Happy birthday to me

Today is my birthday, but I haven't been feeling very birthdayish. Usually I love my birthday, love it to the point that I've been known to throw myself birthday parties. But not this year. I'm going out to dinner with friends tomorrow night, and one of the women going was going to call it my birthday dinner until I asked her not to even mention it. She still did, but sort of in a round-about way. She said it was to celebrate the birthday of a friend who has tres ninos. Since I'm the only one in the group with three kids, it's an easy guess.

I'm not sure what my problem is. Maybe it's the idea of turning, sigh, 37. And all you reading this who are older than me, please don't say, "Oh but you're so young!" I don't feel young at all. Maybe it's all the stress of work. My projects at Holt have been far more time-consuming than anyone anticipated, and with Ella at loose ends because of the summer, my work time is so limited. I feel the pressure to cram work into every free moment I can, but this means I don't have a lot of down time. Then again, it could just be the three kids running loose in the house. Amazingly, despite Campbell's new found mobility, he's not the hard part of my day. To say that Ella and Lily are in challenging stages of their lives would be an understatement. Ella is testing limits and defying us every chance she gets; Lily is playing the drama queen with all her might. Campbell's eating stale Cheerios off the floor is the least of my difficulties during the day.

But back to my birthday. I woke up and decided that I needed to suck it up and have a good day for the sake of the girls if not for myself. I started out by going for a run with Campbell, who now doesn't sleep past 6:00, in his stroller. Despite having to push him and despite the humidity, I had a pretty good 40-minute roll through the 'hood. I walked in the door from the run to have Ella and Lily launch themselves at me yelling, "Happy Birthday Mama!"

Ella and I had a mellow morning. She worked on art projects while Campbell napped and I flopped on the sofa and watched 12 different programs. We finally settled on SpongeBob. Our sitter came this afternoon, and B and I went to see the new Harry Potter.

It was the best one yet, in my humble opinion. The screenwriters/directors have made plot changes in all of the movies, and I haven't liked or agreed with many of them. But in this one, all the changes worked - some even enhanced the story. Rowling does tend to go on a bit, and the movie cut back in some important areas. The actors have also gotten so much better - I didn't cringe once at any of their deliveries. I especially like the boys who play the Weasley twins and the boy who plays Neville. I think Neville is going to figure prominently in the last book - 5 days and counting.

When we got home from the movie, Ella and B went out so Ella could buy me a present with her own money. She informed me before they left that she was going to spend $2.50 on my gift! She bought me a mood ring made of interlocked dolphins. Each dolphin has a mood stone in its torso. She was so thrilled that she bought the ring with her own money that she even included the four cents she got back as change. Then she blew the surprise with my present from B. He told her to go out to the car to get my gift and she said, "I can't. You got her the chairs she wanted, and a table!" A local store has these cool Adirondack chairs in different colors. B got me two bright red ones with a table to match. Now we have to figure out where to put them. I'd like them to go on the front porch, but B likes the chairs we already have out there.

We ended the celebrations with coconut ice box cake from Heidi and Easy-Bake cake from Ella. Lily was momentarily distraught that we weren't having a big party. She asked at one point when the guests were going to arrive and then started crying because she wanted her friends from preschool and Gran (my mom) to be at the house for cake. I had to explain that grown-ups don't always have big parties, but that we do still have cake.

I'm going to finish the day by turning in early with a new book. Campbell has reverted to not sleeping through the night, so I want to get a head start on sleep.