My Birthday and Bus drama

Today it’s my birthday and the scene where Anthony Michael Hall sings to Molly Ringwald in Sixteen Candles is playing and replaying in my head. Yup – dating myself.

You say it's your birthday
It's my birthday too, yeah
They say it's your birthday
We're gonna have a good time
I'm glad it's your birthday
Happy birthday to you

Having a pretty good day considering that neither my husband nor my kids, ALL awake before I left for work, wished me a happy birthday. Ah well… the kids are clueless and Daniel was/is sleep deprived. He knows it’s my birthday as he has arranged (on his own with no prompting or encouragement from me) for my parents to watch the kids tonight so that we can go out to dinner and a movie. :) He also gave me a rocking Mother’s Day present that it also half a birthday present (a 30 GB MP3/Video player). Kinda cool – no I’m not materially obsessed at all. ;) Truth be told the present wasn’t all that important and the no happy birthday is bugging me a little (just a little) but I’m trying to be mature.

Quietish day at work. I have a speech that has come back for revision. I’ve been told my conclusion is a little “flat” ugh! The topic is the Canadian Forces Aeronautics Act; the audience is the House of Commons – what I should throw in a joke or two, lol. How to make the ending pop – I have no idea!

Yesterday as we were leaving Church some random lady who I don’t know stopped us to tell us how adorable and CALM!?! our kids were. Excuse me, was she really talking about my kids?!? Sam spent the entire service climbing up and down off the chair next to me. He would climb up, his heart would get halfway through a beat and he would slide off the chair, give a happy “oops” and climb back up again. It was maddeningly annoying but he would scream if I tried to make him stay on the chair so I just let him do it – pick your battles eh? He wasn’t going to hurt himself, we were in the last row, up against a wall so he wasn’t really disturbing anyone but me. Kamryn was being a pain – she was defiant, loud and trying to be as “infantile” as her brother to get attention. Both of them were kind of embarrassing but I was watching other kids around us and thinking that our two definitely were not the worse. Still I wouldn’t have described them as “calm.” Too funny.

In all serious, lately, Sam seems to be calming down considerably (she says because the memory is short). When he gets all riled up, if you hold him and tell him he needs to calm down he will (momentarily) and will actually repeat “calm, calm, calm.” Of course the second you put him down he is off again like a rocket but progress nonetheless. He also did quite a good job sitting in time out yesterday. He screamed his head off the entire time but he sat on the little chair I put him on without trying to get off to do his screaming and seemed to “get it.” You even mention time out and it upsets him so he understands. Progress – slow, slow progress.

We went out for a fabulous and super expensive brunch yesterday at a resort. Sam was MORE than good. He sat in his little high chair while everyone ate and he munched on whatever he was given. He really enjoyed some rather exotic cheeses Daniel was feeding him. Who would have thought this was the kid who would ONLY eat chicken nuggets, French fries and chicken and rice soup when we brought him home a year ago.

He also sat in his high chair (without much protest) in the garage for over 2 hours on Saturday while we held a garage sale (in VERY icky weather). I had planned on putting him in his pack and play but I sold it. lol He ate his breakfast and his lunch. He played with the toys we were selling and when things got really iffy – he watched Finding Nemo. I was stunned. I wouldn’t sit there that long! We really had no choice. The weather outside was AWFUL – not garage sale weather at all so he couldn’t play in the driveway while we sold all his toys out from under him. He would have destroyed all our “displays” if we had let him down in the actual garage and I had to take Kamryn to swimming lessons in the middle of the sale and he had to stay with his Dad who was working the sale. There is a light at the end of the tunnel here… maybe.

Anyway, I’m an old Mom now. I don’t feel old though. Where did the last decade go? Still two years from forty but it’s looming. Egads! I guess I’m all right with it – as if I have a choice. I was sitting on the bus this morning ease dropping on a conversation about a baby and thinking that the woman telling to story look WAY to old to have a newborn (turns out it wasn’t her baby she was talking about but perhaps her grandchild?). Then I was thinking I wonder if I do to, look too old to have a baby I mean? No problem I reasoned because I don’t have a newborn but I was wondering nevertheless.

It was an odd drive in this morning. There is a pregnant woman who gets on the bus that I feel super sorry for. What?!? Sorry for a pregnant person instead of greedily envious. I’ve only seen her a few times. The first time I saw her I was sitting across from her and she chatted with her neighbours who had gotten on the bus with her. She was sharing that she just found out she was pregnant. She looked like someone close to her had just died. They noticed her moroseness about the whole thing and commented that she should be happy. She explained that she was but that her husband was not – it wasn’t what they had planned. Ummmm… ya all her fault for getting pregnant he had nothing to do with it whatsoever. Anyway, she gave a little half smile as they encouraged her and told her he would come round and not to worry about him now.

This morning they were telling her that next year she would be front and centre on Mother’s Day. Again, she looked like someone close to her was dying and I swear that after giving them all a half smile she spent the rest of the trip trying not to burst into tears. I feel so bad for her. I don’t know her from Adam and have never spoken to her just stared at her on the bus and felt bad for her. I’m the woman who at one point envied even women who had miscarried because at least they knew they were capable of pregnancy (I got over this fast!) Here I am feeling sorry for someone who is having a completely normal, healthy pregnancy (at least from what my bus watching can determine) but who is abjectly miserable because she is married to a jerk (my assumptions based on no real facts in evidence). Ah the drama of the number 22 Bus.
Now you all think I spend all my time eavesdropping on other people. Sorry, but the bus rides are long and boring (my desolate stop is the very first so it’s a long ride) and no one else gets on at my stop and my new MP3/Video player isn’t set up yet and my CD player is busted and well I’m just a despicable person. lol

Ah well I better get to that speech and my “flat” conclusion. I need to make it sing (I think my boss is around the corner – I can hear him chatting.)