Tag Archives: Birthday

Half A Century

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In less than a week, on 5th February, I will be half a century old.

The big Five Oh.

50.

And I’m really good with that.

I wasn’t good with it for a long time. It seemed so very old. Half a century. Firmly middle aged.

And then I was. I’m not really sure what I did or said to myself to get to the point where I’m actually looking forward to the nice round number that is 50.

And I’m celebrating. Hard.

Out for dinner with Simon and Adam this Saturday.

Bryan Adams in concert at the end of February with some friends.

A trip to Glasgow in April with three of my closest women friends.

And a tattoo on my left shoulder.

a hand holding a fountain pen drawing in yarn a semi colon

copyright 2019 DTAT

The quality of the image needs to be improved, but overall that’s what it will look like. A hand holding a fountain pen writing a semi colon in yarn.

It’s taken me about 50 years to decide on what my tattoo should be and I’m very pleased with it. Can’t wait to get it inked on.

It’s a big year in general around here.

I’m 50.

Simon is 45.

Adam is 10.

Simon and I are married 15 years.

Surely it should be a great year with all those zeros and fives!

It’s certainly starting well.

So, Yesterday…

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Was my 46th birthday.

I’ve been struggling quite a lot with this birthday and I’m not really sure why.

I mean, I know part of it is that I’m now officially closer to 50 than 40 and 50 seems huge.

40 wasn’t huge because I was 20 weeks pregnant at the time with the baby that would become my wonderful little boy. So I was huge, but the birthday wasn’t. 😀

me and adam today and yesterday

Adam when he was the baby on the interior and yesterday when he was the boy waiting for the school bus.

 

I am, for the most part, happy and content with my life. I have a husband and son whom I love. I have more creative energy than I’ve had at any point in my history. And I enjoy what I do every day.

Yes, I’m sore. A lot. My arms ache and my legs ache and I’m tired a lot of the time. Such is life with Fibromayalgia, after all.

But I’ve been spending the time leading up to yesterday trying to figure out why it seems so huge and reflecting on my life.

And I recognize that I am not where I thought I’d be by this time in my life. I thought I’d be a published writer (well, I am, but only on the ‘net) and/or a professional theatre designer or at least fairly high up in the career that I started on at Kaiser about 20 years ago.

All of which was derailed, very firmly, by my first psychotic break at 25.

But I am, as I said, happy and content.

So why is 46 so hard?

It’s not the signs of ageing. I know I don’t look 46, for one thing. And I don’t really mind the signs that do show my age; my grey hair, my laugh and frown lines and the fact that I seem to be getting my mother’s hands, but without her lovely long thin fingers. 😀

So…why is 46 so hard?!

I have no idea…

 

Letter to my Son – Adam – Four Years Old*

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Dear Adam

Four. Years. Old.

Holy. Cow.

Where is the time going? Just yesterday you needed me all the time. To eat, to dress, to sleep.

Now, every day, you need me a little less.

Oh you still need me. For one thing, you are not getting the potty very well yet. So you need a lot of cleaning.

And you can’t exactly cook. But you certainly feed yourself.

And you’re starting school. In preschool right now, but gearing up for P1 in September. And you are rapidly learning your numbers and letters.

We had your ‘meet and greet our new friends and teacher’ day at school last week. You headed right in without a backwards glance. Not even a wave.

I expect you’ll do the same in September.

There have been some issues with you and social interaction and communication. The word autism has been used. But we have decided to not get your diagnosed yet. You are being assessed for extra help in the classroom, which hopefully you’ll get.

You have two best friends at school now, who you do everything with, L and C. They will both be in P1 with you, so that’ll be fun!

Your very first birthday party was this past Saturday. It was so much fun watching you with your friends in our back garden. Maybe we’ll do it again next year.

Keep growing my son.

Love

Mummy

*I did say there would be an occasional personal post. 😀

A Big Day For A Little Boy

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Adam turns 3 on Monday and today we celebrated his birthday. He helped me decorate his cake:

Beautiful!

And he opened his presents. Granny and Grandpa were here to see, although they didn’t get to see much as once Adam opened Buzz Lightyear from Aunty and Uncle…that was it for awhile!

His gifts included trains and tracks:

Trains for my birthday

And then a trip to the toy store:

Trip to the toy store

Where he picked out this as his gift from Mummy and Daddy:

BIG Truck!

Amazingly, he’s been playing with all of his new toys equally and having a blast. His trains go for a ride on his big truck, Buzz Lightyear helps run the trains on the tracks and everything plays together so very nicely.

Monday he’ll take cupcakes to school and wear a ‘I’m 3!’ badge.

And that’s him. Another year older.

My baby!!!!

I Didn’t Take Pictures

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as I was too busy cooking, but Adam helped me cooked dinner tonight, which was Simon’s birthday dinner as today is, surprise, his birthday.

We were having the newly named Simon’s Casserole, (used to be Jeffrey’s Casserole, after my brother, but I’ve changed. I’ve done a family proclamation and everything. Don’t sweat it, Simon doesn’t understand either.) which is a sort of simple lasagne dish, and home made garlic bread using my pizza dough.

Adam helped first by rolling out the pizza dough. It should be noted that the one Adam rolled was perfectly round and mine was not.

Then he picked the skins off the garlic cloves and put them in the mini-chopper. Then he held down the mini-chopper button.

Next he helped peel onion and then held down the mini-chopper button again.

Then I told him the fun stuff was done and all that was left was simmering he got bored and went to watch Toy Story for the 1,000 time.

He wanted to use Mummy’s big knife but understood when I said he was too little.

Tomorrow I think I’ll have him make lunch. By himself.

🙂

Saturday is Simon’s Birthday

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I won’t tell you how old he will be, but he’s 5 years younger than me and, as you may recall, I just had the 22nd anniversary of my 21st birthday.

Today Adam and I were scheduled to bake some cakes for Daddy’s birthday. So we went into the kitchen to get started when I found a fatal flaw in my plan. I only had one egg. I needed three.

So instead of getting down to it, we put on our shoes and coats and headed over to our local Mace. There we acquired biscuits, yoghurt, Pringles and eggs. You thought I forgot the eggs, didn’t you?

Once we were home we got to work.

Adam Mixes.jpg

Adam mixes.

Adam was chief in charge of mixing eggs, which he did with panache. Then he got bored while Mummy was incorporating the flour, eggs, butter and sugar and went to watch Fireman Sam. So Mummy licked the bowl herself.

Just before Adam’s First Birthday, I purchased the dinosaur cake pan from Lakeland, which doesn’t seem to be on their site any more. It has been used a *lot* for a variety of birthdays!

Here it is full of finished cakes as of today:

Cakes

Simon's Cakes

Later today we’ll make chocolate buttercream icing and get them iced and covered with 100s and 1000s.

Of course, there probably won’t be any left by Saturday…

My Knee Still Hurts, My Nose Is Still Stuffed Up

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but we had a great day finally having my birthday lunch and doing some shopping.

Adam was an exemplary boy all day. Well, most of the day. He was given some new colouring items (it’s a set with paints and markers and crayons) today that he picked out and managed to colour my shirt and Simon’s jeans. Bye bye new colouring items for now.

Another busy week coming up.

Keeps me out of trouble.

The 22nd Anniversary of My 21st Birthday is on Sunday

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For the math challenged, that means I’ll be 43.

I don’t feel 43. Ever. Heck most days I don’t feel old enough to be a mother. And yet I am both (every nearly) 43 and a mother.

How old do I feel? About 16. Maybe 17. Although not emotionally. Emotionally I feel 102020. And a bit.

So in what way do I feel 16 or 17? Not sure I can define it. I just do. I walk down the street and think ‘Wow, I’m a grown up. How did that happen?’

And I like being a grown up. I’m actually looking forward to being 43. As a grown up I can eat as many cookies as I want (family joke). I can drink wine. I can stay in bed until noon once my kid and my husband are gone for the day and the only consequence is I don’t get paid! (Okay, big consequence, but you can see where I am going here, I’m sure.)

And I love being a wife and mother. I like keeping my house clean (to a certain extent. It’s never tidy (have I mentioned the 2.7 year old?) but it’s certainly clean). I like taking care of my son (even though we are all minus on sleep at the moment. Again.).

I love what I do for a living. Especially the part where I can ignore it if I want to. Again, then I don’t get paid, but I can still do it.

I love the fact that I have a bit of spare cash. Not a lot. But enough to buy myself a cup of  coffee pretty much whenever I want. Enough that when my son and I go to City Centre tomorrow we’ll be able to have lunch out, if we so desire.

I remember, several years ago, I had gone to City Centre on my own for a bit of late night shopping. This was pre-Adam but, obviously, post-Simon. Anyway, I was at the mall trying to decide what fattening thing to have for dinner and I overheard a group of school girls. Their conversation was something like this:

“I have £1.20. How much do you have?”

“£2.10. Mary has £0.50.”

“So we can afford a KFC Snack Pack!”

And all I could think was ‘Thank god I don’t have to pool my pennies with my friends for dinner any more.’ And went to buy a KFC 2 piece meal. With a coke. (Also pre-diabetes.)

So it’s good that I’ll be celebrating the 22nd anniversary of my 21st birthday on Sunday.

Even if I don’t feel 43.