My Birthday

My birthday was on Saturday. However this year I had three birthdays.

The first was the previous weekend. It was around 2 o'clock on Sunday afternoon and Peter, Kathleen and I were finishing off our lunch. Victoria was asleep in bed, and I was starting to think about putting Kathleen down for a nap too. When all of a sudden we heard the back door open. No, not a knock at the back door, but somebody actually opening it and walking right in. I jumped up to see who it was, and found all my friends from Palmerston North. And they had brought the party with them, snacks, cake and all. I was SO surprised and was not expecting it at all. It turns out two of them had to be in Wellington anyway that weekend, so the third came down as well to surprise me. Well it worked! Thank you so much guys :-)

It was during this this surprise party that I mentioned that Peter would be playing paintball on my actual birthday, and so it would be a pretty quiet weekend for me. That's when Lou suggested I come up to Palmy and spend the weekend there. So I did.

On Good Friday afternoon, Kathleen, Victoria and I drove the two hours up to Palmerston North. Haven't been there in about 6 months and Kat has changed a lot since then. It used to be guaranteed that she would sleep for the whole trip but now that she is bigger she stayed awake the whole time. Thankfully she was content to talk to herself and me the whole time, and play with toys, and it was a pleasant journey. Victoria slept the whole way.

Friday evening all the friends came around again for a barbeque. Then on Saturday, my actual birthday, Lou, Caliope, Kathleen, Victoria and I went to The Esplanade where Kathleen fed the ducks and played at the playground. While Victoria slept in the snugly. It was a fantastic afternoon out. Sunday morning we had fun hunting for Easter eggs then in the afternoon we drove back home again, and it was a pretty similar story to the drive up.

On Easter Monday (a public holiday in NZ), Peter and I pretended it was my birthday again, and also that it was Easter Sunday. I hid marshmellow eggs all around the house for Kathleen to find, which she really enjoyed. Peter made breakfast and gave me my birthday present - a voucher for a massage and spa treatment at Is Bliss. I am really looking forward to it. Not sure when I'll go, but it will be one weekend soon I hope.

So there were my three birthdays. And all were lots of fun.

It's funny, but the last few years my birthday's have just felt like another day, rather than something special. That's probably because of one of three reasons:

• Four of the last five birthdays have been spent away from home: 2004 in Los Angeles, 2006 in Wellington & Palmy when we still lived in Auckland, 2007 in Washington State, and now 2008 in Palmy again.
• Since having kids I can't take the day off "work" like I used to do. It may be my birthday but I still have to get up at 2am to feed the baby.
• Since turning 30 I haven't really wanted to have birthdays anyway. It won't be long before I'm at the age when I dread birthdays rather than just don't want them.

In other news, we are all doing well. Victoria is growing stronger and stronger. I don't think it will be long until she is sitting up by herself. She still doesn't have any teeth, but dribbles and drools constantly. She is now very interested in everything that goes on around her. Kathleen is still loving creche. Peter is back working in Petone after a couple of weeks in town, and is back to the 1 hour + commute instead of 30 minutes. He is still looking for another job in town. Had an interview last week and is still waiting to hear back from them.

-Megz