28

Happy 28th Birthday to me! I am now dangerously close to turning 30! Shockingly, life isn’t that much different than it was at 27, except that I now have toddlers instead of babies.

Some examples of similarities to turning 27 last year: 

What I wanted for my birthday last year: sleep

What I want for my birthday this year: sleep

Percent of the house that was clean last year: 10%

Percent of the house that is clean this year: 15%

Number of hooligan moochers living here last year: two

Number of hooligan moochers living her this year: two

Level of interest in my own birthday last year: didn’t even remember it was my birthday

Level of interest in my own birthday this year: remembered it was my birthday when I received a card in the mail yesterday. 

Considering I used to declare the entire month of April my birthday month, thus requiring Jake to celebrate it in some small way for all 30 days, this is a big change for me! 

My grand birthday started off with breakfast in bed (or should I say, “breakfast all over the bed”), courtesy of Samantha and Amelia, who, conveniently, were already snuggled next to me. As soon as Jake set the plate down on the bed for me, the girls shot straight up, eager to find out what smelled so good. Their reactions were hilarious when they saw I was eating in bed. ” BREAKFAST? IN BED? WHAAAA?” They took one look at each other, one look at me, and then went for it, hands first into my plate, grabbing fistfuls of eggs and hash browns and stuffing their greedy little mouths. They were understandably quite upset when they were removed from the scene by Jake, who then spent the next few minutes tearing off all the sheets which now needed to be de-greased and washed. 

Besides perusing Hobby Lobby (yes, I go craft shopping on my birthday), the best parts of the day were the many birthday wishes I received via mail, phone, text, Facebook and in person! The winner: 

Awww, Meredith and Marisa are truly the best!

Later in the day, the girls and I went to the park, as per usual, except this time, I almost died. Instead of hanging out in the lower park area, I decided to go where Jake usually takes the girls, which is on the upper level. Getting to the top requires you to either walk the long way around on a gradual incline (which I didn’t want to do because I’m lazy) or climb about 25 cement steps up to the top where the grassy area is. Jake handles the steps with no problem, so I figured it wouldn’t be a big deal for me either. 

KA-BOOM. KA-BOOM. KA-BOOM. That’s the sound of my beloved jogging stroller bouncing up and down which each painstakingly slow step (good thing the shocks on the thing are amazing). I had flipped the stroller around so that I could haul it backwards, which was the only way I could manage lugging all 90 pounds of stroller, girls and gear up those evil steps. With each ledge, I had to lean backwards, almost horizontally, and pull with all my might until the back tires hit the edge of the next step up. The girls had just eaten a snack and were probably not thrilled with the nausea-inducing bouncing/jerking motions going on. 

As I struggled up the steps, I could see two very ripped high school boys (they had their shirts off when we walked past them earlier) sitting in the dugout of the baseball diamond watching us in the distance. I’m sure they were laughing as they watched me almost die pulling the stroller up twenty-five steps, but I wanted to yell at them, “Hey! Get over here! You are buff! You could lift this thing with one arm!” 

After finally surviving the staircase, I collapsed on the grass and let the girls explore. 

After about twenty minutes, the girls were bored and had started putting leaves and dirt in their mouths to annoy me, which was a tell-tale sign they were ready to leave. I had two options for getting out of there. One was to go back down the steep death stairs. The other was to push the stroller up a grass hill until I reached the pathway that would lead back to the long route of getting home. Since the grass was wet and I was wearing traction-less sandals, I opted for the stairs. This turned out to be worse than it was going up. The stairs were so steep and the stroller/girls so heavy, I held my breath down each step, sure that the weight of the stroller would crush me and send the girls crashing into the cement.  I breathed a sigh of relief when I made it to level ground, no thanks to the baseball guys WHO WERE STILL THERE. Seriously? 

Un-chivalrous baseball players aside, I’m just glad I didn’t die on my birthday!

Thank you for all the birthday wishes!

Lots of love,