Happy Birthday to Us

Today is my 37th birthday and it is great to be alive. It has not been hard to turn 37 at all. I actually feel younger this year than I did last year, probably due to cleaning up my eating and exercising. And oh, how this celebration differs from last year.

This year, I went to the gym to work out with my trainer, ate at Subway with a friend, and had pedicures together after that. I really had a great day. Someone even told me at the school dismissal that I looked like a Birthday Girl today. There you go... I felt like a Birthday Girl today!

The interesting thing about birthdays around here is the fact that while I am the Birthday Girl, we also have a Birthday Boy. Yes, nine years and nine months ago I did some very poor planning or very good planning, depending on how you look at it. My firstborn, Caleb was born on my birthday.

It is a fun thing sharing a birthday with your son. It is not a fun thing to have a son on your birthday.

He was actually due on Dec 10th, but he was breech (our first indication that he intended to do things his way!) so the dr wanted to do a C-Section. She offered me the choice of the 9th or 10th. I chose the 9th thinking that it would be such a great thing to have a baby on my birthday. Since my brain blocked everything that they told me in the childbirth classes that I took, I did not realize that a C-section was not the easy way out of childbirth but was actually major surgery.

Linda's vision of her birthday in 1999: Present herself for delivery at 6:30 am wearing full make-up. (I wondered why the dr. laughed at me when I asked Jeremy if my hair looked ok during her presurgery exam.) Be wheeled in to the operating room, through the magic of doctors (much like the magic of Disney in my mind), be presented with the baby, and then have cake that night while the cherub sleeps in her arms.

Trust me, folks, it did not go down like that. Except that I did wear full makeup to the hospital. My birthday meal consisted of about 1/4 cup ice chips and some great meds in my epidural.

Tonight, my birthday meal will be at Shoguns. Maybe if I ask nicely, I can get some ice chips.