My Birthday

Tomorrow is my birthday. The first day of spring. The first day of the first sign of the zodiac. How I love my birthday.

I will be 29 years old tomorrow. I remember when my mom was 29 years old. At least she said she was 29 years old. My mom's not one to lie about her age, but sometimes she gets a little mixed-up with arithmetic. I think that's the youngest age I remember my mom. How old would that have made me? I don't know. I'm not good at arithmetic either. Four maybe.

I think almost all of the traditions in my family were associated with birthdays. We had a birthday about once a month, excluding the months of July, October, November, and December. (Did my parents wisely try to keep birthdays separate from major holidays? I think they were just lucky. Planning like that requires, you know, arithmetic). We got to choose our meals. I vaguely remember one year that I got to eat my favorite foods for every meal (waffles, egg salad sandwiches, fried chicken) and my brothers and sisters had to eat some of my least favorite foods (oatmeal, peanut butter sandwiches, macaroni and cheese). This wasn't part of the tradition--probably just my mom being weird that year. Anyway, we also got to make the entire family guess our favorite things, and I can't overemphasize the importance of this tradition in a large family. There was one year when my mom thought it would be fun for everyone to guess the birthday person's least favorite things. Again, weird.

Now the only tradition I have for my birthday is that I am happy from sun up to sun down.

My favorite birthday may well have been last year's (but that may be because I remember it the best). I lived in New York City. Three siblings came to visit. The weather was sunny. We went to Brooklyn for dinner (fried chicken). I wore a beautiful scarf and a purple shirt. I ate chocolate cake from The Little Pie Company.

Tomorrow I won't have family in town, the weather (sigh) will not be nice, and there's no way I'll be able to wear that purple shirt, but I'll still be happy. Husband will take care of me, as always, and Baby will chatter about rockets. I'll curl up on my red couch in soft stretchy pants, and I'll watch the snow curl across Lake Michigan while I direct love to my embryonic twins. I'll eat strawberries.