Making Memories Monday: Triggering Memories… With Olives!

This afternoon, between a morning at the pool and a promised evening family video time, the boys and I dashed off to our neighborhood grocery store to pick up a few staples for the week and some treats to pack for an all-day adventure tomorrow.  Inside the store, where every other child, including Connor, was clamoring to head toward the bulk-candy aisle for a sample of their favorite sugary treat, Ryan was hoping to meander past the olive bar.  Yes, the olive bar.

Photo credit:  Bruce Gilchrist

As Ryan spooned his olives of choice (large green ones stuffed with red peppers) into the take home container, he grinned widely, his eyes sparkling.  Showing me how many of the enormous green olives were in his container, he asked hopefully if he could add just a few more.

Seeing Ryan so excited over the opportunity to take home an olive bar snack brought to mind a time over eight year ago:  Ryan’s first birthday party.

Birthday parties are a big deal for the children in our family.   My Mom hosted some wonderful birthday parties for me and my brother, and I was determined to do the same for my son beginning with his very first birthday.  I planned a small party for just a few close family friends.  I  hand-made the invitations,

 
 baked and decorated my family’s traditional first birthday cake:  a carousel cake,

and like every parent of a one-year-old, I counted on taking a host of photos of my little guy  opening his gifts and digging into his cake.

But… my little guy wanted nothing to do with his cake, nothing at all.

We coaxed and cajoled, but Ryan held firm:  no cake!  Until, Patrick had the brilliant, but somewhat unusual, idea of topping Ryan’s slice of cake with black olives!  Yes, even at that young age, Ryan LOVED olives:  green olives, black olives, he didn’t discriminate – and he still doesn’t!  Once the cake was dotted with black olives, the excited guests, myself included, were able to snap a few precious photos of our favorite one-year-old eating his cake, or at least the black olives off the top of his cake, he still had no interest in the cake itself!

Today, as I smiled to myself at this memory, I was struck once again by how it is the little things that we sometimes end up remembering best.  I worked hours on those first birthday invitations.  Patrick drove all over town looking for penny candy sticks to hold up the carousel top.  The guests came great distances to share the day with us.  And while all of those memories are wonderful, it is the olives on the cake – an entirely unplanned and improvised moment – that we recall most often, that we are still smiling over eight years later, and that now even Ryan himself will repeat with a proud smile whenever someone comments on the nine-year-old boy finishing off the bowl of olives on his own!

Do you have a memory that was unplanned but has stuck with you longer than most well-planned, well-intended moments?  A time when it was the little thing that made the biggest impression?  Link up and share this or one of your other special memories for Making Memories Monday this week.

There has been some confusion as to what sort of posts should be linked up.  Posts do not have to relate to the topic of my post.  Making Memories Monday posts can be a memory of the past, a story from your present, or an idea you have for creating a memory for the future.  It’s your choice.  But…

1. Please leave a link back to Adventures in McQuill-land on your Making Memories Monday post!
2. Add your name to the MckLinky at Adventures in McQuill-land and enter a 2-3 word subject to give blog hoppers an idea of what we’ll find at your post.  Like this:  Jennifer @ McQuill-land (playing dress-up).
3. AND… Please be sure to link to your individual Making Memories Monday post, not your home page.  This makes it easier for blog hoppers to find your shared memory.