I am not easy to surprise

But . . .

My mother, sister, brother, sister-in-law and especially Kent did just that Friday night. Kent and I had plans for a quiet date night at a new to us restaurant (Affäre), or so I thought.

But when we got to the restaurant, the woman who greeted us was just so warm and kind and almost as though she’d been expecting me.

Narrator: in fact she had been expecting me

You know how when you’ve got reservations, they always double check your name and see where they’re going to seat you? She did none of those things, just said oh yes, you’re sitting back around here and led the way.

I was slightly ahead of Kent and I saw a 6-top table toward the back of the restaurant and immediately saw the back of my brother’s head (I would know his head anywhere), then saw my sister’s face, and my mother’s profile (she was sitting between my brother and sister), and readers, I think I might have staggered a bit. I definitely cried because they were there for an early celebration of my 60th birthday.

Keep in mind, my mother lives right outside Boise, my sister lives in Denver and my brother gets at most one night a week off (he works the overnight shift, he’s a county deputy). Having them all there was the most humbling amazing thing because I know what they each gave up or spent to be there.

That may have been the most amazing dinner of my life. My mom had saved the card I gave her for her 60th birthday; she’d been a little down about that milestone and I thought the card was just perfect for her. Now 22 years later, she gave it to me.

At one point in her life, she collected Swarovski crystal animals, they’re quite lovely. Most of hers are clear, and I’ve always liked them. A couple of years ago, she gave me a tiny little cat which has a place of honor in my display cabinet. This year, she got me the Year of the Rat ornament. Isn’t it cool?

My sister-in-law brought the most gorgeous bouquet of flowers and some yummy chocolates. The flowers have opened up and look so good.

Here are some photos from dinner:

All of us

My sister Amy and me

Amy, Doug and me

Tomorrow is my actual birthday. I haven’t dreaded this milestone in the least—honestly the birthday I had the worst time with was my 25th birthday. The rest have been easy, and this year I have so much to be thankful for. I have the best marriage and a husband who brings so much love and joy into my life, my fourth grandchild/second granddaughter was born just over a week ago (more about that later), and I’ve had no recurrences of melanoma and no evidence of breast cancer right now. I never say cured about any cancer, but no evidence of disease is great. While my healed pelvis always hurts, it’s bearable especially because I know I’m not damaging myself.

Life is good. I think my 60s will be wonderful.

Another birthday

This time, it's my younger son. I don't have a lot of baby pictures of him, partly because he was the second and fell victim of the behavior of most parents with baby number two: far fewer pictures. But I will also say we had an entire roll of pictures from his first week that were completely lost by the photo developing place.

Here are two from the same day shortly before his first birthday.

34 years ago

Oddly 34 years ago, March 4 was also a Wednesday.

Pregnant, didn't know it. I
felt awful.

Anyway, I was pregnant, a week overdue and had a c-section scheduled for Friday, March 6. I'd have a series of very strong, regular contractions and then they'd just stop for a few hours. Being young and even more impatient than I am today, I hated that my body wasn't just getting things done.

Well 34 years ago in a couple of hours (say around 7 PM Central), I started having the same strong, regular contractions 10 minutes apart. And this time, they didn't stop after an hour. So we called the doctor and he said hey let's go ahead and get this party started. Off we went to the hospital.



But of course things take time, there's papers to be filled out, blood to be drawn, IVs to be started and contractions to be monitored. So by the time all Is were dotted and Ts crossed, it was after midnight before the c-section even started. Jordan was born around 2:30 AM (no I don't remember the exact time, sue me, I was having major surgery).

Jordan at five weeks

He clocked in at 8 pounds, six and a half ounces, was just shy of 20 inches and had the longest, darkest eye lashes you've ever seen. He has them still today and generally comments are always made about his amazing eyes.

I'm proud to be his mother. He's grown up to be a thoughtful, creative man and I'm so glad he's my son.

You say it's your birthday

Twelve years ago, the Super Bowl had been moved to February because of 9-11. In fact it had been moved to my birthday. Kent and I had started dating a couple of weeks earlier after my refusal to do so for three years, but he’d made it clear that this wasn’t an exclusive relationship. Fair enough, I had made him wait for a very long time so it wasn’t unreasonable that he was a little gun shy.

We’d been invited to a Super Bowl party and Kent had just picked me up to head over to the party. (We were both still in full courtship behaviors, both going to things maybe we didn’t really like to do or doing all those little things that go along with courtships. That’s why I was going to this party as I find football deadly dull.)

Anyway, we were chit chatting in the car, and he says to me “I need to tell you something really quickly before we get there.” Oh boy, maybe he realized he didn’t want to date me after all . . . No, that wasn’t it at all. In fact, he said, he had made the decision that he would date only me because he realized he wouldn’t find out whether this relationship was what he wanted if he didn’t do that. He made it clear he wasn’t asking or pressuring me to do the same, he just wanted me to know where he stood.

What he didn’t know at the time was that I was already dating only him. Having overcome the initial, crippling fear of starting a relationship with him, I was all in. I couldn’t conceive of dating around while I figured out if this was indeed the one for me. So you better believe I was smiling slightly on the outside and doing fist pumps on the inside. That was the best birthday and Super Bowl ever.

No, I don't know who played, let alone which team won. Who cares? I won!

I found it!

Here's my fantastic 13^th birthday cake. My mother also made the smock dealie I'm wearing and don't laugh, that was all the stylin' rage back in the day. And don't you just love our shaggy haircuts? I guess that was popular too.

Isn't that the coolest cake?

She's five already?

Then:

Now:

Happy birthday, Alison!

Another birthday!

March was a busy month for me. Both of my children were born in March and I always though that was the perfect month for having a baby. It's not winter any more, not really, but it's not so glorious outside that staying inside with a newborn is torture.

Today is Ben's birthday. We don't have a lot of baby pictures for Ben. That's partly due to the second child syndrome but also due to the film developers losing two rolls of film from Ben's first two weeks of life. Remember those days when you had to get your film actually developed?

But I do have this picture. Now I will say that while Ben rapidly turned into a really cute baby, he wasn't all that pleasing to behold at first. He was three to four weeks early and looked a little bit like a deflated Jabba the Hutt (sorry, Ben, it's true). He's about two days old in this picture and the markings you see on his face weren't actually there. This is a photograph of a projected slide and the slide had gotten damaged. Otherwise, yes, this is how he looked then.

And here's what he looks like today:

Happy birthday, Ben!

A birthday

Today is my older son's birthday.

He's five days old in this picture, and we had just been released from the hospital earlier that day.

When Jordan's dad and I looked at all the newborns in the nursery, we commented on how tiny the other babies' eyes were and how they had no eye lashes. Well compared to Jordan, their eyes were tiny and hairless but it didn't take long for us to realize that Jordan was the one who was different.



Here he is today:

Happy birthday, son!

Boothbay Harbor

Kent and I celebrated his birthday this weekend—a couple of months late, yes, but on purpose. I’d gotten a really good deal on a night’s stay at the Spruce Point Inn which is in Boothbay Harbor, Maine. We couldn’t use it until after Memorial weekend and it had to be used by the end of the season in October. Well if you know anything about New England it’s that the weather tends to be chilly in May and June so we chose to have his birthday present experience this weekend.

We chose well because the weather was perfect. In fact, I got a little too much sun yesterday (forgot my SPF 15 sunblock) while we were on a 90 minute sail boat tour of the harbor. But it was lovely and very relaxing and just the right amount of time and distance away from Boston.

An interesting milestone

Today my older son turns 30. I have to say, it's strange to realize I am the mother of a 30 year old. Yeesh. He's been having kittens about getting older which makes me giggle now since if he's 30, what does that make me?

Anyway, here's what he looked like at five days old; his eyes were so big he sort of resembled a tadpole:

Cats are weird

Kent told me that when I left for work yesterday morning, the cats went absolutely nuts. All three raced around the apartment crying and then took turns cycling through his lap for comfort.

I know they hate it when I’m up and he’s still in bed—especially Eddie who will leap back onto the bed and yell at Kent. Really that’s the only way to describe what he does, he yells. Eddie’s got quite a vocabulary. If I placed all three cats on a vocabulary continuum, it would look like this:

Normal meows (Chloe)----------Some “language” (Wally)--------------Full blown “language (Eddie)


They always swarm me when I get home.

It’s Kent’s birthday today. Thankfully the Red Sox don’t have a home game, which screws up my commute and means I stay at work until 6 PM—no point in leaving earlier since instead of taking just over an hour, I’d be sitting in my car for closer to two hours. That means we can have a quiet dinner out at a fairly normal time.

Happy birthday, Mom!

I love this picture of my mother, taken by Kent this summer in Colorado. The colors are so vivid and she looks so relaxed and happy sitting on the hay. So here's hoping today echoes some of that for you, Mom.

Happy birthday, Rayna (oops a day early)

When Rayna was here with her family, I learned how much she likes pink.

We met up with Greg, Amy, Rayna and Shuler after they'd gotten settled in their hotel and were having a snack. I was wearing a lot of pink, and so was Rayna. But as she pointed out, her pink clothes were light pink and mine were dark pink. I whispered to her that I was wearing pink panties too, and she immediately wanted to know if they were light pink or dark pink (she always said both words--light pink and dark pink). As it happened, they were dark pink and so right away she wanted to see them. I told her I'd show her later but later wasn't soon enough. As we walked outside, she kept squatting down to look up my skirt and see for herself!


This is exactly the kind of stories aunts like to have about their nieces--it's funny, cute and in about 10 years it will embarrass her to death. Perfect! In the meantime, though, happy 3rd birthday Rayna, I hope it's filled with pink.

Birthday pictures

Even after getting home at 1 AM Friday, and having Alison get up at her normal time and be (of course) exhausted, Jen still posted birthday pictures from yesterday. She's always so considerate like that.

We got Alison a Like A Bike. I saw a small boy riding one late last summer and was impressed with his coordination and balance, which his mother said was all from the Like A Bike. Jen said Alison fits on the bike perfectly and they are looking forward to taking walks with her on it.

I also made Alison a dress with material Jen and I had picked out when we were there over Easter. This summer in Colorado, Alison was really interested in the hobo bags I'd made for the older girls, so I scaled down a pattern and made her one to go with the dress. Then we found small girly things to put in it--bracelets, Chap Stick, a couple of headbands, things like that.

So that explains these pictures. Enjoy!

Happy birthday, Alison!

Two years ago, we were waiting for the call that our granddaughter was born. Jen had gone into labor a month early and in her case, the labor-stopping drugs worked really well. So well, in fact, that Alison was a bit late and Jen had to be induced.

What with the delays and the hospital bumping Jen back a couple of days because they were full, Kent and I ended up being the first grandparents to see Alison. She was so small and so long, a perfect little peanut of a girl.

I wondered how Kent would respond to a baby, since he has no children of his own and never really had that biological clock ringing in his ear. He totally fell in love with her, and remains firmly wrapped around her little finger.

Actually we both are, but it's really easy to dote on Alison. She's a happy child and hands out hugs and kisses easily. I wish we could be there to give her real kisses today, but alas, virtual ones will have to do.

Happy birthday, Peanut!

Happy birthday, Kent!

Yes, today is Kent's birthday. I love this picture of him because you can really get a sense of his playfulness. He's decked out for a day at the lake and I'm very glad he takes his skin protection seriously. He doesn't tan at all, he only burns so in addition to the clothes he's wearing here, he also slathers on 50 SPF sunblock.








And in the interest of fairness, here's a picture that shows how nicely he cleans up. This was at his brother's wedding a year ago April. RAWR I married a good looking man.

Happy birthday, Jen!

It's kind of weird to realize I've known Jen for almost 10 years. I first met my future daughter-in-law when she and some of Ben's other friends came over to watch movies. Another girl was there also and had the most annoying laugh. I'm so glad Ben didn't end up dating her!

I never had a daughter, although I always wanted one. Now I feel like I do have a daughter, and even though I didn't raise her or anything, I don't think I could love her more if I had.

Happy birthday, Ben

Ben was born at a civilized time of day -- around 8:30 AM. That's because my c-section with him was planned. The only bad thing was that he was early, like about four weeks early. I'm not sure how long doctors had been using ultrasounds to help determine fetal age, but in my case my doctor told me that the baby's head size meant I'd gotten pregnant a month sooner than I knew I did. Don't ask how I knew, just take my word for it, I got pregnant with Ben on July 17. But I was young and not prone to questioning authority so after offering up my reasons for knowing he was due in April, I did agree to have the c-section on the earlier date of March 14.

Boy he looked awful. His eyelashes hadn't really come in, his fingernails weren't all grown in either, and he looked really scrawny, even though he weighed 7 pounds, 9 ounces. Our pediatrician came in my room the next morning and told me "Benjamin wasn't quite done yet." Boy was that the truth. On the good side (and unlike his brother), Ben slept a lot.

I don't have pictures from the first two months of his life because the place we took our film to be developed lost them all. So instead I've posted a picture of both boys taken in June 1983. Ben is about four months old and he had filled in a lot.

Happy birthday, Jordan

Twenty-eight years ago Jordan was born. He was a week late, which is typical for a first pregnancy. That didn't matter to me, I just knew I was going to go early because I'd dilated two weeks before my due date. Nope, I was a week late. This picture was taken at my parents' house in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. I had traveled from Germany to Missouri after leaving the Army to have Jordan. I could have stayed in Germany since Rick was still in the service but I'd had an appendectomy that resulted in a seven-inch long incision at an Army facility, and didn't want to risk similar results when I had Jordan.

Here's a recent picture of Jordan and Sophie that I borrowed from Sophie's Facebook. He and Sophie are amazing dancers and to see them perform or compete as I've been able to do is just a wonderful experience. I am not sure which competition they were at for this picture; most recently they competed in Indiana. Sophie told me the competition was quite large and they placed in the semi-finals. After having seen a competition, I'm just so impressed with how well they do. And as you can see, they are both incredibly fit from all that dancing.