A birthday present

Poor Jeff. He has great intentions, but sometimes, things just don't happen the way he'd like.

Today is my birthday. And although I am 45 years old, the number doesn't really mean anything to me. I don't worry about how I should be feeling or what I should be doing because after many, many years of being completely off the "normal" timetable of life (nine years of college, a baby at 40 etc.), I have finally decided that stuff will happen in my life when it's supposed to happen.

Wow. That was a whole little paragraph of philosophy!

But celebrating birthdays DOES mean something to me. Birthdays are special. Birthdays are the one day a year when you can be the most important person. And you can think about who you are and what you've accomplished so far in your life. And you get presents and cake. And everyone makes a fuss.

I like birthdays.

One year, long before Biscuit was even thought of, Jeff and I were staying at a hotel for an out-of-town car show. It was July 11, about 11:15 p.m., and I said to Jeff, "Let's stay up 'til midnight so you can wish me a happy birthday."

"Okay," Jeff said and turned back to finish watching a movie.

Midnight came and went, and Jeff hadn't said anything to me. My feelings were hurt. I had even told him what I wanted him to do, and in only 45 minutes, he had forgotten to make an appropriate fuss.

But of course I didn't say anything about it. That would be too grownup a way to handle the situation. Instead, I turned over, yanked the covers up around my shoulder, pouted for a while and went to sleep. Then the next morning, I gave him the silent treatment.

"Are you okay?" Jeff asked.

To which I just rolled my eyes.

"Kimmy," he said.

"No, I'm not okay," I said to him. "I wanted you to wish me a happy birthday after midnight, and you forgot. And we've been up for over an hour, and you haven't wished me a happy birthday today either!"

Poor Jeff learned his lesson that year. Even though birthdays aren't that big of a deal to him, they're a REALLY big deal to me.

Jeff gives good gifts. He puts thought into them, and I'm always impressed with his efforts. And now that we have Biscuit, he likes to let Biscuit help.

But so far, every time he's let Biscuit "help" pick out a present for me (Mother's Day, birthday, Christmas), he was come away wanting to do bodily harm to our sweet baby boy.

The difference in how Jeff and I let Biscuit "help" is that I narrow down the gift then ask Biscuit simple questions like, "red or blue?" or "big or little?"

Jeff, on the other hand, takes Biscuit into a store and says, "What would you like to get Mom for her birthday?"

And because Biscuit is still in a stage of soaking in everything, he wants to buy me everything he sees.

Jeff took Biscuit into a costume jewelry store I like (nice stuff, cheap prices) and told him they were going to buy a present for me. Biscuit immediately walked over, grabbed a red pocketbook and said, "This is Mom's favorite color, let's buy it."

Jeff said, "I was thinking we might get her a necklace." But still, there were way too many choices, and Biscuit was not focused. And Jeff got frustrated.

Finally, Jeff realized that he should narrow down the choices. He picked out three necklaces and let Biscuit choose among them.

"He picked the one I liked least," Jeff told me after I opened the necklace.

I really like the one he picked, so even though Jeff was ready to kill him, I think Biscuit did a good job.

Hopefully, as Biscuit gets older and his attention span grows to longer than 30 seconds, these shopping trips can be fun for the two of them.

But hey, let's get our priorities straight. Whether they're on each others' nerves or not doesn't matter as long as I still get great birthday gifts!