Happy Birthday to Me

This week I turned thirty-something.  When I woke up on my birthday - no actually, when I remembered it was my birthday while kissing Brandon goodbye for work - I pondered the difference between thirty something one year less than the thirty something I am now and came to the conclusion that after you hit thirty there's only a noticeable change every five years.  So instead of being 3-, I'm in the 30-35 age bracket.

Unfortunately for birthday celebrations, the week between pack-out and leaving isn't a very good one for making a big fuss about mom's birthday.  At lunch the children realized that not only was it my birthday, but we had no cake!  I gently asked them how they were planning on making a cake with the no mixer and no cake pan that were included in our horribly lacking welcome kit (I've realized these things are so terribly scanty because whoever is buying them isn't the one who is staying home all day trying to run a household with them).  That gave them pause.  Then Kathleen brightened, "we could use Craisins!"

So my day was mostly normal, as most birthdays in the 30-35 bracket, or for that case most birthdays when you're an adult, are.  We had the warehouse supervisor come with his beep-gun to check our furniture and make sure that we haven't been selling it off during our tour.  When I had to show him another chair that had been broken (he had already seen the two that Edwin had murdered with a pair of very sharp scissors), he shook his head so sorrowfully that I felt sorry for him.

In the afternoon I had an OB appointment, another lovely birthday activity, that was at least on my own and without my four-person fan club.  Then I got to cook dinner for my family.

But I didn't eat the dinner I cooked because I was going out for delicious Georgian food.  One of the advantages of age is the ability to see that most often it's better to do things yourself than wait for someone else to maybe do them for you.  So instead of waiting for nobody to throw a birthday dinner for me and then feeling sorry for myself, I invited my friends out for a birthday and farewell dinner.  It's much more fun to go out with good friends for delicious khachapuri than it is to sit at home and wallow in self-pity.

We had a great time and ate lots of tasty food and probably talked much too loudly for everyone else in the restaurant.  The evening was finished off with delicious chocolate cake brought in by one of the ladies.  She had sent it back to the kitchen with the server and so we got treated to dimmed lights, a hokey rendering of "Happy Birthday" (I don't think they paid the royalties on that one), and flaming firework candles.  Who could ask for anything better than a kind group of friends who would come out on a cold January night just because I asked them?

And my birthday isn't over yet.  Brandon and I are ditching the children with my in-laws for a few days and making a trip up to glamorous Kansas City for some much-anticipated time alone where Brandon will have his opportunity to treat me for my birthday.

So I can't complain.  Another year of happiness filled with wonderful friends, healthy and happy children, and a husband who loves me more than anything.  Yes, definitely can't complain.