HAPPY BIRTHDAY Dear Son!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU! HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR SON!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!!!!

I LOVE YOU VERY MUCH!!
MOMMY

Birthday Memories

My two children are 23 months and 2 weeks apart...My DS's birthday --which is tomorrow December 7--comes after my DD's even though he's the oldest. As adults we think nothing of this. But children particularly young children just don't quite get it. Of course, I know this now but not when they were the "particularly young children that just don't get it".



One year when they were young, very young children --and when I had less than enough money (was there ever a year when that wasn't true?) I decided to hold their b-day parties together. I figured it was a good idea rather than invite the same family members and friends to another gathering just two weeks away. So I had their b-day celebrations together. I let them each invite their own friends. I ordered a cake for each one of them. (DD's was a Barbie cake and DS' was ET - you know the Extra Terrestial?) We sang "happy birthday" twice - once for each of them. So you can surely see that I was treating them as individuals right? WRONG! When my DS's b-day rolled around two weeks later, he wanted to know when his party was going to be. There was no explaining that his party had been on the same day as his sister's party - that he and his sister had celebrated together. He didn't get it that the two cakes, the two songs, the two sets of friends, meant two parties. I guess in his mind two parties also meant two days!



Maybe it was because it wasn't near his birthday...geez what's two weeks?! Maybe it was because it was before DD's birthday ...which if you think about it (apparently only if you think about it as an adult) it was also before his...but whatever the reason ...he felt for quite some time that he didn't have a party that year.

What can I say? I tried.

the Way I See It...Continuing Education

The way I see it learning or continued education is not an option. It cannot be something that we decide to do only if we have a degree to maintain or a license to keep. Continuing our education is not really a choice if we are to be connected, loving human beings. Maybe it is already clear that I think this as you witness my struggle with blogging and h-t-m-l codes and Thursday Thirteen formats. but what I want -no need -to make clear is that we each continue to have something to learn from each other.


While I am not old, I am also not young (at least by our society's standards) and what I am noticing is that there really are many, many other ways to do things. Not that I didn't know this before. It is just amazing to witness and experience. Let me tell you this as an example. At the place where I worship there is a young women "2Ks" who I watch interact with people who are not only different from her but often hostile. She is a gem. I'm not sure that I'd ever get to be as good as she. I watch her walk up to people she doesn't know and welcome them and start talking. I so wish!



I know that I may never do it as well or as easily as she but I can try to get there and in the getting there I will be closer to it than I would be if I never tried. not clear? pay attention and learn. don't be like a two year old struggling and fighting saying "I do it" ...clearly your way (nor my way) is not the only way...at least not the way I see it...

Two-s - Day - travel

Two places I'd like to go soon...

1- Alberquque, New Mexico for the fiesta hot air balloon festival in October...(but I'm planning a hot air balloon ride for my birthday so maybe that'd be enough we'll see.)

2- West Africa for a month (but I'd go even if it was only two weeks!)