31

This time of year is just crazy. May has always been my favorite month because it’s my birth month but now it’s also my anniversary month, Mother’s Day month, and my baby’s birth month.

(My poor husband. Our poor credit card.)

On Monday, Memorial Day, I turned 31. My parents were on day 5 of their stay with us, which is already 2 days longer than preferred, but it was nice to have family in town to celebrate. It was also the day after baby D’s first birthday party and we had plenty of cake leftover so there was little fanfare in the way of cake or decorations. Instead, we decided to take a drive down to Jefferson Barracks and visit my grandpa’s grave. (What? You don’t think visiting a cemetery is a fun way to celebrate your birthday?) Ok so it wasn’t exactly fun, but it was Memorial Day after all and my parents had not visited since the headstone arrived last fall, so we went. Then we finished the afternoon with some mall shopping (hello Memorial Day sales) and after a late lunch at Max and Erma’s, we had a late dinner at Longhorn. Basically, a very typical weekend for us, but I’ve never been one to make a big deal out of my birthday.

Still, there’s something about the 1 in 31 that makes me really feel that I’m firmly in my 30s. And while most people lament getting older, I have to say that I’m feeling much more…comfortable in who I am now that I’m in my thirties.

My twenties was a mix of establishing myself and figuring out not only who I am but who I wanted to be. And then accepting who I am when the two didn’t match up. Now that I’ve fought those internal battles, I have so much more inner peace and confidence. I may not always like everything about myself, but I accept it. And that’s a huge accomplishment for me.

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Golden Birthday

There’s another reason the hubz and I always take trips during the month of May. The first is to celebrate our anniversary, but the second is to celebrate my birthday, which is just five short days after our anniversary. This year is extra special because it’s my golden birthday, meaning I’ll be 27 on the 27th. Pretty cool, huh? Growing up, I always thought 27 was the perfect age to do just about anything – get married, buy a house, become a super famous movie star….anything. The one thing I thought 27 would be the perfect age for: have a baby. For the last few years I kept telling myself 27 was the year for babies. But, now that I’m 27, I’m about 99% sure that having a baby within the next year is not what I want to do, and I’m not about to concede to the pressure just so I can live up to this expectation I’ve placed in my own head about the number and becoming a parent.

Wait, how did this turn into a post about babies? I came here to tell you about my weekend and my birthday, NOT to talk about babies which I am NOT having!

Anyway, my birthday is tomorrow (Wednesday) and though I’ve built it up to be this big special day, it’s going to be more low-key than most birthdays in that I’m 1) working and 2) without a husband because he’s traveling this week. It will still be special because I’m having dinner with a few close girlfriends at a place I love, but it’s not going to be the big Vegas blowout I imagined in my dreams years before.  Of course, I knew all of this when we decided on the date for Hawaii and I was more than willing to just suck it up and work on my big day rather than pay extra for our vacation due to the holiday weekend or cause problems in the scheduling with the other couple we were vacationing with. When it all comes down to it, it’s just a day and who cares if I celebrate it a week or two earlier? Exactly.

Plus, it’s not like it’s anything new. I’m used to celebrating my birthday over the holiday weekend. “Memorial Day” has become synonymous with “my birthday” because that’s when we always celebrate it. This year, the weekend began with hubby coming home Friday night, three roses in hand – one for each year of marriage – and a gift bag of assorted things (candy, magazines featuring my favorite celebs, and a new wallet! The traditional three year anniversary gift is leather, after all).  Then he treated me to dinner at one of our favorite places, and though we had planned to see Angles & Demons afterward, I got the times mixed up so we had to see Terminator instead. (Side note: The DaVinci Code came out just before our wedding so the night before the wedding we escaped, just the two of us, and went to the movies to see it. We were sort of reliving that moment by attempting to see Angels & Demons, but I flubbed up the times and Terminator is not nearly as cool.)

My parents had already arrived at my house by the time we got home Friday night. Saturday we spent some time buying food for the BBQ and picking out plants and flowers to place around my deck. The plants/flowers were part of my birthday present from my mom. And my hubby needs no reason to be wonderful and plant them for me. See how pretty they turned out?

P.S. that is the deck we built all by ourselves last summer. We just put the lattice work up this spring. /end bragging.

Saturday night my grandparents, aunt, and cousin came over for the mini-party (yes, there was cake. Ice cream cake, to be exact.) It’s also convenient that my mom’s birthday is exactly a week after mine, so this year we celebrated both of our birthdays together. And guess what? We both got Wiis! I’d been planning to buy my mom a Wii for awhile and told her it would be her Mother’s Day and b-day present combined. But with all this talk of buying a Wii, hubz confused the conversations as me wanting a Wii for myself, so that’s what he bought me. Or maybe he just ran out of ideas. Either way, it’s still cool. Now, does anyone know of any awesome Wii games we need to get? I am clueless about this whole thing.

Sunday we finally saw Angels & Demons and Monday was more visiting with the family and checking out my aunt-in-law’s new consignment shop. I’m sure there was much more than that, but the weekend just went by in a blur and I’m blanking on everything we did at the moment.

So tell me, do you make a big deal out of your birthday on the actual day? Or do you typically celebrate on the nearest weekend?

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