selfish acts- my bday present to myself

i realized, at some point in my life, that i am happiest when working with children. whether or not this is a failure at some point in my childhood which leads me to try to please others (but i don't think so) or just nature- i believe st. augustine argues is not a virtue because i am therefore only helping others to help myself, which is then a selfish act. but, economic theory of comparative advantage and ayn rand would argue we should do what we're good at and enjoy, and it all gets fuzzy from there.

philosophy of selfishness of good deeds aside, i decided last year that for my birthday i would make a cake with one of my frog bloggers since he and i share the same birthday (frog blog = an experiment last year that failed, but left me with frog that is still alive and kicking much to mr. lipstick's chagrin). this year i no longer see my birthday day-mate except for occasionally in the hallways where, if he is in a good mood, he'll give me a half hearted smile and then shuffle away, and if he's in a bad mood he'll drape his hoodie over his head and refuse to talk to me at all. so it's not like we have continued a close relationship this year. but, i figure he should still know that teachers at this school care about him even if he thinks he is too cool for us.

regardless, we share a birthday, and since i am doubtful anyone at home does much to celebrate his birthday, i decided last year that he and i would celebrate our bdays together as long as we were in the same school. so this year i contacted his teacher who nicely let me invade her classroom (and her student teacher's first full day of independent teaching) in the afternoon to celebrate my frog blogger's bday even though it is a school policy not to do such things anymore. (shhhh! but i did run it by the parent of the student with peanut allergies...)

who doesn't want to ice cupcakes in school for their bday? it made my day, even if my frog blogger looked at me like i was nuts when i told him he could lick the icing off the spatula since it was his bday. and he looked at me like i should be dead when he found out i was 20 years older than him. (ok, no lie, that hurt a bit. i mean, i'm not that old!)

there is a twinge of guilt that for my own birthday enjoyment i invaded a 2nd grade classroom. does it make it ok that it meant my frog blogger got to celebrate his birthday by sharing cupcakes with his friends?
then again, if i wasn't the kind of person who was excited to spend my bday icing cupcakes with a second grader i probably wouldn't be a teacher.

so, whether or not i'm selfish or caring, i enjoyed my birthday cupcakes and i hope my frog-blogger did too.