Birthday Blues

Yesterday was a dud as far as birthdays go.

I have this thing where I absolutely can not stand when my birthday is just another ordinary day, and well frankly that's what yesterday was to the tenth degree. There really wasn't anyway around it - I had the day off with both girls and Jonathan had to work. The best part of my day (besides my sweet card) was when I ran upstairs to grab something and I heard a birthday song playing on the ihome alarm clock from our ipod. I almost missed it though. I think Jonathan thought I was going to be sleeping in so he programmed it to play a little later than I normally get up. It was a very pleasant surprise though.

A surprise! That's it, that's why I loved it. I love surprises, and I especially love surprises on my birthday; however, I married a man who doesn't like surprises so therefore he doesn't like to plan surprises or give surprises. (this isn't to say that he hasn't ever surprised me because he has, but for the most part surprises are out!)

My daughter was concocting something all morning in her kitchen - play dough, soap, water, pots/pans, and a muffin tin. She asked me if she could have some candles..... "oh good!" I thought. "she's gonna surprise me with some birthday cupcakes". I was wrong. Apparently, I share my birthday with the beloved purple puppy and he was getting the birthday cupcakes instead of me. She didn't even mention my birthday when she was talking about the birthday cupcakes!

Ho Hum.

Woe is me.

I raced around the house trying to get Holland to her first music class of the year . This meant I had to pry her princess costume off of her and turn off the TV - a huge feat. Dylan, who is normally the sweetest, happiest baby in the mornings, was screaming her head off not wanting to be put down for a second. The phone rings - wouldn't you know it was someone trying to wish me a happy birthday. I had to cut them short so we wouldn't be late. So much stress. So much energy wasted only to find out that Holland's class didn't even start for two more weeks.

Next stop - grocery store. YUCK - who wants to grocery shop on their birthday?

Picked Holland up and came home. Laundry staring at me, but I drew the line on that one!

Jonathan got me this really cool box for Christmas with all my Bedrest Boutique pictures in it. He told me he would hand-write excerpts from the old blog on the backs of the pictures. I saw the box sitting by the computer, so I opened it up. He'd written on two out of the thirty or forty of the pictures. Maybe he'll finish by Valentine's Day.

Jonathan struck out when trying to arrange for a babysitter so we were all going to go out for dinner which was fine Holland kept asking, "do I get to go to your birthday, mommy?"It wasn't fine though because we ate too much, felt miserable, and Holland went into slight "no-no mode" towards the end causing me to raise my voice and lose my patience.

So we get home and Jonathan starts a fire. I am thinking that this will be so nice to finally relax and cozy up to him with a glass of wine. Instead, Holland crashed out on the couch with the soft and cuddly blanket not leaving any room for either of us much less both of us, Dylan fell asleep in my arms not without taking a while to settle down first though, and Jonathan passed out on the floor in front of the fire.

Just like that - 9:15, the party that never started was over.

Then as I decide to embrace the peace and quiet of my evening and tell myself that not all birthdays can be big productions, I check my email. Among the many messages and junk mail is a survey from Martha Stewart about an idea she has for a new magazine. I thought, "hmmmm that could be fun to see what she is thinking about next", and then I read the message. It said,

Dear Member,

We're exploring an idea for a new magazine from Martha Stewart for mature women who want to be healthy, active, and beautiful and live stylish, interesting lives. Will you please take a few minutes to answer some questions? Your opinions are very important to us.

Does anything jump out at you when you read that? How 'bout the words 'mature women'?! Doesn't that mean older women? middle aged women? no longer thirty-something women?

How did they know it was birthday and did they think that I was in a different age bracket, now? I hate to break it to them but they have me on the wrong list! I am not a mature women (as you can tell by this pouty blog post). I am not older or middle-aged, and I am very much so still a thirty-something women!!

I have exactly three more years in my thirties, thank you very much!

At this point, I decided to go to bed.

Hopefully,the remainder of the weekend will be a little better.