Happy Birthday to Me

My birthday has always been one of my favourite days of the year. It is second only to Christmas morning.  I’m sure society would like to tell me that as a wife and mother I should not be ranking my own birthday above that of my family.  What kind of mother puts herself first? Well, sometimes I do.

My childhood birthdays looked much like everyone else’s did.  There were parties and cake and presents. And my birthday celebrations began and ended in one day – as one would expect.  But a funny thing happened as I got older.  Instead of celebrating my birthday in just one day I began recognizing my birthday week.

A birthday week – doesn’t it just sound great? Who wants to wait all year for the birthday to come around and have it over and done with in one day?  Now I realize that not all you may love your birthday as much as I do.  And let’s be clear, I don’t like getting older. What I do like is attention and being made to feel special.  Is that so wrong to say out loud?

I think it all began when my friends and family would start doing nice things for me leading up to my birthday. One friend might take me to lunch, another to dinner and then there were cards and visits.  And my husband would plan special nights for us that may have fallen on the weekend before my actual birthday. But that doesn’t mean you don’t still celebrate on the actual day, right?

Yes, I am a lot of work sometimes.  My husband has been saint-like in his efforts to indulge most of my ridiculous expectations. And in fairness to yours truly, I do also love other people’s birthdays and I try and make sure that I make them feel special when it’s their turn.  I am probably setting my children up to have the same expectations surrounding their birthdays as I do but there are much greater problems in life than loving your birthday too much.

I am currently in full on birthday mode and I love it.  Isn’t May the most wonderful month of the year? I may sound (ok, I may be) completely self-indulgent sometimes but we all deserve that once in a while don’t we?  If a person can’t be made to feel special on their birthday then when can they?  Thirty-six - here I come!