Birthday Listicles

This week for Listicles it's all about the Birthday.  Yours, your kids, love them, hate them, whatever.  So here are my birthday observations.

1.  I used to tell everyone and their brother about my birthday.  I would, in fact, countdown until my birthday with comments like, "6 shopping days left until my birthday!" to anyone who would listen.  Because really, Aug 23 was all about me.

2.  Number 1. is not that exciting anymore as I approach (gasp!) 42.  I end up sounding like an old lady full of herself.  And no one likes that.  You can tolerate a cute 23 year old blabbing along about her birthday but at 42, that ship has sailed.

3.  When did birthday parties for kids go from being 5 of your friends at your house, eating a Duncan Hines cake from the box, squirting each other in your yard with the hose to elaborate theme based birthday parties such as the ones I have given my kids?  Sea Dogs baseball party, Red Claws basketball party, pony rides party, pool parties, and $35 Cold Stone Creamery ice cream cakes just to name a few.  I am clearly either too lazy to do things myself or just a fool.

4.  I love that many restaurants will give you a discount or a free item on your birthday.  I try to visits as many as possible in that one day.  Bummer that it is only for that day and not your birthday week.  My birthday this year is on a Wednesday--unlikely that I will be going out and about to collect my freebies since that is a workday.  boo.

5.  I share a birthday with Rick Springfield.  You know, "Jesse's Girl"?  General Hospital?



6.  I was born on the cusp of two zodiac signs.  Some horoscopes say I'm leo, some say I'm virgo.  I like leo better so I go by that one.

7.   I love birthdays better than Christmas.  To me, a birthday is a much better reason to spend crazy amounts of money on someone than the disgusting spectacle that Christmas has become. 

8.  As a kid, I never really liked having my birthday in the summer.  I always missed out on the birthday parties that the whole class would come to.  I would have one or two neighbor friends, but when you are in school, somehow the whole class gets invited.  Also, I never got the special button to wear during school, or getting to be the special helper of the day because it was your birthday. 

On the other side of that, I never had to get up to go to school on my birthday.  Never had homework or a test on my birthday.So maybe a summer birthday was not such a bad thing.

9.  Because of my summer birthday, I was one of the youngest in my class.  This means the last to get their driver's license, the last to get to vote, the last to turn 21.  The latter being the hardest.  That summer before turning 21 was so hard with all my friends going to bars and me having to sneak in with a fake ID not go.  My kids are so lucky with their November and May birthdays.

But wait!  Now I'm the last one to turn 40 and 50!  Ha!  I'm younger than everyone in my class now!  Maybe this August birthday thing is a good thing!


And that completes my list of birthday observations and remember--28 shopping days until my birthday!!