thing was equal parts lovely and equal parts strange. I just couldn't figure it out at first.

 

The surprise part was that the kinder teacher along with a parent from my class showed up at my door one afternoon in March and asked me I had a half birthday to celebrate. That alone threw me because I have an October birthday, so technically, April is my half-birthday month. (And I couldn't figure out why the kinder teacher had anything to do with it.) Then I was presented with a homemade mocha ice cream cake, beautiful flowers, and and a card signed by my whole class. As for the party part, well, when you give 27 third graders cake at 2:15 on a Friday afternoon, you automatically have a party on your hands. 

I was a bit bewildered, never having had a March Half Birthday Surprise Party before, but I guess there is a first time for everything, and look, if someone is nice enough to throw you a random party with a cake, flowers, and a card, then you might as well enjoy it.