The Birthday Duo

When I found out I was pregnant with Woodstock, due in early September, there are two things I requested of the universe:

1. She be born in late August, so as to dispense with all the school deadline nonsense (in case we're still living in a state with a Sept. 1 deadline by the time Woodstock is old enough to go to school). As a kid who missed the deadline by 9 days, then ended up forgoing the 3rd grade to rectify the issue, I'm especially sensitive to it.

2. If she was born in September that she be born on a day other than my birthday. I had always felt bad for my grandmother who shares a birthday with my aunt. "How sad, I thought. She had to spend her birthday in a hospital giving birth." What I didn't realize is that giving birth was the cool part - it was the eating hospital food for one's birthday that was really crummy.

As it turns out, she was born in September. On Sunday, September 9, to be precise. Which also happens to be MY birthday.

Other than the fact that last year's birthday present (Woodstock) cost me several thousand dollars and a whole host of medical paperwork nightmares, I shrugged off the combined birthdays. It was, after all, kind of cool to see the State Vital Records guy put on his glasses, scrunch his eyes and say, "is this a typo or was she really born on your birthday?" It was also rather humorous when the pediatric urgent care nurse queried as to whether Woodstock was really nearly 30 - and if so why she was being seen at a pediatric clinic (the result of a bad habit of writing my birthday year instead of hers).

But this morning, I remembered why I didn't want to share a birthday, when Himself asked if I could find a baby sitter for Tuesday night so we could celebrate my birthday.

I started to nod my head. Then I said, "No. I can't. It's Woodstock's birthday too." Yes, she's only a year. Yes, she is not going to remember it. Yes, her "party" was last weekend. But I might as well start making accommodations now.

I'm already going to be on her hit list when she's 13 because we share a birthday, a middle name and nearly identical year-old baby photos (this according to my mother. I haven't seen said photos in so long I can't corroborate this). I don't need to give her any other fodder for what is certainly going to be angst-ridden, teenage rant against the parentals at some point in the next 12 years. *sniff* *poutylowerlip* "You don't love me. You left me with a sitter on my first birthday ever."

There is going to be enough to put me in the teenage "you don't love me" category, I'd rather not add to it quite yet.

Starting next year (I wasn't smart enough to think of it this year), I'm not working on OUR birthday. We'll spend the day together doing something fun. And while I'm not ready to concede spending my birthday at Chuck-E-Cheese (she is, after all, Himself's child too), I really don't mind the idea of celebrating my birthday twice -with Woodstock on OUR birthday with friends/family and with Himself on another day.

After all, Woodstock is the one birthday present that will never get returned, go out of style, get stored in the garage, gather dust or end up in some long-forgotten corner of my memory.

Not a bad birthday present.