19 November 2009

28

Today is my 28th birthday, and I realized this morning that while I always do birthday posts for the boys, and even once in a while for Greg, I've never done a real retrospective birthday post for myself. So I dragged up some old photo albums from the basement and scanned in every photo I could find from my past birthdays.

Surprisingly, out of 28 years, I only have photographic evidence of 5 birthdays, and one of those was an especially unphotogenic year, so I'm only posting 4, plus a bonus photo. We'll start with the most recent and work our way backwards (because the cuteness factor increases the further back in time we go).

Here is my ninth birthday, and let me tell you how cool I thought that buttoned bow was. You can't really tell from the photo, but my blouse also had some random colored buttons on it, and I was convinced that the combination of the two was the height of fashion. I believe this was the first year I was allowed to use the big knife to cut my own cake, which might explain why my mom is hovering so closely over me.

This is my sixth birthday. That's my grandmother in the photo with me, my mom's mom -- I was born on her birthday and she was a constant fixture in that corner chair at all of our birthday parties. Other photos from this particular party, by the way, include photos of my presents, a little bunny family and a bunny-sized playground, which I posed and made my mom take pictures of for me.

My third birthday. I have two memories of this day: 1) I adored my cake. When my sisters were little, my mom made creative cakes for them, much like the cakes I make for my boys, but when I was a kid, she must not have loved me enough or something, I'm not quite sure, but this is the last cake I remember her making. 2) I loved my outfit. You can't see it in the photo, I think it's under my arm, but the vest had a little plaid cat on it to match the shirt. I loved that little cat. Clearly my fashion sense was still developing at that age.

My first birthday. Yes, I looked like a boy.

And for a bonus, because I don't have any good photos of myself on my actual birth day or as a wee newborn, here's Baby Heidi:

And that's it for the birthday retrospective. I'm not sure where the other 24 years went, although I think I already mentioned my mom not loving me enough, so that might have had something to do with it. (Kidding, Mom! I love you!) I don't even have any fun birthday stories to share -- in the first place I have a terrible memory, and in the second place, birthdays for most of my life have been pretty low-key. If I remember correctly. Which I may not.

This morning over breakfast James said, "Wow, Mom, in two years you'll be thirty!" I said, "Yep, and in twenty-two years I'll be fifty."

"Yeah," said Evan, "and then you'll be dead."

I replied that I'm planning to live until at least a hundred and forty, but you know, half of that wouldn't be too bad as long as I get to spend all of my birthdays until then with the people I love.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

You can blame your lack of photographic history mostly because of no camera, but if it makes you feel better to whine about being unloved as a child, knock yourself out. Watch out for 50, because then the cuteness factor REALLY goes out the window!

Mom M. said...

Actually I'm not anonymous - it's your favorite lowtech mom.

Unknown said...

That's what I get for trying to be funny, huh?

John S said...

Aww... this is a very sweet post. I like Heidi-centric posts, which don't happen nearly often enough. Happy, happy birthday Heidi. You're definitely loved, and I'm so glad that we share family. I really can't wait to see you all next month. Have a wonderful day. =)

kim said...

Did you catch the irony of your complaints about Mom not loving you in a post following so closely on your own story of Evan claiming you don't love him? :)

m said...

great post! and those photos are the cutest :) hope you had a wonderful birthday! now we're the same age - for a couple of months at least, hehe ;)
lots of love,
m.

melissa said...

I can't get over how much Evan looks like you in that second to last picture. Too cute.

karen said...

lol - Kim made a good observation :)
Glad to hear Evan is so supportive of you on your birthday - where in the world did he get his personality from?

At any rate, I really enjoyed this post - hope you keep up your own birthday posts in the future. And, of course, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! (sorry it's belated) - cannot wait to see you guys!!!

Jessica said...

I didn't comment on this when I first saw it?? I loved the flash-back of pictures of little Heidi. I vote for more!