>Birthdays

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In honor of MommyBrain‘s birthday (yay!), this week’s All About Meme prompt from her and Supah is about a most memorable birthday.  Now I LOVE birthdays.  I am all about them.  Mine is toward the end of October, and I begin counting down to it the second I flip over my calendar to my birth month.

So you can imagine how shocked I was to discover that I couldn’t think of a single one that really stood out.  It wasn’t that I couldn’t remember anything from any of them – the funny and sweet surprise party my college friends threw for me sophomore year, my husband and sister coordinating so we could all have a birthday dinner together halfway between our homes (2 hours and a border crossing apart), or the countless cards and gifts my lovely students have given me.  Those all floated back to me, but somehow no one year really jumped out at me as the Best Birthday Ever.

But as I thought about birthdays even longer ago, I realized that the reason I love birthdays isn’t because I’ve had one or even several stand-out years.  It’s that my mom has this amazing gift for making every special occasion important and meaningful.  The kind of day for which I waited, counted down, and laid awake  wondering what excitement would come.

Every year on my birthday, my mom would decorate my chair so that it was my special place the moment I came down to breakfast that morning.  Usually there’d be some small present waiting for me, too.  She would let me take a day off from school and we’d spend the day together, just the two of us.  Though there were only three kids in my family and my mom spent a lot of time with us, it was always a special treat to get her all to myself.  We’d usually go shopping, pick out a gift and have a birthday lunch at a restaurant.  At some point just before or after the actual day, we’d have a family party, usually tied to going apple-picking together, so my birthday is also inextricably linked to lots of laughter, crisp apples, fresh doughnuts, and hot cider.  Mmm…

This may all sound to you like par for the course or even like not so much when I think of the outrageous birthday parties some of my students have.  But being made to feel like I was the most important person in her world for the day, and being part of that family tradition were the greatest gifts my mom could have given me.

Tough standard for my poor husband to live up to, isn’t it?  Oh well, Freud was right in this one case – it’s my mom’s fault. 

In any event, now that I am a mom, and this summer will bring the first birthday that my son will really understand, I am going to remember the lesson.  Someone once asked me when I was pregnant if I was going to continue the tradition of letting my child take the day off of school to spend together.  Having taken a while to get pregnant and being due in JULY, I was unimpressed with her question.  But I am still going to make sure that Sebastian and I get some quality time together and that he looks forward to his birthday every year of his life.  I hope he will be reminded that he is VIP that day and that I love him beyond words (and yes, beyond the cake and ice cream and presents I’ll be sure he has because it’s not JUST about the love, right?). 

So happy birthday, MommyBrain!  I know it’s memorable if for no other reason than that you are spending it with your TWO girls for the first time.

Speaking of which, this year should bring me two more special birthdays.  A brand-new one in July… which will mean that in October, for my next birthday, I’ll be snuggling another little one as well.  🙂