Birthdays, Cakes and Milestones

A few days ago, it was my birthday. Having gone ‘over the hill’ and sliding down the other side some already, this year was no big deal. I was quite happy to have it go unnoticed, since Hubby and the 2 older kids were not home anyway. Yet, still I felt as if it were a significant one, until my mother stated that the ‘milestone’ birthday was NEXT year.

I have discovered through the numerous birthdays I have already experienced, our tastes in celebrations grow, or more accurately, mature with each milestone in our life. With each and every milestone we pass, the stone gets a little more worn at the edges.

Our 3 year old son, greeted me that special morning with singing “Happy Birthday, Mum”, and “Are we going to Carrefour “? (his favourite shopping mall that sports a Children’s Play area, complete with coin rides, playland, mini car race, educational computer games, video games etc….a place that drives you insane with monotonous tunes especially designed to lure children playing all at the same time and just plain NOISE!!) His face lit up at the chocolate brownie cake, my 16 year old daughter had made, despite the lack of candles. (We had decided not to put any candles as the amount of candles needed would not fit onto the topside of the cake.) With eyes sparkling with great expectation, he insisted he was not going to miss out on anything and made sure I knew I had to share it all with him, all the while being told his birthday was coming very soon. How is it, that although a birthday celebration is about having a special day for the person whose birthday it is, the conversation is mainly about everyone else’s birthday? Anyway, that’s how it is in our household. Is it like that in yours?

It is interesting what gifts are given too, this birthday, I received a card saying, ‘Although you may have a few gray hairs coming on, you are still young at heart’….that’s not all…..all the gifts were as if there was some conspiracy to ‘doll’ me up. :-) Let the gifts speak for themselves: A beautiful Thai silk jacket from my Mum and Dad; a bath towel skirt, lipstick, lip-liner and a beautiful choker necklace from the kids. I tried on the lipstick and Master 3 exclaimed, “Look at Mummy….Ha Ha Ha”. (Now it’s hard to explain my little son’s laugh in words, it is not a giggle, nor even a snigger, it literally is Ha Ha Ha”). Really, had I let myself go that much?

Despite the many choices I had of the type of celebration I wanted, and it was my choice, I opted for a nice DVD to watch at home with the family topped with Mr Donut’s donuts and last but not least, Starbucks coffee. Nice and quiet. No balloons, no clowns, no party food, no candles to blow out, no loud fanfare noises of playland. We will have that in 10 days time!

With all the birthdays and anniversaries in our immediate family and beyond to grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles, and sister-in-law – we fill every month of the year.

That said, next month is THE celebration month in our family….we have our youngest son’s birthday, our 21st wedding anniversary, 2 of our daughters’ birthdays a week apart and a cousin/niece’s birthday in- between. Doing my math here, that would be 5 celebrations in 17 days. Believe me, when it comes to birthdays, I have tried to combine them (especially the 3 girls’) but have since been told that it was not deemed fair as someone always missed out having a celebration on their actual birthday. That was quickly brought to a halt. So yes, we have 5 celebrations in a month.

If we include friends of the family as well, not to mention Christmas with one daughter’s birthday 3 days before, we may as well celebrate all year long. To say it all, we celebrate LIFE, every minute of every day, of every week, every month, 365 days a year, with a few balloons, cakes, presents, tinsel and lights thrown in here and there. Not bad eh! Not bad at all. LET’S CELEBRATE!!!

Copyright 2007. Rebecca Laklem.