Birthday Eve / Tag vor dem Geburtstag

We are in full birthday swing, Nikolas excited as can be and still adding things, like a pogo stick, to his unofficial birthday list. Today's big task was getting ready for school tomorrow. It is the tradition at Nikolas' kindergarten for the birthday child to bring in a Jause (snack) for the entire class. On a normal day, each child brings his or her own Jause and eats it whenever they feel like, as long as it's before 10:00am. There's a Jause table with six chairs, and usually a group of kids will head towards the Jause table together. On a birthday day, the whole class eats as a group and sings to the birthday child and goes through a number of other rituals that Nikolas is excited about but hasn't clearly explained to us.

We asked one of Nikolas' teachers what people bring for a birthday Jause early in the school year on a day when a girl brought in what looked like little muffins for her birthday. We were told that children bring in all sorts of things: little cakes, bread with cheese or meat spread on them, vegetables, fruits. We decided that we'd go American and provide cupcakes made from American cake mix and frosting (courtesy of Grandma and Grandpa who saved room in their luggage to bring them over).

When there are twenty-five kids in a class and you live in an apartment with only one cupcake/muffin pan and have an oven with only one rack in it, it turns making cupcakes-from-a-box into quite a production. Nikolas helped make the batter (doing a much better job with the mixer this time compared to last week when we made cake and he ended up mixing the kitchen rug (?!) into an incredible knot) and later, after everything was baked, he helped with the decorations. It should be a super party at school tomorrow!