First of all LSU won the National Championship – and I know it happened just to raise my spirits close to my 30th birthday.
Then Shawna, my wonderful wife, got me good with a surprise party I had no clue was going to take place.
What is funny about this is my birthday has always been probably the least hyped up of anybody other than my brother-in-law Kyle because his and mine are so soon after Christmas. So normally a couple of gifts, a cake, and some dinner is about all I’m accustomed to doing for my birthday.
Shawna celebrates her birthday the entire month of March. We eat out several times, she gets more gifts (in fact she already got some of her birthday gifts in January), she gets to relax more, and everybody knows it is Shawna’s birthday because she talks about it all month. I might be exaggerating a little but not much. Now if I was talking about how our kids birthdays are celebrated I couldn’t exaggerate it. There are not enough words to describe it. In fact I’m begging all our family to start having quarterly combined birthday parties so we can have one big huge bash instead of a bunch of small ones every 2 to 3 weeks.
The day of my birthday (which was before the surprise party) I opened a couple of gifts. I think Shawna gave me a card, and my parents sent a card with a gift card in it, and the kids had gotten me one dollar store gift each (we are tight-wads). It took like 3 minutes to open those so the kids were disappointed. They asked Shawna why I didn’t get more gifts. (My kids are so spoiled, and don’t you feel sorry for me?) I don’t have high expectations and gifts aren’t my top love language so this is no big deal to me. I told the kids “It’s ok guys – I love what I got and I’m so thankful.” I’ve been trying to teach the kids to be more thankful instead of more wantful anyway, so this was a good opportunity to show them some humility. Then I saw Shawna grinning (she had the big surprise up her sleeve for a later day).
I don’t know what I thought when I saw that grin on her face, but I’ll probably never forget what I said. With no humility and a smirk on my face I said to the kids “It’s really ok – Daddy doesn’t get to celebrate his birthday ALL MONTH like Mommy does.” On any other day that would have provoked a response, but she had a secret to keep. I should have known something was up. I thought she was just letting me get away with it because it was my birthday…
It was the best birthday I’ve had in about 30 years (when you get old like this you can start wording everything to sound like you’re ancient).
I’ll post pictures of all the birthday month events tomorrow…
Speak Your Mind