Grownup Birthdays

So, I have a birthday coming up. 

Please note: your comments on this post should probably include some kind of birthday message...  :)

When we were kids, mum (and dad, but mainly because he was married to mum) did birthdays big.  There were seven of us kids, but we almost always had a birthday party.  And what parties they were! I was Wonder Woman when I was four, Snow White when I was six, and a witch more times than I can count (when you're born on Halloween, that kind of comes with the territory). 

I remember going to the Opera with mum and a friend and her mum one year.  I remember a sleep over with a ton of friends (with pancakes in the morning of course).  There was the year (I would have been seven or eight I think?) when I had a dinner party with my friends and all of mum's fancy silverware and crockery, where we wore pink, and drank something pink, and Dad (again, because he was married to mum) served our dinner in a fancy outfit complete with a pink bow-tie.  There was the birthday party where everyone bought their favourite dolls, and my brother Micky brought his ET doll.  There was another dinner party in my teenage years that we had at the foot of the kangaroo point cliffs - complete with chairs, tables and candles.  

There was the year I turned 17 and was too stressed for a party (with my A-Mus piano exam and final grade 12 exams), but mum and dad threw me a surprise birthday party a week later at the local pool with a ton of friends, that took me ages to figure out was actually a party for me ('oh goodness, is that all my friends over there? They're having a party without me.  Poor things, they'll probably be all embarrassed if I suddenly show up. Maybe I should leave?...'). There was the amazing Halloween Party my sister and mum threw for me with awesome games and crazy costumes and decorations and food galore that people are STILL talking about.  There was the year I turned 16 and we had a jukebox and a ton of people and the neighbours called the police because they thought it was too noisy (it wasn't, as the police said when they came, our neighbours were just nasty... but everyone was very impressed at school the next week that my party had had the police called on it.... I probably shouldn't have included this story because I think it still makes mum feel a little sick to the stomach...)

The list could go on and on.  As I said, we did birthdays big, and were obviously some of the luckiest children on earth (as dad would point out every now and again... because in his family (and he didn't seem to think this was such a bad idea) the kids took turns and one kid each year got a party.  Thank goodness for mum, huh?!).

Anyway.  I have a birthday coming up. But I'm turning 31, and am obviously getting a little too old for huge fusses and elaborate birthday parties. Right?  I mean, I have been for some time now.

So instead, I'm going to quietly take next Wednesday off work, and Mum has kindly agreed to hang out with me for the whole day (which I love, since it was mum who actually 'gave birth' to me all those years ago...  All those loooooonnnnnggggg years ago.... soooo long ago...  do you feel as old as you must be to have a 31 year old daughter, mum?)  Anyway, I'm not sure what we'll do, but I'm kind of excited about it.  We can do whatever we want to do really, since it's a birthday :)

Oh, and then on Friday next week I'm going to have 31 friends/family over for dinner to celebrate.  Because when you've had parties your whole life, it's kind of hard to give them up. 

Even when you're a grownup.

xo Tammy