I love birthdays. I LOVE birthdays. I love the celebratory nature of them, the special eventitude, the cake. (I love the birthday cake. Even over-sugared grocery store frosting birthday cake is the stuff I love.) I love ushering in a new year, taking a moment to say “This is who I am now, and this acknowledgement needs to be acknowledged by folks outside the general vicinity of my bathroom mirror.”
And oof- lemme tell you, I love my children’s birthdays. I do. Sure, kiddo birthdays are a bit tiring. Sometimes I get overwhelmed with a [self-induced] to-do list, and First World-edly sigh about the last minute details, you guys.
But that’s not what it’s about. Not at all.
As a mother, I’m so hyper-aware of milestones and memories (and lost moments and frantic prayers for do-overs). I hear a song lyric as I watch the sunlight play over my (newly!) 5 year-old daughter’s blonde hair, and I focus on her sweetly focused face while she crafts the world’s most perfect LEGO party house.
“This,” I think. “This this this this. Be here for this. Forget about the shoe flung angrily down the stairs or the total hair-brushing meltdown of just twelve minutes ago.”
It doesn’t always work like that, of course, but birthdays- for me, at least- are a chance to acknowledge, to document, to hold onto a picture of my 5 year-old’s bright n’ shiny, eager n’ ecstatic face.
“This,” I can say to her. “This is what you looked like on your birthday. You were stoked and I was there for it and, for that tiny sliver of time, everything was absolutely exceptional.”
Maybe it’s because I’ve lost so many loved ones over the past three years. Maybe time has been brought more starkly into focus lately. Maybe I’ve always been this obnoxiously Pollyanna-esque, and it simply took being in charge of my tiny people’s birthdays to go off the Sentimental Rails.
Maybe I just want my kids to be as happy as I always remember being on my own childhood birthdays.
I’m not too concerned; Susannah celebrated the big Whole Hand birthday on Tuesday and, by all accounts, a magnificent time was had. (I overheard her introducing her new Lalaloopsy doll to her old ones and softly whisper to herself, “I just can’t even believe this. This is the best Birthday Day I’ve ever had.”)
Because Five is supposed to be magnificent. Her request to use the rainbow teacups for dinner milk- dinner milk!- was met with agreement as opposed to my usual “Uh, maybe we’ll stick with plastic for this meal.” Eight sparkly hair clips to hold in one braid? Seems wise. Party dress to school, monkey bread for breakfast, chocolate milk at a café, and handing out stickers to everyone she knows? YES! Yes. These are the easy yesses. The fun yesses. The yesses that remind me of the Mom I had always wanted to be, back when I was cool and fun and the only lines under my eyes were the darkly drawn black ones during a brief, ill-advised phase. The kind of Mom I told Susannah I’d be as I held her in the NICU five short- and five long- years ago, back before I realized that the hands-on aspect of my job description would be frighteningly finite (not to mention my patience).
And while birthdays are a new page in an unlined journal for my kids, they’re a much-welcomed hard reset for me.
This is the year, the age, I’ll be the present Mom they deserve. When Susannah thinks back on “five,” I want her to remember the Mom who played dolls on the floor. Who told her the neon cardigan she chose was incredibly appropriate for that striped and plaid ensemble.
Who let her use the goddamn rainbow tea cups any ol’ time she wanted. (What, are we gonna sell them someday? Are cultural anthropologists gonna document this specific beverage ware as a pivotal turning point in the docudrama of my family’s existence? USE THE CUPS AND STOP BEING A WEIRDO ABOUT IT, KEELY.)
I remember five.
Fairly certain Zu will remember five, too.
She’ll definitely remember two-days-after-turning-five, because that’s the day her introspectively bent mama decided to serve leftover birthday cake as an afterschool snack.
(Wait ’til she gets a load of the china plates we’ll be using.)
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