Why is today ANY different?

I’ve been awake for 12 minutes and discovered that I entirely missed the Easter morning Egg Hunt and Jelly Bean search. The boys have apparently searched and searched again and had their fun. And now it’s done. Jamis is downloading skeeball on to my iPhone, oh joy. My mother and her partner, D, are reading the paper. Dan is on his computer and when I talk to him he doesn’t even look away to face me – seems the sun is shining right in his eyes when he does, so why bother? Max is watching Tom & Jerry, but at least he is still his animated self. MA-MA, he screams from the next room. For no reason. He’s just prone to belt out my name at random – a kid thing, right? Usually you would expect that they need or want something from you, but no, not always.

14 minutes now that I’ve been awake and not one Happy Birthday from the crowd. Ethan gets a free pass, as he’s sleeping, and not yet one. And I suppose Max should get a free pass as well, but I’m sure he could be coaxed to say SOMETHING. I’m not bitter. It really doesn’t matter one little bit. And I guess that’s the point. It’s my birthday. I’m thirty-one today, and it just doesn’t matter – not one little bit.

We quasi-celebrated last night with dinner at my mom’s and a birthday cake that was wolfed down before Jamis had a special outing with the grandparents. They left and Dan and I cleaned up the dishes and the house and dealt with the coughing, whining, tossing and turning infant. Oh wait, I dealt with the coughing, whining, tossing and turning infant. I ran up and down the stairs 22 times getting cough medicine and bottles and water and diapers and such. After finally falling asleep on the couch in front of Working Girl, I tripped up the stairs and slept in the room with him. Dan was lucky or unlucky enough to have to sleep with Max in another room because Max woke at 11:30 for WHO KNOWS WHAT? Apparently he was awake watching tv in bed with Dan until 2:30. I’m not sure which scenario is worse, mine or his, but I’m pretty sure either BOTH of NONE of us should be whining about it.

I can tell it’s going to be a trying day. Sleepy, sugared-up kids. I just coughed so hard my upper back seized up and now I’m sitting here with my head at a VERY SPECIFIC angle, pointed slightly downward, and my shoulders so tense that it would take a REALLY GOOD MASSEUSE talk them down from he edge of forever being ROCK hard. And maybe, in fact, that is what I need. A good massage for my birthday.

What is there to celebrate about me today? I can think of 50 things to celebrate in general: my kids, my husband, my house, our health, and so on. When I think about it in a more personal way I find it’s still all related to others. I think I am a good mom. My kids are happy. I know that it gets rough, and I get rough, but if we are generalizing, I am a good mom. Dammit, I’m better than good. It’s a natural part of who I am, for better or for worse. No, for better. For sure. I’m a good partner in a great marriage. It could always be better, and I could always be more but….(oh these disclaimers are becoming a nuisance).

When I think about my own greatness aside from what I mean to, and what I do for, the people I love, it is difficult to really distinguish. Are we ever really anything so personal anyway? I don’t read enough anymore. I don’t take care of my body and my mind and my soul the way that I know that I can, and the way I know that I should, to nurture an inner peace.

This mom business takes you completely outside of yourself at all times, and yet asks you to constantly question yourself and your values and your morals while acting out the role.

I’m 31. This isn’t what I imagined my life to be. I never really imagined anything actually. I was just living it and it happened. My days are filled with so many small tasks and so many many words like stop and please and no and FINE! Although I left my twenties last year I didn’t feel as though I had entered my thirties. I guess it was a chosen year of LIMBO. A feeling of youth has washed away as I accept that this IS my life. I AM in my thirties. I LOVE my boys. I CAN make changes to find my spirit, my peace, within all this. But to remember that with kids, with THREE kids, everything takes really nine times as long as you would like, well, that’s important! So maybe when I’m writing my 41st birthday post I’ll have something tremendous to say. I won’t be digging in the trenches anymore, or something like that. And maybe it won’t be Easter and the first thing on everyone’s mind won’t be jelly beans and chocolate eggs. I’ve been awake for something like 56 minutes. No Happy Birthdays yet.

The only thing different about today is that we woke up in my mother’s house.

The Easter Bunny has come and has since been forgotten.

And now I have to establish and live with the CANDY ALLOWANCE ORDINANCE until I accidentally throw the rest of the sweets OUT with the rotten vegetables.