The strangest thing about writing daily in a blog like this is that most people I know in real life have no idea that I do this. It’s odd because blogging is such a mainstay in my life, yet I don’t talk about it to relatives or local friends.

So, to the forty relatives I saw tonight at Grandma’s birthday dinner: “I write in a blog every day.” Ha.

My husband had to stay home (secretly he was happy to miss a family event) with our two sick kids. I took my twins and they had a great time playing with their distant cousins. The dinner was at a church facility which was set up for youth in one room–so there was an arcade basketball game, a pool table, video games, etc.

My grandma looked tiny and fragile in her hot pink jacket and permed white hair. But I sat close to her and we had a little private conversation. Her mind is completely intact and I suppose she feels twenty-two inside, just like I do. I was happy to be the one to fill her coffee cup.

So many cameras were flashing that I asked my grandma if she felt like a movie star and she answered quite seriously, “Well, I wouldn’t know.” I doubt she could even name one movie star. I doubt she’s ever seen a movie. She’s from a different era, a time when good Christian women wouldn’t dream of setting foot in a movie theater. She is aghast when my mother goes shopping on Sundays.

My grandmother raised six children in the ’30s and ’40s. The Great Depression affected them very little since they had so little anyway. My grandfather was a preacher and devoted to his calling and my grandmother supported him without complaint every day of their sixty-one years of marriage. (He died on their sixty-first anniversary.) My most enduring memory of them together happened when I stayed with them one week when I was about eight. I peeked out of my bedroom just in time to see them standing in the kitchen in a long embrace. I had never seen my own parents embrace.

For a child who grew up in a divorced household, this steadfast display of affection and love offered hope for my own future. My grandparents are the finest example of Christian living that I know. My grandmother, even at one hundred years of age, continues to pray for me by name every day of my life. She cannot see. She can barely walk. She lives alone in a tidy little house with a garden planted with primroses in a neighborhood sliding into disrepair. But she prays and listens to the Bible on CDs almost continuously.

I’ve always felt like her favorite granddaughter, though she has dozens of grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren. Shhhh, don’t tell my cousins. Grandma loves me best.

I knew she was feeling better when she appeared in the kitchen wearing her powder-blue pajama shirt with the pink flowers, the navy blue striped with red swimsuit bottom from The Gap, and a red homemade knit cap with matching scarf wrapped around her neck and tossed jauntily over her shoulders.

She woke up last night, though, at 11:45 p.m., needing to use the bathroom. Then she woke up at 6:00 a.m., again needing to use the bathroom. I put her back to bed again, and she slept another hour, then had a bath and watched a video for awhile before crawling into bed with me and her daddy. We were all sleeping at 8:30 a.m., when my son, The Birthday Boy, quietly opened the door and asked if he should get dressed.

Since my daughter seemed better, my husband thought I should go to the birthday party and so I hurried to get the boys and myself ready to leave by 9:40 a.m. We had to stop to buy film and a gift bag, but managed to arrive on time. The party was “the best party I ever had!” according to The Birthday Boy.

I napped with my daughter this afternoon while the boys played and my husband ran errands. Though the symptoms of the virus subsided, both of us were so tired that we slept an hour and a half. (She’s napped already earlier.) So far, no one else shows signs of the stomach virus. Time will tell. (One commenter suggested it sounds like the “Norwalk Virus.” It sure does!)

Tomorrow is my son’s actual birthday which means that eight years ago tonight, I was awake, timing contractions, having no idea that the smart thing would be to sleep because I still had twenty-four hours to go before delivery!

What were you doing eight years ago?

The rain falls today on my 41st birthday, also known as The Day the Challenger Space Shuttle Exploded and National De-Lurk on Mel’s Blog Day.

Later, after I’ve had my hair styled and blown straight, only to become frizzy again before dinner’s over, and I’ve feasted on seafood while gazing at a gray Puget Sound view, I will be back. To contemplate my journey, my recollections, my oldness.

Meanwhile, won’t you please, please, please delurk and say hello? (Pick a post–it doesn’t even have to be this one–and share your thoughts.) I know you’re out there–my handy-dandy stat counter tells me so!

And if you prefer not to delurk and wish me happy birthday? Well, then send cash.

While you’re at it, go over to Dave’s blog and wish him happy birthday, too. He was born today, too, thirty-six years ago.

Have a great day (in my honor)!

And now, photos.

Here is my 7-year old son posing with my 99-year old grandmother, taken on the day we visited a few weeks ago..

Here is the beach ball birthday cake . . .(notice the fingerprints in the “sand”) . . .

. . . and the blue-jello cups.

And finally, here is the Birthday Girl, who is now suffering from the headache-coughing virus my boys have so graciously passed along.

(And one more thing. The previous post was written using Microsoft Word with the new Blogger feature which allows you to compose with your word processor and then post directly to your blog. I like the Comic Sans font . . . what about you? Do you prefer this font?)

I sit at my desk with an array of six helium balloons looking over my shoulder. They look quite festive and I feel the pressure of their airy expectations, but I have nothing.

I mean, I thought about talking about my near-paralysis in picking out the next book I’ll read. Or about my determination to scrapbook my neglected pictures–which fades by the time the kids go to bed.

We’re going to a wedding tomorrow, which seemed like a lot of fun when I RSVP’d, but now . . . now I am worrying about what to wear and about how my daughter will fare under my mother’s care. My daughter is shy and a mama’s girl. She’ll do fine. But what will I wear? And will my feet hurt?

My daughter’s party was fun. She said, “I am so happy!” when we put her beach ball cake in front of her and lit the candles. She insisted that everyone wear party hats. And then today, she was ready to do it all over again. I’m just happy that we won’t do it all over again for a year. Today I spent most of the day attending to all the things I neglected yesterday while I was baking cakes and whipping up frosting.

Someone pointed out to me in the comments how amazing it is that my daughter was born almost exactly sixty years after my father was born. I never noticed that before, which is odd because I did notice that my mother was 37 when I was born and I was 37 when my daughter was born. I noticed that my mother was 59 was my daughter was born and my grandmother was 59 when I was born. Sometimes, I listen to my mother talk about her mother and about the heavy burden she bears caring for my grandmother who lives alone, still, at 99. And I think, will that be me in thirty years, complaining about taking care of my mother? Will my mother live until she’s 99? And then my thoughts begin to wander far into the future and I rein them back in. Live here. Live now. Let the future unfold without my constant fretting.

Well. See? I really have nothing worth saying tonight.

My daughter’s birthday is Friday and so tomorrow, we’re going to party like it’s . . . well, 2005. She’ll be three.

She was born on Labor Day, which pleased me no end. How appropriate to labor on Labor Day! Plus, I thought, we can always celebrate her birthday on Labor Day weekend.

Except I forgot that people sometimes leave town for Labor Day weekend. To get around that fact, I decided to have the party tomorrow, a day early, at the pool. Because I have daycare kids, the party will start at 6:00 p.m. and end by 8:00 p.m., at which point all the children will have bluish lips and goosebumps and chattering teeth.

The high is supposed to be a balmy 75 degrees tomorrow.

Tomorrow I need to bake a cake (from scratch, of course) which will be half a sphere, decorated like a beach ball. I’d originally thought I’d bake cupcakes, too, but it occurred to me that I can make cupcakes on her actual birthday. I have a sudden obsession with cupcakes. But I know my limitations.

I’m serving make-your-own sub sandwiches, grapes and canteloupe chunks on skewers, mini-bags of chips, blue Jello with a bear cookie floating in a gummy lifesaver and juice. I don’t usually make Jello, nor do my kids eat it, but the little clear cups of pool-blue Jello look so cute! So, they are a decoration more than a food, I suppose. I bought ten beach balls at the dollar store and I’ll float those in the pool and pick up ten mylar balloons from the dollar store on the way to the party. Voila! Decorations!

My sunburn has gone from ouch-don’t-touch-me to I-can’t-stop-scratching-and-my-nose-is-peeling. Fun times.

So, if you don’t hear from me tomorrow, you can safely assume I’m eating frosting by the spoonful frosting a cake with homemade buttercream frosting and scratching my shoulders with with my chin and juggling the wants needs of seven children while worrying about my impending party.

Happy Half-Birthday, Babygirl! (Photo taken two years ago . . . now she’s two and a half!)