Thoughts about birthdays

I want to thank you for making my birthday so wonderful yesterday. As you know, I have had a hard time with birthdays since my Mom died. I can't help feeling like no one really cares about the day that I was born. So I force my friends to worship me by bribing them with wonderful food.

It was a nice day yesterday. I loved spending the morning with you talking and having coffee. I can not wait until we get to do stuff like that together. I appreciate the presents you gave me. It makes me feel so special to know that everything in that package was selected with care for me. I loved all of it and I am very serious about turning the black rock into a necklace. You amaze me everyday with your love. I admit that, at times, I don't feel worthy.

I want to share some things from birthdays past.

This picture is from my first birthday. Of course I don't remember it, but seeing that picture makes me wonder so much what my Mom was thinking. She was 36 when I was born. My sisters were so far past the baby stage that I think maybe she was able to enjoy my baby-ness in a way that she couldn't when they were infants. I feel like every snuggle and coo had to have been cherished. I was her baby. I can just feel the protection even now of her hand on my knee as I reach for the candle.


Then I turn three. I have a good feeling that my second birthday was lost in the chaos of Mandy being born on September 1st. You can see her in this picture behind me in the high chair, just over a year old. We had some books full of cut-out cakes. Before our birthdays Mom would sit us down and flip through them and let us pick out which design we wanted that year. I have those books now and continued that tradition with my kids when they were young. I love that she took the time to make our cakes with love. In this picture I am sitting at the kitchen table. It was really a bar-type thing that separated the kitchen and dining room. We ate dinner there every night. The light that hung over it was bought with green stamps. At different times I loved it and abhorred it. We'll just say it was very...unique. In later years we had some light up M&M Christmas-type lights that my Mom would string up over the table and we would hang balloons down from there. Simple things. Balloons that take 2 minutes to put up, but they made you feel like a star.



My fourth birthday is the one that made me feel like a celebrity. I can not remember a more beautiful cake. That yellow butterfly with its candy accents is forever burned in my memory. My Mom put curlers in my hair for the afternoon, my hair was still so thin and baby like that I don't think I ended up with any real curl, but talk about feeling glamorous! I glowed. We were even celebrating at the dining room table with a tablecloth! This only happened on holidays. The rest of the story I don't remember. My Mom told me later how mad she was. Valerie and Stephanie had to come home from Macomb, where they were in college, for the festivities. I guess that they had car trouble on the way home and my Dad had to go pick them up. It was super late by the time they got back so that I could open presents and have cake. That is why we are in our robes and ready for bed. Even though they were so far away, and I am sure busy with their own things, they were still required to come home for my day.

I look forward to the future we will share together. I can not wait to make you feel like a spoiled princess on your birthdays. I want to wait on you hand and foot and give you your fill of your most favorite things. I want you to know that with every year that passes I will love you more and more.