It is my birthday.
The funny thing about birthdays is how they are so very much just another day. Sometimes with cake and presents, if you are so blessed.
I spent a lot of time in bed this weekend because a very, incredibly mean and nasty stomach virus made the rounds through my house late last week. And I ended up in the hospital hooked up to an IV after 9 nonstop hours of vomiting.
Again.
Apparently, the variety of stomach virus my kids bring home to me carry some level of toxicity that my poor system specifically cannot handle. So, after 2 bags of fluids and the miracle of zo.fran pushed through a poorly placed IV by a very nice nurse who must have failed phlebotomy 101, I spent the entire weekend in bed recuperating with my two sweet girls.
And I thought a lot about past birthdays and how very little I remember about the simple majority of them. I definitely do not remember gifts for the most part. Funny how that works, right? You want some specific thing SOOOOOO BADLY at any given time and then you get it and totally forget that's what you got within a matter of 12 months. (Unless you were fortunate enough to get a car or something for your 16th birthday, which I did not. But, yes, I'd indeed have remembered something like that.) At least that's the way it is for me.
But today has been not unlike any other Monday of my life. I get up, I feed children, I change diapers and wipe faces. I answer work emails, I drink coffee, I start laundry and I put away dishes. I pick up toys and I chase the dog away from the crumbs on the kitchen floor. I frantically try to push out work while the baby is dangling her tongue out of her mouth and forcefully doing her best to press the bright and shiny power button on my laptop. I break up fights over toys, I clean milk off a chair and I wash my hands for the 80th time before lunch has even begun. I toast bread, break up cheese, shake formula and wash sippy cups. I pick up a crying baby, I answer 1000 questions about mermaids and dinosaurs and I hit the dryer restart button for the second time because I just don't have time to fold it now.
I know at some point that I won't remember much about this birthday. Probably that I gifted the Metho.dist health care system with $1000 for a poorly placed IV (high deductible insurance plan for the win!). Maybe the card that my oldest daughter wrote all the letters of her name in (not in order yet). Hopefully a lovely dinner with my family OUTSIDE of my home and my cursed cooking skills.
This is life. This is motherhood. Sometimes I don't realize how much things have changed in 3 years and other times I stop to look around and find myself in awe of how little of my life remains the same as it was before they were here. And tomorrow I will wake up and start the 1st day of my 34th year and do it all over again.
And I wouldn't have it any other way.
