It’s that time of year again. In my family, birthday season starts in June, and continues on through to the end of August – with a sharp interlude in January.
With Orion’s birthday on the 21st of July and Piper’s on the 29th of July, there’s been an awful lot happening in my house the last two weeks, and not a lot of it has been writing related. Instead of wrangling chapters, typing out adventures and editing rogue paragraphs into a better shape, I’ve been baking cakes, wrapping presents and arranging roast dinners.
Birthday season is always one of my favourite times of year. I love giving presents and making other people feel special, and I absolutely adore my own birthday. I’ve never been able to put my finger on exactly why, but for as long as I can remember, the countdown to my own birthday happens without fail, every year. For a while in high school I started the countdown in my school diary from the beginning of the year, and my friends would often joke and ask me how many hundreds of days were left to go.
We kept it pretty quiet for the kids this year, taking them to the movies and having family around to do the celebrating – and it was great. There’s a lot to be said for the intimacy of small gatherings and the people, blood and otherwise, who mean the most. I made a minecraft cake, a puppy dog cake (which may or may not have resembled a cat), there was singing and candles and presents and laughter. Most of all, two happy children secure in the knowledge that they are loved exactly as they are.
Every day is another chance to show your loved ones how much they mean, but I look at birthdays as the ultimate opportunity. If you can’t go overboard on someone’s birthday, when can you?
So here we are, out the other side, with my stories having taken a back seat and me with nothing meaty to say today. Still, my kids are smiling, and that makes it all worthwhile.
Oh, and in case you were wondering… nineteen days until my birthday!
Samantha Marshall 