plus one

My birthday was yesterday and in accordance to the generous sentiments in the card from CD ("Birthdays are mandatory... but growing up is optional") I have added a year only to my chronological age. Still, it's better than the time in my twenties when I accidentally added two years and didn't realize it for months. I tend to equate my birthday with The Holiday Season, so Halloween gets the ball rolling and I add another year to SisterMD's age and to my own. Only that year I added it again in January. Now I have no need to know my age. I have Pook and he'll dutifully remind me if I lose track. He's obsessing on the fact that everyone in the family is an even year old right now- except him. I guess we slighted him somehow when we made the plans to do this. Luckily for him, Bug's birthday comes in about three weeks and will change the math.

I had a very low key birthday, but I wouldn't have changed it really. Well, I did regret asking the kids for an argument-free day because I should have known that was too much to ask. I met a friend for coffee and a scone and we caught up for almost two hours. At home, I got Pook's cooperation to bake my cake- grandma's gingerbread cake. He's doing well with recipes. As long as he keeps the teaspoon and tablespoon clear and can read my writing all he needs is help reaching the high cupboards. We'll keep working on the teaspoon issue; it became a barely-rescued problem when he tried to use the long lost bread machine on Sunday. But all turned out great and were inspiration to him to keep at it.

I could have chosen to eat out, but on a weekday that just becomes a tired kid issue, so I chose my favorite simple menu instead. I bought a lovely t-bone and we had baked potatoes and corn-on-the-cob (that we'd frozen over the summer). A glass of Beaujolais Nouveau and it was all pretty great. Bug even asked for extra meat (he's refused most meat recently).

I didn't get the rain barrel I'd asked for, but I might go get it myself. The kids gave me a deluxe pepper grinder and CD gave me a stack of books. I got lots of books at Christmas, so I'm going to need to hunker down. Not torture in this weather! My mom sends me three months of flower bulbs for the house (we'll have buds on #2 anytime now) and also included a pair of earrings. My MIL gave me a fancy salad spinner. I think the coolest is from SisterMD who has agreed to knit me a sweater of my choosing. I'm unsure which of the patterns to choose still, but I'm leaning toward this or this in some combination of bright pink, white, navy and green. Too preppy? I'm hoping for a candy stripe feel. All depends on what yarn she can locate I suppose.

All in all, a reasonable birthday for one of those unexciting birthday years. Time to start planning Bug's 5th. He wants to take some friends to a movie. We'll see what's available and work from there.