#MondayMusings

       A little late in the day, but not too late for a little musing this Monday.  15 years ago today I was eagerly anticipating my cesarean section scheduled for the next morning with a twinge of fear and a whole lot of excitement.  I had never had a baby before and even though I had taken the childbirth classes at the hospital, I still felt ill equipped for what was to come.  Besides, I spent 99.9% of the movie shown the expectant parents about childbirth and cesareans cringing horrified behind my pillow.

        I endured a tough pregnancy with my first 
born.  Let’s just say, I don’t do pregnancy well.  I was not one of those fabled expectant mothers who simply glowed.  Tinged a sickly, pasty, green,   I struggled through every minute of my pregnancy plagued with nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea, riding on the hellacious roller coaster ride of hormones, high blood pressure, and gestational diabetes.  To be honest, by the time it was time to go under the knife I simply wanted the pregnancy to be over.  I simply could not imagine the reality of the baby, I would soon have.   I had no idea whether the baby would be a boy or a girl.

        Fast forward 15 years and here I am preparing to celebrate the beautiful and smart girl I was blessed with by blowing up bunches of balloons, suspending them from the ceiling, and stringing a “Happy Birthday” banner in their midst.  The real celebration won’t commence until this weekend when my husband comes home.  Still, I couldn’t let my little girl’s day pass unnoticed.  Tomorrow I will bake cupcakes, a simple precursor to the birthday cake she will have this weekend.  She will get to blow candles out on both occasions, because really a person cannot have too many wishes!   Then, once both kids are home from school, away we will go to the local pizza place to inhale as much pizza, pasta, salad, and bread sticks that are earthly possible to inhale without exploding.

     Only a handful of hours to go until her fourteenth year will be gone and her fifteenth year will dawn.  No matter how old either of us get, she will always be my sweet baby girl and I will always be her mommy and for that I will always be eternally grateful. 

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Parade of Chocolate Cakes

Photo courtesy of  https://shailajav.wordpress.com

     Another joyful birthday celebration. To celebrate what exactly?

 Me? 

Another year lived?

      Minutes to hours, days to years, time eternal, the circle of life continues.  One life ends, another begins.  Evolving, always carrying every hope and dream from one generation to the next with a continuous parade of chocolate cakes.

Linking up with the fiction challenge 'From 15 to 50'

Word prompt: eternal

Phrase prompt: circle of life

Photo prompt: shown above

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Birthdays

       It has been a full week since we had the big weekend of birthday celebrations at my house.  The month of birthdays for 2013 is behind us, the cakes a mere memory, and the balloons taken down and effectively popped by my overzealous Boston terrier Jolly.  In years past birthday decorations went up shortly before my son’s birthday on August 31 and finally were removed after my daughter’s birthday on September 29.  This year the time in between birthdays was relatively balloon and banner free.  Maybe it is because I am older and really couldn’t stomach looking at a month long ongoing birthday party.  For whatever reason, I took the decorations down and put up fresh the weekend of my daughter’s 13^th birthday when my husband finally rolled back into town.  While he had been gone, his birthday and our wedding anniversary had come and gone.

         Because my husband wasn’t in town for his own birthday, last weekend became a double celebration.  While the fighting Irish of Notre Dame were getting their butts beat in the nearby stadium we descended on the Golden Corral for a feast in celebration of both birthdays and our anniversary.  The next day my daughter’s birthday was off to a slow start.   In the last several years I have personally baked the family birthday cakes.  My daughter wanted a tie dye cake and my husband requested his favorite of angel food.  Both turned out really well, decoration and all.  We grilled steaks and mashed potato casserole with seasoned green beans completed the menu.  Decorations went back up, and for the first time ever we hung up a make shift piñata filled with candy outside for the kids to knock the shit out of with plastic baseball bats.  It was a hilarious spectacle to watch and in the end the candy was divided by all.

       We took a celebratory cruise of the neighborhood on the golf cart then returned to the house so the birthday boy and girl could open presents.   Dinner was eaten, wishes were formulated, and the candles were blown out in one large breath to the rousing musical strains of the birthday song. 

         My son’s birthday celebrated a month earlier transpired in much the same way with one big exception.  For the first time in history we didn’t wait for my husband to come home to open presents or blow the candles out on the cake.  While we had celebrated my daughter’s day without my husband by giving her gifts before Daddy could arrive in the past, we always saved the cake for when he could be here.  I hated to not have something for my son on his special day.   While it all turned out well, it simply was not the same without my husband there.  The experiment didn’t sit well with me and I am sure in future, we will revert back to planning everything for when my husband is here even if the birthday celebration is drawn out over several weeks.  Another year of birthdays have come and gone with many memories made and stored away to be savored for years to come.

From 7 to 8

I am taking part in “The Write Tribe Festival of Words 1st to 7th September 2013".

       A minute before midnight and then a minute after, as the clock ticked away one minute my son was 7 and the next 8 years old.  Yet he didn’t look different.  He is still my precious little boy full of piss and vinegar and topped with sweetness.   Where has the time gone?  Only yesterday it seems that my precious son was born at 8:31 am in the eighth month and on the thirty first day.  8:31 on 8/31 seems like quite the phenomenon to mark the birth of my only son.

       I watched as he transformed from a baby to a big boy growing taller each day.  I watched him stumble, fall, climb straight up, dive onto his head, and finally learn to walk and run.  I have prayed as he recovered from concussions caused by his over exuberance and tendency to act the dare devil andcried with him when he got stitches.   
His 7th year was full of milestones.  He completed 1st grade, read oodles of books, mastered math facts, and conquered lots of video games.  He even won first place at his school’s science fair and won the right to show his project at next level.  He completed his first year of 4H and brought home a blue ribbon.  Often I look into those big baby blue eyes that sparkle with happiness and mischief, see that big smile, and fall in love with him all over again just as I did the moment I first laid eyes on him.  I have endured his phases of everything Batman to his current fascination with Spiderman, and during it all worried that he didn’t eat enough and that he would waste away.  I still haven’t figured out how he could love vegetables when he was a baby and avoid them like the plague now.

  

       I was determined that I would not have another baby in September.  In our little family September is filled with events: our wedding anniversary, and my daughter’s and husband’s birthdays.  Even though my due date was in September, my son obviously agreed and made his big debut on the last day of August.  As if by magic he went from 7 to 8 in the blink of an eye.  One minute he was a precious little baby fresh home from the hospital wearing a preemie outfit and the next a little boy who will never be 7 again, but no matter how big he grows or where in the world he ends up, he will always be my baby, my little man, and my precious little miracle.

The Little Things

This post was written for the Write Tribe writing prompt using the following quote from Winnie the Pooh.

“Sometimes the smallest things take up the most room in your heart!”

      When I think back over the things that meant the most to me and filled my heart to the brim, I realize that it was the littlest things that I cherished the most and had the biggest impact.

      This last May was one of the roughest for us financially in recent history.  May is always hard, but this one seemed especially so.  We had one week with no pay at all, which happened to fall the week of my birthday, one week with very little, one week that was Okay, and one big week.  I am proud to say we survived and have been playing catch up ever since.

      What that meant for me was that there were no presents or cake for my day.  My husband was on the road and it was just me and the kids.  It could have been the worse birthday ever.  I turned 45, and for all intents and purposes I had every reason to be downhearted and depressed.  But then the day dawned.  I woke to discover a text message from my husband wishing me a happy birthday and telling me how much he loved me.  He called me throughout the day.  I know he felt bad that presents and the celebration would have to wait.

       My kids showered me with hugs and kisses.  We went for a walk and along the way they gathered wish flowers and presented me with a huge bouquet which I took great delight in blowing and making wishes as we walked.  They drew me pictures and made me birthday cards.  That night I was amazed how many people on Face Book wished me Happy Birthday.  It touched my heart.  Does it take so much to smile at a stranger or offer a kind word?  Not really, and those little things can make all the difference in the world.

Birthdays

Thank you to Bhavya Nk at ishithaa.com  for this Writer's Post Challenge!

     Have you ever noticed that birthdays seem to lose their luster as you age? When I was a kid I used to count the days until my birthday. I looked forward to the cake, the balloons, and the presents!! Let’s face it, when you are a baby or even a small child everyone wants to celebrate your birthday with you. Everyone you know wants to see you shove that first birthday cake in your mouth and make a mess out of yourself. Everyone wants to see you open your presents.  When you are a kid your birthday is right up there with Christmas in the holiday pecking order.

       Over the years something happens. The amount of people who gather to see you blow out those momentous candles fizzles down to your immediate family, if that. For a long time I expected the birthdays of my youth where my mom decorated the whole house, showered me with mountains of presents, produced my favorite things to eat, and sang happy birthday as I blew out my candles. Time passed and things changed.   My mom died, and then my dad and then all of a sudden whether a birthday party happened became solely my responsibility. If I wanted decorations, I had to put them up. If I wanted presents, I had to go pick them out and wrap them. If I wanted a special meal, I had to cook it. If I was lucky, I would go out to eat. All of a sudden I joined my husband in a make it happen duo. The surprise went out of birthdays and it was a big slap in the face.  

      As the years go by, the expectations bar falls from expecting the whole she-bang to being delighted that so many people wished you Happy Birthday on Face Book, your kids drew you special birthday pictures, and when your husband finally came home you got to go shopping for something you had been needing or hoping for as a special birthday present. You settle for blowing the seeds from dandelions for your birthday wishes and bypass the birthday cake, because let’s face it your ass is big enough. People just don’t expect to make a big deal out of an adult’s birthday. It makes me wonder why a toddler’s birthday is more worth celebrating than someone that has reached the ripe old age of 45 or 50. Do we lose our worth or need to be celebrated as we age?         

      There have been a lot of lessons to learn as far as birthdays are concerned. Bottom line, they are for celebrating that wonderful person and the life they live and getting a year older. As longer as nothing terrible happens, it is always a happy birthday. It is another day you woke up, breathed in air, and appreciated that you were alive another day to enjoy life.