Today we celebrated the first of a string of events to commemorate the birth of my son. His birthday falls in the sweet spot of end-of-school, start-of-summer, spring-fever, good weather celebration season.
His “big present” is a new bike. His friends gave him water guns and things to throw outside.
He has his pick of fun birthday ideas – today it was making (and then eating) ice cream. Later in the week we will take him to a baseball game. The big finale is a family picnic with water play, sun and fun.
This all makes my daughter enormously morose and pouty. Because she is a fall child. Her birthday is the week after Halloween. Everyone is all partied out. She gets lost in the shuffle of the fall holidays. We can’t do outdoor things for her big day. Plus, all of her present-related holidays are jammed together in two months. It is a looooonnnggg time from December to November. Poor Sprout.
So tonight as I tucked her into bed and gave her a big pep talk about how much I love her and would do anything for her, I hit upon an amazingly wonderful idea.
I am going to donate my birthday to her!
My birthday is in early August, outdoor celebration appropriate, better spacing off of major holidays. Plus, honestly – I don’t need it.
I have had my fill of birthday celebrations. I don’t need cake and ice cream to be presented on my behalf. I will gladly eat them at a celebration for someone else!
Less candles, less environmental impact. It’s the right thing to do. For the Earth.
This is not to say that I am opposed (much) to getting older. I anticipate comments encouraging me to embrace my age and whatnot. I do, I will. I just don’t need the party.
So I am giving it to her. She will be my stand-in. We will celebrate HER 44th birthday.
She said, “You would do that for me?” with an enormous smile on her face.
Heck yeah!
And then she asked, “Can I have your 45th, too?”
Yes.
“What about 46?”
Sure.
“47?”
Yep.
“48? 49?”
You betcha!
“What about 50?”
Dude, seriously? You can have ALL the rest of them!
Keep swimmin' 
Outstanding idea!
My birthday is Jan 6, and my oh-so-practical (and scared shitless of snow) Mom decreed there were to be no parties for me. I was allowed to take one cousin/friend out to dinner. And I often got a combo “big” Christmas/birthday present.
I survived. I’m bitter, bitter, and alienated about it, but I survived.
Oh, Greg, that’s sad! Glad you’ve survived. The only one worse I know is my friend whose birthday is December 26th. It’s about the worst birthday you can have…
My Mom’s birthday is December 27, and her wedding anniversary is October 31 . . . so when we were kids, nobody paid any attention to either of them . . .
To this day, there’s a contest between my sister and I to see who remembers our Mom’s birthday first on the day she celebrates it . . . sometimes the winner doesn’t make the call until early afternoon, even now . . .
Enjoyed the read very much….. I never thought I was lucky that my kids were both in the summer before now.
This is BRILLIANT! My youngest was a Feb. baby and he hated that time of year. Just one more thing to be jealous of his brother (June bday) for. Luckily they’ve gotten over it.
I particularly like the, ahem, ‘give and take’ aspect of this for you. Wish I’d thought of it!
b
That is some brilliant mothering right there! Love it!
Uh oh – does that mean I’ll catch up to you?
I hadn’t even thought of that side benefit! I always longed for an older sibling :)
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