My children went to their first non-family member birthday party today. It was a boy from their Tae Kwon Do school, nice kid, hot dad, friendly mama. They didn't know we were vegan--they didn't know anything about us, in fact. Our interactions are: DH chats with the mom when he takes the kids to karate, and I try not to check the dad out when I take them (I can't help it, he looks like Joe Flanigan from Stargate Atlantis, but geekier).
I made them lemon-poppyseed muffins for breakfast, and saved some for them to eat at the party; we also picked up some rice based "ice-cream" from the health food store.
Except it was trickier than that...they were also serving pizza, which my kids were pretty excited about until they saw it was "cow" pizza. When offered a slice, my 8yo said very sweetly, "No thank you, I brought a snack from home to eat." My 4.5yo son just said he wanted to wait for his ice cream. The dad asked if we didn't "do" dairy, I told him we didn't do animal products at all. He was all, "ahhh," and then tried to make awkward small talk about shopping for our kind of food. I'm usually better in situations like this, but the dad is just so attractive.
Other than that, it was a non-issue. One of the other moms gave my oldest son some punch of some sort...when I saw him with it, I whispered (or thought I was whispering) "Are you *drinking* that??" and I might have sounded a little horrified. He usually won't drink anything but water or smoothies. The mom that gave it to him was worried that maybe it had animal products in it, and that's why I was concerned (my husband says I'm a very loud whisperer). I played it off like I was afraid he had taken somebody else's punch, which was very fitting.
The kids played bingo with chocolate kisses, but left them on the table after the game instead of gobbling them up. They had a pinata with prizes and suckers inside. My kids just picked up things like pencil sharpeners and mini kaleidoscopes. I think they had fun, and as is the nature of children, didn't care anything about all the social whatevers.
What I want to know is, what could I have done differently? Should I have let them know beforehand that we are vegan and we'd be bringing our snacks? That way they have the opportunity to ask if we can eat such-and-such? I don't like putting anybody through extra trouble so I just bring stuff wherever we go. But, I also think that some people might find this rude, as it's taking away their opportunity to be a "good host." And maybe they think we're implying something about our food (especially in this situation where they didn't know about our diet).
Thank goodness we homeschool, so all of our functions are with parents I'm friends with through our organization. We know each other well, including all of our little dietary quirks.
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2 comments:
This post reminds me of the Berenstein Bears story "Papa's Pizza" where Brother and Sister learn that it's great that everyone likes and dislikes different things. It might have been helpful for you to warn the child's parents ahead of time, but it seemed to work out just fine regardless. I personally would have liked to know, but I'm the sort of person who, given the choice, would have gone out of her way to accommodate everybody. For me it’s the challenge of trying something new, and the pleasure at being able to please others and make them feel welcome. I imagine that another person might consider it rude or picky, so to each her own. Well done on giving your children such a healthy diet. I could never go vegan, though, because I’d rather die than give up cheese :).
Best,
Mel (DS mama and fellow Stargate fan)
Ah socializing can be awkward. Yeah I have found it best just to talk over expectations before-hand, even a simple "We're pretty picky eaters, we'll just bring our own food."
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