birthday eve

photo from http://abeautifulmessinside.com

Tomorrow I am 44.  Forty-Four.
It has a nice, even, symmetrical quality about it, even if it is a number that feels a bit too big and a bit too foreign. In my mind, I think about 38 is right.
Even more so, since I am now 21 weeks pregnant with a baby girl child.
Being 44 and half-way there to birth is far more knackering that it was at 41.
I am tired and not so very patient.  Makes me want to take a bit of stock on just what and where I am today on my birthday eve.

I am:

• pregnant
• almost 44
• OK, we covered that
• tired
• ditto
• often blank of mind when I have 10 minutes of quiet
• in love with my bed
• illogically laundry obsessed
• disinterested in most current affairs
• nervous if I don't have both a book to read and a book to listen to
• eating much cheese
• scared to drive our newly acquired car (I haven't driven in the UK since the DAY of my test. In 2006. Hello)
• worried about having 2 children drain my waning energies
• worried that child 1 will be sad not to have his mum all to himself 
• worried that I have no recall on how to care for actual baby
• realising this list is not as whimsical and light as I imagined it
• trying now to think of really positive things
• blank of mind

OK. Let me try something else ... here's what I want for my 44th year

• endurance
• patience
• flexibility
• light-heartedness
• giggles
• family hugs
• embracing change
• ever expanding love supply for all my important people including myself
• financial stability
• ability to find the silly
• be the best mother, partner, daughter and friend I can be
• appreciate the many magical tiny moments I have each day
• one eye on the horizon so I can picture where we are going and start to get excited about being there
• gratitude for the ways which I know, I already have all of those things

two

I am having a really good birthday.
Celebrating the day of the birth of boy, that is.

Simple day: his parents, grandma, home made pizza, grandma- made white cake with chocolate frosting, red balance bike, red balloons (and a giant somewhat scary mylar "2" balloon) cards, books, digger wellies, car garage, playdoh, singing the happy birthday song AND blowing out the candle 5 times, and enough adorable clothes to make his mom happy. Enthusiastic opener, polite and equal attention to all (except the clothes). Time and the park, time at home.

And best gift of all is that all, he is napping. RIGHT NOW!

Happy Birthday, all of us. 

national me day

So tomorrow is my birthday.

And I love my birthday. I've always loved my birthday. Maybe because being the youngest of 5 kids it was the day I got to pick out my supper menu and my cake and sit at the head of the table and drink milk out of a wine glass and have my family bring me presents. And it is not all that different today. Except the milk part.

I mean, for my 30th birthday, the theme was All About Carol. I am not shy about asking for the attention I love and thrive in. I've always been really fortunate and lucky to have people who remind me that I am important in their world.

I know it sounds 1% weird, but it feels like a secret holiday for me. National Carol Day. You walk around knowing that it is YOUR day. And the shop keeper doesn't know -- or the lady at the bus stop. Over the years I have taken a bit more responsibility in making sure I like my birthday day. Planning things I want to do. Creating the day I want to have. Because face it, birthdays can be weird. You want people to remember. And you also don't want to make it a Big Deal. Very tricky place. I mean, you WANT people to want to celebrate your own national holiday and all and yet you don't want to ask them ... "please be happy I was born and tell me today."

And honestly, when it is other people's birthdays even if you really really like the people, it is never as big of a deal as when it is YOUR birthday. I like to remember the day and wish them a happy one, and all. And I hope it makes them feel like I am glad they were born. Because I am.

And mostly I am learning that while it is NICE to have other people celebrate you - it is really more important that you celebrate yourself. Hey- you lived another year here on earth -- breathing and living and loving and doing stuff... cool! And it brings your humanity right to the tippy top of your consciousness.

It is a day to feel divinely and scrumptiously human and alive. In your bones you know who you are.

And that calls for cake.

(This was one of those entries I 'wrote in my head' in the small hours. It was way more insightful at 4:30 a.m.)

birthday eve

Spent the birthday eve at the Imagination Workshop with the girls- Louise, Pauline, Janet and Sharon. Painting and gluing and playing. A perfect antithesis to any birthday aging nonsense. Plus I made a pretty treasure box.

ode to 38

It never feels like what you'd imagine
if only you imagined this far
but usually my brain only went until about now
but now I stop and pause and see what it is
this year I've done
come and gone
surprising where I've found ground and where I've lost my feet
how simple things are hard and the hard oddly easy
I've not done it all with grace and light
Scrappy and scrapy
but job done
Beyond getting by I want the flow
It is the up and it is the awake
And the map I am drawing
Mustn't lose the pencil
In order to go I have to be there
Here
I am
Awake