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I turned twenty-four today. I'd like to lie and say it was the best birthday I've ever had, but I can't. It wasn't my best birthday. That award still belongs to my twenty second birthday. We had just found out that we were expecting Walter (I was literally 4 weeks along), my sweet husband sprinkled rose petals all over our itty bitty, old, cheap apartment, and I got to spend the entire day with the one person in the world who means the most to me. Heaven.

This year my husband spent most of the day at work. In fact, he's still at work now, prepping for a software audit. I saw him for three hours total. Walter woke up with a fever, which got better then worse and right as I was about to go to sleep for the night, woke up screaming and continued to scream me straight out of my birthday and into a new day. Probably because I'm pregnant, about twenty-five minutes in, I broke down and cried with him. It seemed like the right thing to do.

The highlight of the day was during a video chat with my parents. My father walked in and joined the conversation by saying, "You look really pretty." Maybe I'm a big old Daddy's girl, because I just wanted to pretend that I was turning four and not twenty-four and whine like a little baby about everything that had NOT gone the way I wanted it to today and how I didn't even get a birthday cake or a solitary candle to blow out. Instead, I very calmly discussed my child's fever and my father, in his infinite wisdom said, "Welcome to adulthood." And...well...isn't that just the truth?

At least next year I'll know what to ask for: a completely healthy family.



* At my fourth birthday party, there was a cake with Flounder on it and the icing was so thick and deliciously rich I vomited everywhere and couldn't enjoy icing until years later. That is what a birthday should be like.