Happy birthday to you
Celebrating your spouse's birthday is a lot different than celebrating a boyfriend, or even a fiance's birthday. For one thing, its really great being able to simply roll over and wish your husband happy birthday, first thing in the morning. It does make surprising one's spouse more difficult though, seeing as how you can't hide too much from him.
Even more odd is the gift-giving ritual. Particularly since I am not working and Bryan is working. This means that whatever gift I buy him, he has actually bought himself. Last year when we were engaged I bought him a really nice watch as an engagement/birthday gift. This year? I have no good ideas. Anything I know he really wants or needs is way out of our price range (a new bike, a full set of the Schottenstein Talmud), and anything else is just silly to get for your husband's first birthday as your husband.
I settled (so far) on making pizza for dinner last night - with tuna on it (Bryan's favorite topping), since we're going out to dinner tonight. And I made fresh cinnamon buns with cream cheese icing on them and stuck a few candles in for breakfast. And I sent Bryan off to work with an entire freshly-baked Black Forest cake, in the hopes that sharing with the office will make them more likely to let him leave on time today. His ransom, if you will.
I know this seems silly, but somehow Bryan's age change makes me feel older. Pardon the tabloid nomenclature, but I am now carrying the love-child of someone in their mid-thirties (Bryan insists its still early 30's, but he'll keep saying that until he's 39). I know I am young, but suddenly I feel older. Everyone always says Bryan looks young for his age, and no one would ever guess he's 32, but I have no idea what this means, to me he just looks like Bryan. And he's got quite a few grays (I have even found a few in his chest hair - which he vehemently denies, and insists they are light blond!), and wrinkles and laugh lines thanks to growing up on the beach. But when he shows up to work with toothpaste near his left ear (how does it get there, I'll never know) he looks like a little boy to me.
Anyway, what I'm trying to say is - I know that in short order all those chest hairs will turn gray. And to me, that feels like a promise, because I know I'll be there when they turn white as snow. Someday the little baby growing inside me will get furious at me and say "I hate you!" when I don't give him the car keys. And that's okay, because I know (I hope) that those times will be more than balanced out by the "I love yous". And there's nothing like a birthday to make you realize how fast time goes by.
When Bryan's mom called this morning (at the exact hour of his birth) she recounted that exactly 32 years ago Bryan was taking his first little cry, and she was knocked out cold from the anesthesia. And when she woke up a full day later, she turned and saw all the "It's a Boy!" balloons, and that's how she knew what she'd had. She said that to this day she'll never forget how weird it was, knowing that for 24 hours everyone else (it had even made it into the birth announcements into the paper before she woke up) knew about Bryan and she slept through it all. And how weird it was to find out she'd had a boy from the flowers and balloons. I'm glad the medical world has changed a bit in 32 years, and hopefully I won't have to find out what my baby is that way.
I kind of understand how she felt though, in a way. I mean, for 25 years I bumbled along through life, completely unaware of Bryan, who would become the person closest to me in the world. I slept through the beginnings, so to speak, when so many other people knew about Bryan. And I only got to find out about him later on.
So gray chest hairs and all, I am truly grateful to get to celebrate all the other birthdays with him. Happy birthday, sweet husband.
Even more odd is the gift-giving ritual. Particularly since I am not working and Bryan is working. This means that whatever gift I buy him, he has actually bought himself. Last year when we were engaged I bought him a really nice watch as an engagement/birthday gift. This year? I have no good ideas. Anything I know he really wants or needs is way out of our price range (a new bike, a full set of the Schottenstein Talmud), and anything else is just silly to get for your husband's first birthday as your husband.
I settled (so far) on making pizza for dinner last night - with tuna on it (Bryan's favorite topping), since we're going out to dinner tonight. And I made fresh cinnamon buns with cream cheese icing on them and stuck a few candles in for breakfast. And I sent Bryan off to work with an entire freshly-baked Black Forest cake, in the hopes that sharing with the office will make them more likely to let him leave on time today. His ransom, if you will.
I know this seems silly, but somehow Bryan's age change makes me feel older. Pardon the tabloid nomenclature, but I am now carrying the love-child of someone in their mid-thirties (Bryan insists its still early 30's, but he'll keep saying that until he's 39). I know I am young, but suddenly I feel older. Everyone always says Bryan looks young for his age, and no one would ever guess he's 32, but I have no idea what this means, to me he just looks like Bryan. And he's got quite a few grays (I have even found a few in his chest hair - which he vehemently denies, and insists they are light blond!), and wrinkles and laugh lines thanks to growing up on the beach. But when he shows up to work with toothpaste near his left ear (how does it get there, I'll never know) he looks like a little boy to me.
Anyway, what I'm trying to say is - I know that in short order all those chest hairs will turn gray. And to me, that feels like a promise, because I know I'll be there when they turn white as snow. Someday the little baby growing inside me will get furious at me and say "I hate you!" when I don't give him the car keys. And that's okay, because I know (I hope) that those times will be more than balanced out by the "I love yous". And there's nothing like a birthday to make you realize how fast time goes by.
When Bryan's mom called this morning (at the exact hour of his birth) she recounted that exactly 32 years ago Bryan was taking his first little cry, and she was knocked out cold from the anesthesia. And when she woke up a full day later, she turned and saw all the "It's a Boy!" balloons, and that's how she knew what she'd had. She said that to this day she'll never forget how weird it was, knowing that for 24 hours everyone else (it had even made it into the birth announcements into the paper before she woke up) knew about Bryan and she slept through it all. And how weird it was to find out she'd had a boy from the flowers and balloons. I'm glad the medical world has changed a bit in 32 years, and hopefully I won't have to find out what my baby is that way.
I kind of understand how she felt though, in a way. I mean, for 25 years I bumbled along through life, completely unaware of Bryan, who would become the person closest to me in the world. I slept through the beginnings, so to speak, when so many other people knew about Bryan. And I only got to find out about him later on.
So gray chest hairs and all, I am truly grateful to get to celebrate all the other birthdays with him. Happy birthday, sweet husband.
posted by Noa at 12:55 PM
4 Comments:
Awww. So sweet.
beautiful post.
josh
Happy birthday to Bryan. It's funny, I often point to my own chest hairs as an indication I was getting old! And btw, 32 is still early 30s in my book. When I turn 35 in just over a month, there will be no denying I will be in mid 30s, though I think that definitively kicked in last year anyway.
If it's okay with everyone I'd like to not talk about chest hair anymore.
And usually I hate "HB to my sweetie" posts, but this one was beautifully written and therefore palatable...
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