Bummer Birthday

Nate turned 39 on Wednesday. He didn’t really get to end the decade with a bang. Grown-up birthdays don’t tend to be super fun anyway, but this one was even less exciting than normal. I had a major tummy ache on Tuesday night (the kind where you kick around the idea of going to the ER in case it is appendicitis) and was still feeling pretty lousy on Wednesday morning. So, he got up at 5:00 and got ready for work and then took pity on me and decided to stay home. He got the kids off to school, did the dishes, cleaned the kitchen, got our lunches ready to take to the school (it was “Lunch With a Loved One” day), helped the kids with their piano practice, installed a wall mount for our new TV, went with me to parent teacher conferences, and took Ben to scouts. Not exactly a relaxing day.

In true Nate fashion, he was a good sport about it all and didn’t complain. There were some good parts to the day. School lunch was absolute madness, but it was fun to be there with the kids. We were very glad that we had taken our own lunch after seeing the line. The timing worked out perfectly for our family. We ate with Elise and Emily, then I ran Abby to preschool and got back just in time to eat with Ben. I was glad we didn’t have a sixth grader. We left at 12:50 (school got out at 1:05) and there were probably still 100 kids waiting in line. Crazy.

Parent teacher conferences went really well. It is nice to go and only hear positive things. We told the kids that if we got three good reports we would go to Arby’s for dinner. It was really our plan all along so it was a good thing we didn’t get any last minute surprises.

After dinner, Nate opened his presents. He got two new mummy bags for him and Ben to use on scout campouts/backpacking trips, some new pants for work, Star Trek, and a pre-ordered copy of Dennis Prager’s new book. Nothing was a surprise, but he was good at pretending. The girls helped me wrap his presents. We used Christmas wrapping paper with Disney Princesses and Tinkerbell. The kids thought that was hilarious. I made him try out the mummy bags to make sure they were long enough for him. Then each of the kids took a turn. Who knew that crawling into a sleeping bag would provide so much entertainment?






I hadn’t felt well enough on Tuesday to make Nate his cheesecake (it is always lots better after sitting overnight in the fridge), so he had a day old Krispy Kreme donut with 12 candles . . . 3 red, 9 blue for 39 years old. Kind of lame. It was a fitting ending to the day.