The 37-Year-Old

The other day I was driving and Ed was in the passenger seat, staring at me.  "What?" I asked him, hoping there was admiration on his mind.  He narrowed his eyes.  "You're turning thirty-seven this year."  Shoot. 

I feel generally OK about it.  Just had a physical and things are clockwork.  Just recently started making some healthy lifestyle changes...again.  Got a good marriage, three super kids that I finally feel rested enough to give 100%...some days.  I never really knew what I thought the line between not-old and old was, but when Ed said it like that, I realized thirty-seven sounds a lot older than thirty-six - undeniably LATE MID-THIRTIES now.  But it's OK.  I don't have a lot of time to think about it anyway.

Last year I started a tradition of birthday interviews with the girls, as a way of snapshotting each age, and charting changes over time.  I'm behind on posting Ginger's, but it's coming.  In the meantime, here's a little interview snapshot of the matriarch of this clan, the 37-year-old.

What are you currently reading?  The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

What are you currently watching?  Downton Abbey, Project Runway All-Stars, Top Chef, Once Upon a Time, and we've got Moneyball from Netflix, just waiting for us to come up with 2 hours when we can both stay awake to watch it.

What's your current favorite treat?  Pain au chocolat - and I am working my way up to trying to make it myself.

Favorite color?  Green, always and forever green

What do you want to accomplish this year?  I don't do goals or resolutions, but I still have plans.  Give the house a makeover - you should see posts on that in the coming months.  Get more sleep and lose some weight (I already have apps for both.)  Improve the quality - and quantity - of time spent with my girls.

What did you do for your birthday?  In the olden days, I would take the day off school or work.  Read a book, go out to lunch, maybe a movie.  Throw myself a party when I was really organized.  Live it up.  Things are a bit modified these days.  But yesterday my friend treated me to an eyebrow threading at the mall followed by some Yogen Fruz (mango pineapple with white chocolate chips.)  My eyebrows are probably my favorite feature, and definitely when I've just been threaded.

Ed's parents and sister are visiting, too.  So today we had a big pancake breakfast, and took Ginger to gymnastics (where some of my fellow moms had gifties for me, thanks guys!)  Then alone, I went to the UPS store and got myself du pain au chocolat at a new bakery in town, LeoNora's.  YUM.

I came home and started dipping pretzel rods for a friend's baby shower the next night. 

Helped everyone get some lunch, but I was still full from my pancakes and special treat, so I didn't eat.  A little after noon, my friend Andrea showed up with balloons and TWO plates of cinnamon rolls.  "One," she said, "is for you; the other is for everyone else."  Amazing.  

Once Poppy was down for a nap, Ed took Ginger and the Hickman clan to the Newseum, and I settled down to a gloriously quiet afternoon.  I had a cinnamon roll and read my book (see above, a deliciously dark and magical circus-based fairy-ish tale) for over an hour, almost two, until Poppy woke up.  I settled her with a snack in front of Peppa Pig and continued my reading until it was over, then we watched a back episode of Top Chef until it was time to go pick up Hazel.  Also my friend Shanna, and all her kids, called and sang me their special extended version of "Happy Birthday." 

Once we, and then everyone else, got home, we headed over to Silverado for dinner, where we all had lots of meat (I had ribs, mmm...)  Ginger suggested we not stay for dessert so they could get home and have a tea party with Grandma (this is a special thing they always do when Grandma Marsha comes to visit - tea parties almost every day, with special cookies and petit fours we only buy for that occasion.)  I was a bit bummed to not get my flourless chocolate waffle for my birthday, but since I'd had an entire day of white flour treats, I conceded.  

Which is just as well because when I got home there was yet another surprise for me - a plate full of HUGE peanut butter chocolate Rice Krispy treats, one of my other very favorite treats, and best made by my friend Julia, who remembers every February 2.  My friends are the best.  So the little girls had their tea party with Grandma while the rest of us ate RKtreats, and then I wrote this post. 


What did you wear today?  One of my favorite go-to's - black t-shirt, burgundy cords, metallic orange birks, hair in various black scrunchie arrangements throughout the day.

Any other thoughts?  It's easy to feel old when you turn another year.  It lends itself to reflection and perusing memories.  The many Facebook birthday wishes I received led to memories as well.  So many sweet friends and memories.  So many years since I was the age I still feel.  But today I also considered my present and future, and it put me in a resplendently happy mood.  

I think my day, and current mindset, can be summed up by a comment I received from a complete stranger tonight.  The girls had gotten restless in the restaurant, so I took them outside for a walk while the others finished.  As we strolled down the sidewalk, Hazel in her long hair and red flowered coat, Ginger with her signature skip-gallop stride and doodly hum, and Poppy with her flyaway scraggly mop and love-for-life kamikaze run, a man passed us and paused.  "You're a lucky lady," he said.  For a moment, I looked down and saw what he saw.  "Thank you, I am," I answered.  He walked on, and I flushed with pride at my brood.

Then he called over his shoulder, "Tired, but lucky!"

I couldn't have said it better myself.