On John's birthday, it was Evan. On John's mum's birthday, it was Emma. And now on my birthday this past week, it was no one else but me! :( On each occasion, we made the best of the situation and changed our plans to accommodate whatever the issue was. For my birthday, I had already planned to take off work and had hoped we'd go out as a family and do something fun, but instead my day off was mostly spent in bed or on the couch. And rather than consuming lots of yummy food and sweets, I consumed a lot of hot honey and lemon drinks with Tylenol for my after meal treat.
I knew I was in for trouble when I woke up early in the morning hours after having dreamt that I was scared to swallow. Upon waking and swallowing, I figured out why. My throat was really sore. More sore than I remember it ever being for a very long time. Then by morning, I had the body aches all over too and a low grade fever was setting in.
Luckily, despite feeling half alive, my morning was brightened when Evan woke up and came into our room asking "Where's mommy?". He then proceeded to walk over to me laying in my bed and say "Surprise! We have presents for you!" Evan had helped John wrap my presents the night before and had stashed them in his room overnight so he could bring them to me. He forgot to bring them, though, but quickly went back to get them. He was more than excited to "help" me open them (or do it himself as the case may be). He gave them to me and told me what one was as he handed it to me. Gotta love kids and their (in)ability to keep surprises.
John got up to get Emma when she woke up and when she saw me she came running into my bedroom to give me a good morning hug. She was saying "mommy....hap-pee day", because John had told her to tell me happy birthday. That was the cutest sound ever!
Then John made me a yummy bacon and eggs breakfast, which I was able to get out of bed to enjoy since the Tylenol finally kicked in. I spent most of the morning on the couch and then I took a good nap during the kids afternoon nap too. I got a nice personalized birthday wish from Google as well, since when I went to Google to search something, it had a special birthday logo just for me! In fact, I even asked John to go to Google to check and sure enough his page was just the normal Google logo. What a thoughtful treat...thanks Google!
For dinner, since there was no way I felt good enough to go out anywhere special, we decided to order take out from a really good BBQ rib place in town. John and Evan ventured out to pick up my birthday meal, and also to pick up a birthday cake. I requested ice cream or gelato too, since something cold like that sounded good to soothe my throat.
After dinner, John put one of the slices of yummy chocolate fudge cake on a plate with a lit candle for me and brought it in while he and the kids sang happy birthday to me. Evan is quite good at singing this now, and Emma even tried to chime in. After the song was over, Evan was already "helping" me blow out my candle, so I quickly turned my attention to blowing it out. While I was looking at Evan to tell him that I didn't get to make my wish yet before we blew it out, a very loud pop occurred nearly simultaneously while something hit me in the face. I was startled to say the least! Turns out John had decided to try out these old "Magnum Poppers" that we had in the cupboard. I think they were from a 4th of July a looong time ago. Either way, he was worried it might scare the kids, but they didn't seem phased in the least. I was the one who had the jolt! And of course, he got all of this on video, so we then got to watch that embarrassing moment where I got scared by the pop over and over and over (it's around 50 seconds into the video). It was pretty funny. I know I was the butt of that joke, but it was really funny to watch. John's evil laugh is pretty funny too.
For your laughter and enjoyment at my expense, click to see video of "Sarah Bday 2015" (or "Sarah's first heart attack, Bday 2015" if I had named it!) :)
While that was the only prank that John planned, there was one more surprise prank that happened just after that. It was time to cut the cake to share some with the kids. Evan had been wanting birthday cake since he woke up! However, when I went to cut off some of the cake it was clear that the cake was quite hard. I thought, hmmm maybe this slice is a little stale from sitting on the display shelf at the store for too long. But then I turned it on its side and tried to cut through it with the butter knife in my hand and it still wouldn't cut through. Just dry and stale I should have still been able to get some crumbs off it at least! What was going on?
That piece of cake looks pretty good, doesn't it?
Well, it turns out that there wasn't anyone working in the bakery department at the store where John got the cake, so he had to call someone over to help him get the slices of cake he saw in the display case that looked so good. There weren't any others like it already pre-packaged in the refrigerated case after all. However, we're starting to wonder if those slices were not meant to be sold. Perhaps they were even sprayed with something to keep them looking good longer, because I couldn't cut through them at all! Either way, they were not edible and I don't know how the person who boxed them up didn't notice how hard and stiff they were!? Regardless, I ended up taking both slices back to the store for a refund that night and they gave me two free slices of whatever cake I wanted. I chose ones that were pre-packaged in the refrigerated case and I even pushed in on the box to see if the cake and frosting was soft too. Both of those slices I chose were good, and we have just tonight finished enjoying the last of them (one was a 'colossal' style chocolate cake slice).
However, rewind back to the part where my kids were asking for cake and I couldn't cut the slice up for them. How do you explain to a 3-year-old that he can't have cake that's sitting right in front of him now because it's not edible? You really can't. Evan was so disappointed and exclaimed "but I want cake!" After all, in his eyes it looked pretty darn good so how could it not be okay to have? The good news is that we had just a bit of a chocolate zucchini bread that I had made left so John served that up to the kids as chocolate cake. That solved that problem (whew!). And then we also served up the gelato that John had bought and that was a hit (Emma ate hers up, all by herself with her spoon, in no time flat!). So all was well in the end.
And really, all was well in the end. Even though I was sick and we didn't get to have a big family outing, it was a really good day. And looking back on each of the other birthdays that had our plans changed due to illness, we also had really good days. In the end, what mattered most to me was to spend the day with my family. And the fact that I got to relax most of the day probably made it even better than being out and about all busy like. I am not one who likes to change plans, especially at the last minute, but having kids means you have to learn to roll with the punches because anything can happen!
These are the gifts that make my birthday complete!
One of the best things that can happen is to have your kids wish you happy birthday though. And both of them did that many times for me on that day. Here is a little video that I managed to get of both kids sending me their wishes. Emma didn't say 'hap pee day', but she was trying hard to say 'happy birthday to you'. And Evan sang his rendition of the birthday song for me all on his own.
Click here to see video of "The happiest birthday my kids could give me"
Now if I could just get rid of this sore throat. It's hanging on three days later, and it isn't strep so I just have to let my body heal on its own. Getting rid of that would put an extra layer of icing on my (new slice of) cake. :)
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