A tragical birthday

Our family of six moved from Phoenix to Albuquerque four days before my daughter Ana’s 14^th birthday.

But, so help me, I tried to make it good. I tried!

With boxes still enveloping us, I made homemade pancakes. A good beginning if not for the fact that we had no syrup. Midway through cooking, I ran to the store and picked up a store brand variety called “Old-fashioned Syrup” which I thought might be code for “slightly healthier.” Why, oh why, was I thinking healthy on a birthday?

Unfortunately, old-fashioned meant pure unadulterated molasses with a hint of sugar to take the edge off. We should have made gingerbread cookies with it.

“Yuck!” my kids exclaimed in unison with properly contorted faces.

“What? What is it?” 

Even with my penchant for gingerbread men, I couldn’t stomach the flavor.

Out I trot to a different grocer to pick up some that was unapologetically sugar, and since we had just moved, ran to the discount and dollar stores next door to find laundry hampers, curtain rods, and waste baskets. Feeling guilty about my long absence, I picked up a bunch of sunflowers to present to my birthday girl.

I still needed to figure out the cake. It was supposed to be a purchased ice cream cake instead of a homemade confection per tradition. Unfortunately, I didn’t know where any creameries were and before I could find one, I had to spend an hour on the phone with our insurance company sorting out the new home and auto policies with a very talkative, if helpful, young man. When I finally was released to call an ice cream shop near us, the lady nicely informed me that I should have placed an order yesterday.

I dove into boxes for missing baking gear. Then I went to the fridge to lay out ingredients for cake.

We had no butter or eggs.

Well, I still needed to get my daughter gifts anyway, so I rounded up Ana and her younger siblings, and off we went to two more stores. At a home improvement store Ana got her wish: plants to place in a large flower bed that was all her own. Though she fretted they were too expensive (I guess her dad and I had been stressing a lot about the new mortgage), she finally choose four blooming beauties, and we headed to my sixth store of the day.

I may say that I am disappointed that Albuquerque did not fly a banner over our heads at this point declaring exuberantly, “Thanks for helping our economy, you fabulous, frustrated new residents!”

We grabbed butter, eggs and a can of whipped cream topping.

On the way out of that shopping center, I turned right onto a busy street, and we nearly got hammered by an aggressive sedan that raced up behind us. I thought rush hour was supposed to be better in Albuquerque!

At home safe but flustered, I labored over a fatty chocolate cake for my sweet girl and offered to spread mint chocolate ice cream between its layers.

My husband came home late from his new job, and after I had irritated him by crying and complaining about crazy Albuquerque drivers, told us that we shouldn’t physically put ice cream in the cake. Instead of homemade ice cream cake, my daughter was to have plain old cake with ice cream!

Valiantly my son Berto and I attempted to write “happy birthday” with the whipped topping on the barren expanse of the cake. Alas, the pressurized cream ejected from its can with all the force of a fire extinguisher. It was all we could do to make the carnage resemble “Happy Birthday Ana”.

As we woefully surveyed our erratic clouds of whipped writing, we realized we had no matches, no lighters, nothing to spark her candles, those candles we had lumped together from the junk drawer the movers had packed with the kitchen stuff. (You cannot imagine our relief when we came up with 14!)

“Really?” said Ana.

My husband and I argued about what to do. Try to start a flame with flint and knife? Search all the boxes yet unpacked for matches that were overlooked? Go yet again to a store for a lighter? He left to procure a lighter.

After his return and a chorus of Happy Birthdays, I sliced into the cake which quivered and…

“Oh, Ana, it’s crumbling,” I moaned.

My daughter and I looked at each other and burst into tears. It had all become far too "tragical", as Anne of Green Gables would say.

But we soon realized that such a mad birthday must surely be more hilarious than heart-breaking 10, maybe 20 years from now – give or take a few.

Nevertheless, I vow that Ana’s 15^th will be a different level of celebration. Perhaps I’ll launch fireworks, organize a parade, buy her a pet ferret, send her up in a hot air balloon, or hire a boy band to serenade her all evening.

But we will never – EVER – move near her birthday again.

Birthday Boy

Berto and Papa

My oldest son Berto didn't want to go to school today; it's his 14th birthday. I didn't blame him. Really, he hates school just as I did growing up. Still, I made him go.

His birthday will be full of school, sports and work obligations just as his dad's was. Honestly, I wish we could take a breather some days - just pause for a less hectic celebration without other concerns pressing us down.

This weekend as we worked to prepare for another rowdy birthday sleepover, I was recalling when our boy was a baby. I thought of the blissful and sad moments of his infancy. It puzzled me that the sad memories rose too; I didn't invite them.

One of my happiest memories of time spent with my first baby (who looked a bit like a ruddy-faced, middle-aged balding man when he first entered this world), is those first several days or few weeks when I held him nearly non-stop in my arms, supported by his blue bumble bee boppy. Even while he slept, I cradled him instead of putting him in the crib. When he awoke I nursed and changed him and let him drift off again in my steady, loving arms. I didn't even try to pretend that I had better things to do, because I was as content as I have ever been in my life sitting there with my tiny little boy and reading Agatha Christie novels.

Of course, I thought next of how ecstatic Berto was every day when his papa arrived home. New to Arizona, we were the only two special people in his life, and he liked to see Papa for a change at the end of the day. There's a great picture of Berto as a toddler hugging his Papa's knees and looking up at him with absolute love. Matthew is looking toward the camera with a big grin on his face; it's great to be adored. They have a little more trouble understanding each other now, but they still share a million-dollar smile.

Then my thoughts betrayed me, and I thought of sadder, lonelier moments. I remembered when another mother made me feel like a bad mama, because Berto had eczema on his cheeks, and I didn't know how to clear it up or guess that it was likely related to food allergies. I was trying to wipe his face regularly which probably was making it worse. She thought I wasn't taking care of my son, that perhaps I didn't care. Her judgement astonished me.

I also recalled when relatives came to visit and assist when we first moved to this house. It was a busy, crazy time, and they helped watch the baby. Berto was not always a happy-go-lucky baby, and when I heard him giggling as I was cleaning the apartment bathroom for the last time, I rushed out because I thought he was crying, and our relatives stared at me when I asked if everything was alright. How could you not recognize your baby's giggle? they seemed to be thinking. How could I not?

Later, at the house, I tried to make my little Berto giggle that exuberantly again, and my six-month-old son stared back at my antics with a tired, serious face. I wanted to cry. It broke my heart.

But there are more good memories. For instance, there were all those afternoons in this house when we played a game I made up called Oogula-Boogula. Berto would crawl under our new dining table, and I would walk around it with all his soft, plastic toy links hooked together, chanting slowly at first and then faster, "Oogula boogula, oogula boogula...oogula boogula - Booo!", and I would try to catch him under the table, tap his arms or legs with the end of the Oogula-boogula link monster. Berto giggled and shouted and scooted away. We thought it was great fun.

Berto and Mama

And how I cherish all the evenings I held my baby's hand through the crib at night, singing him bedtime songs!

And how many days did we drive around his big, squishy fire truck and dumpster truck that he got for his first birthday? They were great, because you could lean down on their pliable tops and push them around on your knees and hit the buttons to make engine/emergency noises.

There was the move to a big boy bed (one from his dad's childhood) in order to give the crib to the baby girl Mama was expecting. There was the awesome look on Berto's face when he met his first sibling, Analisa, a few months before his second birthday. They were good friends as little tykes. They used to take naps together, giggling and squirming as I tried to wind them down with books; they got into plenty of mischief together; and Ana used to crawl into the hall when her buddy Berto was in timeout to keep him company and offer comfort.

There are many other memories I've written about here: Berto's love of Star Wars: how he is a great big brother; and what a talented writer he has become. I am so proud of my son, and many an evening he has pulled me into long conversations past bedtime, because I am very interested in his views, ideas and inquiries.

Really, I shouldn't still be writing - I have to go make the frosting for his birthday cake! But I simply wanted to take some time to walk down memory lane and greet the myriad specters there, some friendly and some a bit morose, and in taking that walk I wanted to remember that all in all, despite my mistakes as a Mama, the one thing I have always given abundantly to these precious children throughout the years is love: wrapped up in innumerable hugs and kisses, sleepy nurses, silly games, baked treats and words, sung or spoken.

And today especially I want to thank God for all the love we have given to and received from our Berto, and for all the gifts our Father has given to our eldest son. May God bless him this year, for what joy he brings to our lives!

Forever Baby, Danny boy

I always get sad around my kids' birthdays. What a very selfish thing, I suppose...but I think about how this time will never come round again: the four-year-old giggles that lift my heart to the clouds with joy, the bedtime songs sung religiously each night, the great dance moves that always make me laugh, and the little blue-eyed, blond-framed face that gazes on me several times a day with abundant love and admiration. Ah, my forever baby!

Berto, my oldest, tells me I shouldn't call Danny Sam my forever baby; he already acts like my baby. Perhaps he's right. My little guy turns five this month and is going to kindergarten next school year. He has already been riding a bike expertly without training wheels for many months; he knows how to beat me at Skip-Bo Junior and Doodle Dice; and he plays soccer and football with his older siblings as if he were as big as they are. He has even had his first crush already, talking about marrying one of the daughters of my good friend, Holly, and saying he'll marry the oldest and then date the youngest (wait....what?!). Soon he'll be losing his first tooth.

When I think of Danny going to kindergarten late this summer, at times I want to celebrate and plan and then at other times I feel a panic attack coming on. Like now, for instance. Once he goes to school, I know there will be peaceful grocery trips where the words Can I have a doughnut? Please! Pleeeease? are never heard. I know there will be hours spent at the computer typing, a whole post unraveled seamlessly in a day, without a little man hanging on my back, begging me to play with him. And I do believe - I do! I do! - that I will finally volunteer at a favorite charity and get to a thousand projects around the house, like collecting and printing all the pictures from the last few years of our family's life to assemble into photo albums.

But then the questions and panic come upon the heels of my plans. Have I made the most of my time in these several months at home with Danny? Have I taken him to the park as often as I should have? Have I played enough games with him, pitched enough baseballs to him in the backyard, explored new places each week....uh, each month?

I haven't really. No. We've stayed home more than we should have while I've tried to be a better writer. I've fretted over the house and all its junk, working to clean it and clear it. I've missed out on sitting with him during library story time, because I always seem to forget or one of the older kids is home sick. Crying out loud, I've let him watch too much PBS while trying to write, read or while wasting my life on Facebook (even if it did partly have something to do with my writing hopes). Of all places, the grocery store was our most regular outing.

Breathe, I think, as I face my shortcomings in trying to be - at least quite often - an active, selfless mom. After all, I have played Red Light/Green Light. I've done my best to arrange regular play dates, even if they weren't at exciting places like the zoo or children's museum. I've read many, many books to him in the afternoon before he finally gave up naps in December. We have worked together on "home preschool": letters, calendar, addition. I've baked with him and danced with him. We have challenged each other in countless board games and have scaled numerous playground structures while playing tag. And I have simply held him, kissed his blond head and gazed into his absolutely adorable little blue-eyed face, still small enough to be nestled in the crook of arm. My Forever Baby I have cherished, even while knowing he will not forever be my baby.


While writing this post I remembered that today was library story time! Being spring break, I packed up all the kids, and Ella joined in story time with Daniel even though she preferred to be doing something else. We got to shake our sillies out, pretend to be monsters in a revised hokey-pokey, and stretch to snatch bubbles before they floated to the ceiling. Later I took the kids for a very rare treat at the mall, letting them all choose whatever unhealthy food court fare they liked. Then we let Daniel, now a wee bit too tall, play in the kids' play area one last time as Berto, Ana and I giggled, vastly entertained by all the little tikes' shenanigans. It was a good day. Sometimes it's all about serendipity and reminding yourself that motherhood is indeed a joy, one that needs your "all in" spirit.

Ella Belle, Birthday Girl, and the Grandma Thingy (how her Mama needed it!)

A roller skating rink is where people go to experience all the joys of by-gone, dangerous childhood. You know, the childhood their grandparents told them about right after the old folks got done snickering at their grandkids for wearing knee pads and helmets to ride a trike on the sidewalk. Where else in this modern world can a kid go and speed around on wheels with clearly terrified or insane peers without a parent shoving a helmet on their heads? Where else can big kids and adults go to take out smaller people without so much as a by your leave or a why aren't you wearing pads then? All the roller rink needs to be really nostalgic fun is a few rusted tin cans with sharp lids for a match of kick/roll the can and a selection of spinning hub caps to throw in ultimate, take-out-a-sibling roller blade Frisbee.

Gabriella requested that we go to a rink for her birthday. I was a bit surprised, because she has never truly skated in her life. Santa brought her skates a couple years ago, but it turned out being hard work for the rest of us. We had to pull her around the living room between us as if she were a mobile queen; it was the only way she'd use them.

She wrote a letter before we went out for her birthday activity. The gist of it was something like this:

Dear Mama and Dada, Thanks for letting me go to Skate---- for my birthday, and thank you for not making me use the grandma thingy. Love, Gabriella

Oh, you're using the grandma thingy, alright, I thought as I smiled at her lovely little face. That was what I thought until we got to the rink and saw how much they charged people to have an illusion of safety. It was $5 a skate buddy to "help you balance" and increase your chances of survival, and that after a whopping $6 a person just to walk in the deathtrap! Add the skate rentals for a family of six, and Matthew and I had decided that no one needed a skate buddy; we'd probably survive with barely a broken tailbone, busted kneecap and couple fractured wrists between the lot of us.

It didn't take long for me to feel disillusioned and bitter, however, as I crawled along the concrete wall with Ella at .01 miles an hour, watching Matthew attempt to pull along four-year-old Daniel who very much resembled a terrified, floppy-limbed rag doll with no control over its fate. Ana and Berto, on roller blades, were the only ones having a decent time.

I got off the rink with Daniel and tried to teach him to skate on the carpeted area where he fell on his bum with less fear, and Berto came over to encourage and help. Ella was soon off the rink, too, complaining that she was already tired, but the pinched, anxious look in her eyes and frowning mouth gave her away. Meanwhile, I was nervously contemplating getting back on the rink with all the crazies, picturing myself falling forward and skidding wildly into some unsuspecting kid as I took at least one of my own poor children down with me. I paled and cowered at the thought. Then I got angry. Who were these people to charge $5 for the right to keep all your limbs intact, to keep your children safe during a daredevil activity for which you had already paid more than you deemed reasonable? It would be like the county fair charging you to lock the metal lap bar on the roller coaster!

So I charged up (well, carefully rolled) to the skate-rental desk and told them flatly that we were there for our sweet girl's 7th birthday and meant to have a good time if it killed us, but we thought it would be the demise of at least three of us if we did not get a Skate Buddy grandma thingy right away! Then I offered to turn in my skates and pay the difference to get the limb-saving contraption constructed of PVC pipes. The nice young girl looked in my eyes and saw the desperation that could quickly boil over into full-blown hysteria, and she offered me a skate buddy, no charge.

Aha! I went over to Ella, triumphant, only to discover that she far preferred the assistance of her 10-year-old sis, Ana, who had already taken her round the rink and shown her how to safely slow down by crouching gently without using your fingers to scrape the wall in terror as Mama had done.

So Matthew took Danny Sam out with the Buddy, and I went out to try my feet at freedom. Instead of going .01 mph, I went a terrifying .015 mph, and the horrible realization struck me that I was a total wimp who began to hyperventilate when she couldn't touch the wall. I tried to slow down and help some poor kids who biffed it, but I could only choke out an, "Are you alright...alright...alright?" as I skidded slowly away backwards, forgetting my skates had brakes.

When Berto, developing blisters from his blades, sat out with Daniel, my man Matthew came to claim me for a slow dance on the skate floor. No doubt he hoped to recreate one of our first dates when he took me skating and held my hand the whole time, pulling me towards him and being rewarded with a big smile. Fat chance! He tried to make it a modestly-paced dance, but he went too fast for me, who had to swallow multiple butterflies that were flittering up from her stomach. Though it pained me to see him skate away - a little too rapidly and gratefully, if you ask me - I released the love of my life in a panic and hurriedly flung myself at the one I was really longing for: the sweet, sweet wall.

No one wanted to skate with Mama anymore. Daniel didn't even want to go out with me and the "buddy", so he took it out with Papa, and then I took turns taking it out alone when he was resting. Apparently, my hunchbacked form was embarrassing, but though my Ella was too mortified to be seen with the grandma thingy, I certainly was not. I saw Berto shake his head at me as I passed him, so I smiled broadly, pointed a finger at my boy as if to say, This lap's for you, son, and waved exuberantly.

In the end everything worked out. Ella skated sometimes with Papa but more often with Ana. Daniel skated with Berto but more often with Papa. And I was free to be a complete coward. At the end of our little family outing, the only injuries sustained were a couple nasty blisters on Berto's feet.

I don't know what Ella will remember about her 7th birthday excursion, but I'll remember how she skated with her big sister several times and how Ana was so patient with her, going slowly when she wished to go fast, her brown hair whipping out behind her. I'll remember Berto being the great big brother he always is to Ella and Daniel on such occasions even though his feet marred the experience for him. I'll remember how we all skated together for the first time on Ella Boo's birthday and how my kids learned not to trust Mama when death/skating is on the line!

And though it made me lonely for our younger years, I'll think often of how darn sexy my tall, lean man looked zipping around the rink with his million-dollar smile, sometimes pushing Ella or Daniel and sometimes racing Ana or Berto as they tried their best to keep up with him.

Birthday Attitude, Spoiled and Sweet Romance

This month I turned 35, and I decided at last to become a diva. It's a late start, I know. It's also a little challenging, because I have never dyed my hair, use a blow dryer and curling iron only on Sundays, am too cowardly to use liquid eyeliner, don't buy designer clothes (not even at reduced prices), and have never in my whole life - brace for this! - gotten a manicure or pedicure.

But true divas know that you can keep your naturally flat, boring hair, eclectic style, smeary eyes, and uncured nails and still knock the town sideways with your attitude. And I've got that in spades - especially at certain times of the month. Ask my husband.

So I prepared for my diva birthday by throwing out my previous down-to-earth plans for hiking and picnicking with my family and instead demanding that Matthew take me out to an ultra fancy restaurant, one like we have never known in all our married life. Though previously my frugal tendencies might have gotten in the way, I was about to turn 35, an age known for reckless enjoyment of surf and turf dinners.

I threatened to get my hair professionally done for the occasion. Matthew didn't flinch. He said I could get a mani/pedi, too - maybe even take a friend for moral support if I had a fear of uppity strangers filing my nails and exfoliating my feet with sharp utensils. So, as any true diva would, I demanded, "Why? Do you want me to get a manicure? Do you think I need one?"

"No, I don't think you need anything. I just thought it would be nice."

"Well, I hate fake nails!"

"You don't have to get fake nails. They can do stuff with the nails you have, you know."

"Like what?" I asked suspiciously.

"Paint them."

"Oh...well, I can do that myself."

I skipped the forbidding mani/pedi and began devious diva plans by dragging my clan to the mall a week before my birthday, so that my entourage could help me pick out a new, enticing perfume for the date night (having just discovered that my man was so-so about the one I had been wearing). Inexperienced as I am in this, I caved in to sentimentality when I spied Elizabeth Arden Sunflowers in a perfume boutique. I jumped, clapped my hands like a simple girl, and exclaimed, "Ooh, you have Sunflowers?!" It wasn't even expensive, yet I had to have it. My brother Nate and sister Annie had bought it for my birthday when I was a teenager, and one spritz of that bright perfume took me straight back to Tennessee. Named as it is after big, yellow, happy flowers, its whole essence warmed me.

I knew a different, more expensive perfume was Matthew's favorite, so I asked with puppy-dog eyes and clasped hands, "Do you mind, Honey?"

He didn't. He understands I'm a sucker for nostalgia. I almost suggested we get both, but I wouldn't be greedy. So I dropped a hint about Christmas.

Afterward, I forced my peeps to shop for a pair of curvy jeans (because real divas have curves), and we spent in excess of $40 on the dark-washed, long-legged pair which made me feel quite naughty.

To top off a truly lovely, successful shopping trip, Matthew bought me a box of chocolates, all dark, and I stuffed some in my mouth before we even got home, as any self-respecting diva would.

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There was something about this birthday. I don't fully understand myself what slapped me silly over this number. 30 barely got a nod from me, but 35 felt important. I would like to say my desire for a special evening was because I wanted to celebrate years of continuous blessings, because my life has been just that, but it wasn't that pure. Insecurity pinched my brain, too.

With a recent promotion at work, Matthew has been traveling more and has attended some very nice work dinners with his fellow professionals in town and out of it. Those fancy dinners made me jealous, I'm sorry to admit. Were all of Matthew's decadent meals to be eaten with coworkers? Was I destined to become the boring, homebody wife, not quite a bona-fide writer, with whom he ate take-out pizza on the occasional Friday night?

That was why I requested the fancy restaurant, and I wanted him to choose it for me. I wanted pampering; I wanted romance; and I wanted to make memories together over our own delicious entrees. Plus, I had a little black dress, purchased on a whim months before, that I had yet to wear. It would be perfect.

My 35th was on a Saturday, and we were going out on Sunday night. Though there was a small misunderstanding about who was supposed to find the restaurant, by Friday afternoon Matthew had it all planned.

My husband snuck out of our bedroom Saturday morning and kept shushing the kids, but I had trouble sleeping in; I was too excited. Some minutes after I heard my family leave for the store, I went out to see the birthday sign my children had made for me. I picked out each contribution to the banner easily; they all have their own distinct artistic styles and color preferences. The sign was so beautiful that I sent my husband a praising text.

I was cleaning our house for the new babysitter when Matthew and the children walked in with flowers, balloons, and a very tall salted-caramel mocha, my favorite. As I sipped my skinny, decaf mocha with whipped cream, slowly getting the jitters, Matthew told one of the kids to retrieve a small bag for him from their toy cupboard. Inside was a bottle of J'adore, that other expensive, sensual perfume.

"You shouldn't have," I told him bashfully. "We're going out for that fancy dinner."

That afternoon he made my cake while I watched an old movie with the kids, and later I painted my nails a deep coral color and became so mesmerized by them that I held my hands out in front of me like a sleepwalker, admiring them wherever I went. Having been years since I last painted them, I forgot how pretty they could look.

That day I was joyful, and there could not have been a better finale to it than to eat the pumpkin-chocolate cake that is my forever birthday cake. It has veggies, chocolate and spices without yucky frosting to mess the glorious combination up. The recipe is HERE.

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Matthew advised me to bring a shawl on our date. That was confusing. October in Phoenix is like June in other places. But I grabbed a fiery orange-red pashmina.

I had curled my hair, and for once it really turned out. It must have had something to do with that Freeze Hold hairspray I borrowed from my son. My new black dress, turquoise jewelry and older but sexy black heels complimented each other nicely. I did a smoky eye that didn't look like it'd been applied with a crayon and wore red lipstick.

We drove to Scottsdale and pulled up in front of Ruth's Chris Steakhouse. That was completely unexpected. Birthday confetti was thrown on our table. We had a veal ravioli appetizer that elicited sighs of satisfaction. We drank wine, and after one glass I was ready to sleep in that circular booth for a couple hours (it was already 8:30pm, after all), but then I ordered onion rings with my crab cakes - yes, onion rings - and they were the most delicious breaded onion slices I have ever had. Matthew and I both devoured them, and their wonderful seasoning perked me right up. The steamed mushrooms also were heaven, but the desert they brought with my name written beautifully in chocolate - in chocolate! - was truly divine.

Matthew took me on a short drive after the restaurant, and my anticipation and confusion grew as we slowly made our way up a manicured road to a golf club. It was deserted. As Matthew bent over his phone anxiously, I realized we weren't quite where we were supposed to be for the second act of our evening.

He soon found the place off a winding side street. It was a Hyatt Regency resort, hidden by gigantic palm trees, like sentinels in the darkness. Holding Matthew's hand as we threaded our way through the immaculate grounds and pristine lobby, I wondered why we were there. Were we going to see a jazz concert? Go dancing? Have another decadent chocolate desert? Were we getting a room?

Matthew asked the ladies at the concierge desk, "Where are the gondola rides?"

"You're taking me on a gondola ride?"

I felt a little weak in the knees.

The rides were in the small man-made lake behind the ridiculously ornate adult pool. Matthew had to jimmy the pool gate to gain access. Here more gorgeous, skyscraper palms marched beside the sparkling water. We turned a corner and spied the gondolier in his tell-tale striped shirt, black pants and mustache. Two couples were there before us, so we sat on the broad lip of a fire pit that sparked our clothes and smoked our hair, but its warmth was welcoming and romantic. I was grateful for it and the shawl and Matthew's encircling arm, despite the fact that he kept pinching my bum.

The enchantment increased when we heard the gondolier's powerful voice singing Italian somewhere over the water.

I was excited when out turn came, giggling over my difficulty in stepping down into the gondola with those shoes and that dress. We faced away from the gondolier who said after a minute, "So, obviously we're dating..."

I laughed. "We're married."

He asked if it was our anniversary. My birthday, I told him.

"I knew it must be special occasion. Both dressed to the nines."

He sang Happy Birthday to me, but I didn't recognize it - despite the fact that my name was mentioned - because it was sung slowly in Italian. We then told him we had been married 13 years, had two girls and two boys, and he told us of his own five boys and one daughter, the one his wife had been waiting for.

"Now, Hillary, where are you from?" he asked. He said I had an accent. Matthew and I laughed. I have been accused of having an accent all my life, but people are at a loss to place it. Am I French? Irish? Spanish? English? I've heard them all. I usually tell them Tennessee, and they respond skeptically, "Well, maybe that's it..."

Next he serenaded us with a charming Neapolitan song about kissing, explaining that in it a man was describing his girl's sweet little mouth with its cute pucker and how he couldn't resist it. It was performed so well in his clear tenor as we slid through that dark water beneath a crescent moon and stars, I was inspired and would have passionately kissed Matthew, but the gondolier was watching and seemed a little nervous we might get amorous.

As we stepped out at the end, he told us we didn't look old enough to be married 13 years with four kids, and I thanked him profusely, assuring him that we don't hear that often. Then Matthew and I strolled past the magnificent pool once more and through the rest of that grand resort, holding hands, headed home.

It was such a wonderful, unexpected gift from Matthew, the memory of how he surprised me with an idyllic gondola ride on my birthday. My 35th was really special, more so than this diva could have dreamed, thanks to my romantic man.

In Honor of Ella Boo's birthday: I need to go to the hospital, because you're sick, and I'm three

Our precious curly-haired, almond-eyed, Batman-loving, Miss Dynamic Personality, aka Ella Boo, turned six today. I badly wanted to write a new post or edit the really, really long one about her birth down to a readable length for the occasion. I failed at those attempts, though I tried in any spare moment I could find. I feel almost too frazzled to write in the near future, but I hope I may soon.

Meanwhile, here is a post originally published almost three years ago. Happy Birthday, our Ella!


Ella wanted a shot yesterday. She definitely had a strong feeling she needed it to save her life...or at the very least an appendage.

Ella's desire to see a licensed healthcare professional was the result of Ana's waking up yesterday in the wee wee wee hours of the morning with a bad earache. I told her to come to me. I was sprawled out on the recliner, pinned beneath a nine-month-old baby. I soon had to send her down the hall to her papa, however, because she was crying, and Mama's comfort wasn't enough. The baby needed to sleep, and she needed medicine which I was unable to get for her.

In the morning I made an appointment to see the pediatrician in the afternoon.

"Does your ear still hurt?" I asked sweet Miss Ana when I got off the phone.

She looked at me with her pale face and fever eyes and made a little shrug. "A little," she said timidly.

"My ear hurts," said Ella clearly to her Papa and me, not one inch of her face pinched or puckered with pain.

"Competing for attention," I whispered aside to Matthew. Then to Ella, "Where does it hurt? Show me."

She pointed to her earlobe.

"Earlobe," I whispered to Matthew, practically rolling my eyes, before saying to Ella, "Come here. Let Mama see."

As soon as she came close enough I reached out and gave her ear a good tug. No reaction. I turned to find Matthew giving me a look like, Really? That's your great motherly diagnostic skill?

"What?" I asked defensively. "If her ear was really hurting, she would have made a face or yelled or something. She's fine."

Matthew picked her up in his arms and leaned his dark head against her much fairer curly head.

"Are you sick?" he asked.

"Yeah. I need to go to the hospital."

(I gave her that line for free. I'm always telling her that if she jumps on the bed and hits her head or eats toothpaste or something, I'll have to take her to the hospital.)

"Really?" said Matthew. "Do you need a shot? They'll probably give you a shot."

Clever, I thought, applauding his cunning in my head. Ella paused a long moment, looking away from her papa and then back again. Then she straightened in his arms and looked him full in the face.

"Yes."

I laughed. You had to give it to her. She wanted that attention bad. And it's not like she doesn't get her fair share, but in Ella's world any time spent worrying about, cuddling with, or talking to other children is a sheer waste of precious parental resources that should be expended on her. This means if one of the older two complains of a sudden stomachache, Ella will come and sit on Matthew's or my lap and say pitifully, "My tummy hurts!" If we're talking about Berto's allergies, we might feel a little tap on our shoulder and turn to find Ella who says, "I've got an allergy."

"No, you don't!" we tell her.

"Yes, I do," she insists.

Ella doesn't even like that her siblings are ahead of her in the teeth department. Recently, she told her Papa and me that she had two loose teeth and lost them both. Then sticking out both index fingers and holding them up one at a time, she said, "And the tooth fairy brought me a dollar...and another dollar. Two dollars!"

"No, she didn't, but she will," I told her. Then I bent down to her level and said gently, "Someday, Ella, you will be a big girl, and..."

Ella turned her back and walked away. She wasn't about to let me rain on her parade. "Two teeth!" she called back. "And two dollars!"


Right now, she really is missing her two top front teeth, and it is adorable - even she thinks so...:); time flies, my friends.

Happy Birthday, my Berto

On my children's birthdays, I am always busy trying to bake and frost the cake, pick out birthday books, and make a birthday sign with their siblings. Inevitably the moment comes, however, when it hits me that this day means they are older, grown and changed - far from that tiny nursing baby who I struggle to remember holding - and then I am sad.

Yesterday was my handsome son Berto's birthday. As I read How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight by Jane Yolen and Mark Teague to his little brother Danny before naptime, the moment came. Suddenly I choked up and paused. Why on earth was I sad? The emotion always ambushes me. I'm so busy I forget to anticipate it.

Yet I understood when I thought for a second. The book used to be a favorite of Berto's when he was a little tyke. He had to have it each night before bedtime. Papa read the papa parts, mama the mama ones. Then we took turns on the last few pages, giving kisses and hugs as they fell in the story, before we read together, Good night. Good night, little dinosaur.

Now he drapes his big 11-year-old body over a whole recliner and reads to himself, the Harry Potter series, books by Rick Riordin, and sports fiction by Mike Lupica.

When he was first born, I sat in that same recliner in the spacious master bedroom of our apartment, the sun streaming in through the long windows along two walls, and held the boy as he nursed and slept. As a new mother I found nothing in the world pressing enough to tempt me from that child. Cradling my tiny son on his bumblebee boppy in perfect comfort and contentment, I read Agatha Christie for hours as we rocked in quiet. I often think back to the luxury of that time I had with him. It's something I could not have with any of his siblings after; it's special.

And now I'm crying. It makes no sense, I know. Birthdays are celebrations, for crying out loud. And I celebrate all the one-on-one time I've had with Berto, like taking him to see the Hobbit just last year and trying to cover his eyes every several minutes with my hands (he just yanked them away). And I celebrate him for what he is today: a guy who loves football and wants to be an NFL quarterback, a high-achieving student who doesn't like when his friend disrespects the teacher, a big brother who is too hard on siblings but protective of them, and a mop-haired, fifth-grade boy who will do pushups and then monkey-crawl across a swing set to impress a few girls with his muscles. He is also my-not-so-little-anymore buddy who jokes around with me and makes mischief until we've both provoked Papa with our antics at the dinner table, over bedtime stories or at other inopportune times.

Our now 11-year-old son got the unabridged Dracula by Bram Stoker for his birthday book this year. Paca (my dad) and Uncle Nate, both big Stoker fans, approve, I'm sure. It's a long way from How Do Dinosaurs Go to School, and that's how it should be - even in the world of wistful mamas.

Pumpkin-Chocolate Cake

There are certain foods that go together, peanut butter and chocolate, pretzels and chocolate, nuts and chocolate, chocolate and chocolate...but pumpkin and chocolate? Oh yes, baby!

I discovered it a few years ago in a pumpkin-choco chip muffin at one of my favorite pastry places. Around the same time I found a recipe for a marbled bundt cake in a Woman's Day magazine. I was converted; this was my new favorite flavor pairing.

I am, in fact, just six years old.

The marbled pumpkin-chocolate cake is my birthday treat every year. I only have it in October usually. I used to make it myself, but my Man started taking over the ritual two years ago. I flew home from Boise that birthday after attending my beloved Grandmama's funeral.

Yeah, that's attractive. It really brings out my lazy eye.

Because my infatuation with this cake is complete, it is the thank-you gift I prepared for the trauma doctors and nurses at the hospital. They now likely have warm feelings for me...unless I forgot the sugar in which case the doctors flung their plastic forks at the wall, cursing my name, and the nurses took the cake to patients who pressed their call buttons too often.

But I digress. I'm going to give you the recipe, because it's time for Thanksgiving.

Never mind. I'm too lazy, and I want Woman's Day to take full responsibility if you don't like it, so the recipe can be found HERE. If you don't like it, though, I'm not sure we should remain friends, and I definitely won't invite you to my birthday party next year.


Note: I like to just plop in alternating spoonfuls of spiced pumpkin and chocolate batter and then swirl them like mad. My husband prefers to make neat layers of each (as above). My husband's cakes are prettier, and for some reason they taste better, too. I guess presentation does count for something.