Birthday Blur

Monkey2, my husband, and I have back-to-back birthdays including St. Patrick's Day. This year marked a few changes in routine.

Birthday 1: Monkey1 helped her sister completely dress for the day, removing the diaper and putting her in underpants. The next evening, as usual, I did a load of diaper laundry; there were very few diapers. Five days later, I have done lots of laundry loads of mop-up towels and rags, but no more diapers. Monkey2 is three.

Birthday 2: Husband took off from work. He said that some co-workers wanted to take him an Irish pub for lunch, on St. Patrick's Day, and in no way did he want to do such a thing. Twelve years ago, when we first knew each other and he was in graduate school, he liked going out on St. Patrick's Day because he regarded it as a mega-birthday party.

Birthday 3: Me. No snow storm in sight. Just over three and a half decades ago, the night before I was born there was a big snow storm. That was in the Berkshires of Massachusetts. I've lived in Vermont, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Long Island of New York, Maryland, and Virginia, and I've always gotten a snow storm, or at least a little snow. The year I turned 25, I got two storms! Digging out from that, my landlord laughingly asked me if the snow was my fault. I gleefully confessed that it was; it was my birthday storm. He was astonished. Turns out, we were born on the same day, though years apart, and he had never particularly noticed the regularity of a snow storm in close proximity to his birthday. But this year, nothing. There were the two big storms of early February, and all kinds of baby stories with those, so perhaps it is time to pass the tradition, and the hope and wonder and excitement, of a birthday storm to another generation.

* * *

On Saturday, at swimming lessons, our favorite summer lifeguard said something about a crazy birthday week, and I recalled that her son had been born the same day as my Monkey2.

One of her co-workers replied saying, "Happy anniversary!"

"Anniversary?" she said, "No, birthday."

"No, Happy Anniversary!"

"I don't get it."

"Your son's birthday is your anniversary of becoming a mother."

And she smiled.