Happy Birthday

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When you have school aged children, especially elementary, it's amazing how much stuff they bring home from school on a weekly basis. When I was kid, I remember cleaning out our desks and backpacks maybe once a month or once a quarter. I guess times have changed! If I don't clean out my daughters's backpack on a semi weekly basis, I might find living things in there building little nests out of who knows what! I really hope that others feel me on this...or is it just my kid? 

This weekend while cleaning out her school-to-home folder, I found this gem of a paper. It was a little bit of a time capsule, if you will. There were two columns on this paper...on one side were a few "current favorites" and on the other, a few "predictions for the future." When looking it over, there was one thing that stuck out to me and blessed my heart so much! Out of all things on this paper, was her answer to Favorite holiday/celebration and she wrote "b-day!"

Most of you will not understand the pure joy that this brings me. I LOVE birthdays. I love celebrating others. I love gifting, giving and spoiling people. Birthdays are one of a kind and it's so important to me that those around me know how much they are loved and celebrated on their special day. Some people think birthdays are "just another day" and while technically they are right, it's so much more than that in my eyes. 

It's about making people know they matter a great deal and they know that they are so very loved. It's about blowing up balloons for hours and sneaking them into my kids' bedrooms while they are sleeping. It's hanging birthday garland and banners around the house or the office. It's using whiteboard markers and drawing birthday messages on bathrooms mirrors. It's about slipping little love notes into lunch boxes so they read them later. It's about homemade cards, favorite meals, and cake & ice cream before bedtime. It's inviting a friend to stay the night on the weekend and building blanket forts and laughing until the wee hours of the morning. It's about making people wear silly crowns, birthday buttons and ribbon sashes. It's about spoiling them all day, just because they were born.

It's not about money or big extravagant parties. I grew up poor. We didn't have big parties or fancy new gadgets every birthday. But there was always a cake, love, a present to open and family surrounding us with love. That's what birthdays were all about for me and thats what they should be about for everyone. People close to you, genuinely happy that you were born. Those are the celebrations I want my kids to remember as well. 

So when I saw that my daughter chose her birthday as her favorite holiday/celebration, it warmed my heart. It means that I have done something right. It means that she cherishes those memories as much as I do, and that she knows birthdays are a really big deal! 

Friends, if you have a birthday in the next 365 days, then I am giving you a big birthday shout out for an amazing day! Happy Birthday to you! 

xoxo,
T
 

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