On birthdays...

Tomorrow is my birthday, and I'm feeling a bit Eeyore-ish about it. (It's also our tenth "birthiversary," but that's another matter.) Tomorrow I will be thirty-two years old, and my mom will call and sing the happy birthday song to me at some point in the day, just as she's done thirty-one times before (I assume). There was one year when she didn't call until late at night, and I had gotten old enough to think I didn't care and thought it was kind of ridiculous anyway, but I found myself a little disappointed when I thought she wasn't going to call and sing Happy Birthday that year. She did call, and after that I stopped thinking it was so ridiculous.

Little traditions are nice. And having your birthday be a little different than every other run-of-the-mill day is especially nice. I'm not sure if that is a practical expectation anymore, though. It seems like once you reach a certain age or post in life, your birthday becomes just another day in your life of routines and adult responsibilities. That's a little sad to me. I already have to share it with my wedding anniversary for the rest of my life (and only a week or two after Mother's Day every year to boot), but for it to be just another day...well that's just a little depressing.

So I sat here for the better part of an hour tonight (during the time when I am routinely doing my evening chores of dishes and laundry and picking up a day's worth of crap off the floor) searching for a bakery in the area that would sell me a birthday cake tomorrow without having ordered ahead. And then I realized that I can't get an Italian cream cake because Miriam can't eat pecans. So then on to finding specialty cupcakes. But then it just seems kind of anti-climactic to me to go buy myself an assortment of cupcakes to share with my family after another bland-o dinner at home (that I had to cook and clean up after). So I thought about calling a friend to meet up for cupcakes, but then I realize just how few people I even know here, let alone call a friend. It makes me want to send a birthday cupcake to everyone I know on their birthday, just in case nothing else out-of-the-ordinary happens on their day. But the fact of the matter is I probably won't even get around to sending them a card or calling them because life is just like that when you get older and weighed down with responsibilities that are time- and energy-consuming. And that's why everyone else isn't making big hooeys for each other's birthdays anymore. We make big hooeys for our kids' birthdays now. Not each others'.

So what do I expect for my birthday? A 4am awakening that keeps me up and down for up to two hours in the night. Groggily rolling out of bed when absolutely required to make breakfast happen. Lamenting that once again I didn't get up before Miriam and take my shower and get ready for the day so that we could make use of that tiny gap of time between breakfast and morning nap time (or rather nap attempt). Showering and getting ready while Miriam is having nap attempt. Lamenting after Miriam doesn't take her nap that now it's too late in the morning to go anywhere now that I'm ready because Miriam will need a nap in an hour now that she didn't take a nap in the morning. So we just settle for eating early lunch and putting the girls down for rest time, resulting in Miriam's nap. And the the rest of the boring blah-blah-blah that always happens.

That is, unless I make a hooey about my own birthday. Walk the girls to the donut shop that's practically in our backyard for kolaches in the morning! Find some time in the day to buy cupcakes! Hang up the birthday banner! Order pizza for dinner, even if we do have to eat it at 5:00 to get Miriam to bed before her sleepy slump! Put a candle on my cupcake! Heck, I might even rent myself a chick flick if Britt has to work from home!

Maybe I'll fall asleep dreaming up something fun to do with the girls tomorrow instead of dreading the mountain of dishes I neglected tonight so that I could shop for birthday cupcakes and read blogs that I haven't visited in ages. And now I'm an hour past bedtime so they are just gonna have to sit there and wait until tomorrow. The birthiversary.

Now I'm curious to see what the day will bring.