37 Years Young (?)

I sure don't feel 37. That's a slippery slope to 40! I was thinking yesterday of some of my more memorable birthdays over the years. Like my 27th birthday when I was 7.5 months pregnant and spent the day at the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC. Very moving museum, but talk about a downer.

Then there was my 25th birthday. My mom planned a surprise party for me with a few of my girlfriends and just picked me up and told me she was taking me to Macaroni Grill for my birthday. I couldn't figure out why there, since that wasn't my favorite place, and why she didn't ask me where I wanted to go, but told me. After all, it was MY birthday!! But I was surprised to walk in and see several friends at the table.

And I was even more surprised when my friend Joe planned a HUGE surprise party for me for my 19th birthday. That was so much fun. Especially since that was my last time to spend with a lot of my friends, as I was on a plane to Hong Kong within days...which leads me to my 20th birthday, a milestone, and spent with no family, only new friends, on the other side of the world.

But probably the one that I remember the most, that meant the most, was when I was turning 7 and my dad was working out of town and wasn't going to be home in time to wish me happy birthday. I remember going to bed so sad that he wasn't there, and a while later, my mom waking me up, rushing me down the hall in our house in Slidell, Louisiana, trying not to trip over my long nightgown, around the corner to the kitchen, to see my dad standing there, holding a ballerina cake with candles in it, just for me, he made it home just in time!