The birthday entries are actually becoming more
difficult to write, the older they get.
You'd think that they'd be the easiest entries of all to crank out:
just dig up an embarrassing photo out of the family album and finesse
it a little in PaintShop Pro ... write a couple of
weepy/mushy/sentimental paragraphs, all about how much you love them,
how you hope they're having the best birthday ever, how tough it is to
be separated by seven hundred miles on this special day
... tack a few "Memorable Previous Entries" links at the
bottom of the page ...
... and voilà! Instant
birthday entry!
Instead, I'm finding myself having to scramble to come up with
something fresh and amusing and memorable to say, every time another
Tot Birthday rolls around. [Which, I might add, they seem to
be doing with alarming frequency anymore.] It's not an issue
of writer's block, exactly ... although after
twenty-three years of Momhood [and seven years of
*FootNotes*] you sort of run out of ways to say You make me proud, each
and every day, simply by being you. Thanks for being the light of my
life and the delight of my heart. I love you.
And it's not an issue of maternal burn-out. I'm as
ferociously, ridiculously, unconditionally in love with all three of my
children as I was on the day they were born.
I don't know WHAT it is, frankly. But I'm working on
it ... the same way I'm working on lowering my
blood pressure, getting more sleep at night, answering my e-mail in a
timely fashion, being nicer to my co-workers [even the ones I
hate]. The self-improvement efforts never end around the
*FootNotes* Factory.
In the meantime, let me just say this about my son on the occasion of
his nineteenth birthday:
You make me proud, each and every day, simply by being you.
Thanks for being the light of my life and the delight of my heart.
I love you.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY,
BOO!
xoxoxox