You say it's your birthday.

Fact:  every birthday of every one of my children occurs in December or January.  

Fact:  my mother's birthday is in January.

Fact:  the historian's birthday is . . . in January.

Fact:  my son-in-law's birthday is also in January.

Fact:  my son the soccer coach, who joined our family kind of midstream--his birthday is in February.

There was a time in my life when I didn't go for more than a few days without baking a cake. Today I bought a bunch of birthday candles, just in case.  One time, I asked my doctor about what might explain so many births clustered so tightly.  "I guess you all liked to have sex in April," she said.  Oh: that.

[via PinkCakeBox]

Anyway:  happy birthdays to running son (20), college daughter (22), my daughter the makeup artist (26), and singing son (28), whose birthdays have already taken place.  Happy birthday to my mom (ageless!), whose birthday is right around the corner.  Happy birthday to my daughter in Scotland, who will be 30 very soon.  Each of them is so splendid a person, there should be fireworks, parades, confetti, and all sorts of delights to round out the celebration. (Also, the fact that I will soon have a thirty-year old daughter--I'm not quite sure what this signifies, but I fear it may mean I am old.)  

I have baked nary a birthday cake this year.  Everyone's grown up, plans are more malleable, people live out of town, etc.  And I'm sure I don't technically need birthday cake, but it does seem kind of a shame.  The historian's birthday, upcoming, may call for an extravagant cake.  I do have the candles.