Johnny's Golden Birthday

What's with golden birthday's anyway? Apparently, it's a Midwest thing, but I've never understood what the big deal is. If you're a kid, every year is a golden birthday since anytime you get presents is damn cool. When you've achieved college age, it's just your birthday - do you really need more of a reason to party hard? After that, you're either still acting like you were in college and just don't need that extra reason, or, you're too tired from work/parenting/living a grown-up life and could care less. For me, it was my 30th birthday. I do remember getting tanked that night (I danced around getting people to do Jag shots with me), but it was really all about the fact that I was 30, not that it was my golden birthday.

Johnny really gets screwed. His will be birthday numero uno - the one that is really more for the parents (yay - we managed to keep the little creature alive for a whole year - this is way easier than having a plant!).

Since he will be celebrating next weekend with a cake, he enjoyed a slice of homemade pumpkin pie with some whipped cream today. Granted, he really, really enjoyed it but the poor guy won't remember how much fun we had.

Or how delicious the pie was.

I'm old.

I just changed my profile to say I'm in my "late-30's". Used to say "mid-30's". Who am I trying to kid?

There are Christmas decorations up and carols playing downtown.

Yesterday morning, Dave and I welcomed the season in very different ways. Both of us were up before dawn, making preparations for the morning's events. While he was donning bright orange clothes, I was trying to get a pair of breezers on a mite already wearing knee pads. As he climbed up a tree, I poured a bowl of Rice Krispies, opened some yogurt and prepped a bowl of baby cereal and fruit. As he silently watched and listened to the woods wake up around him, I woke a sleeping baby who still managed to be Happy Morning Guy while gobbling down his breakfast much earlier than usual. As he sat patiently waiting for the sun to announce the dawn, I was trying to get an impatient baby into the mei tai in a parking lot. As Dave was realizing that the buck in the distance wasn't going to get close enough, I watched The Boy skate out onto the ice for the first team practice of the hockey season.

Welcome to winter in Minnesota.