Birthday Blues

My biggest birthday present was that I got to suffer through our second night of Parent Teacher Conferences. I've slept over at my parent's two nights in a row because they live right by my school, and with parent teacher conferences and the early morning math tutoring that I do, my schedule is 6:45 A.M. to 8:15 P.M. Wahoo. Before I left for school, I noticed a rad red coat hanging up in my mom's room. Guaranteed that's mine. So I took the plastic off, cut off the tags, and wore it to school. Later that night, my mom cooed about how great it looked, "You found your coat! I didn't wrap any of your presents, did you find the rest?" Frowny face. No. I didn't go treasure hunting for my presents. A treasure hunt would have been great though.

Ben's in Korea with the army right now, and we've only had e-mail contact. During a lull when I had no line, I ran out into the hall to check my messages because there was a strange number, and Mr./Mrs. Stranger had left a message. Of course I got my hopes up which is not a rare occurrence. My message was in and out, and I was frantic as I kept walking from wall to wall, trying to find a good spot in the basement of our school. Dear, sweet, custodian Bruce laughed at me, held my shoulders, and walked me to a good spot in the hallway. As soon as I recognized Benjamima's voice leaving me a sweet birthday message, I literally stomped my foot. It was way too dramatic. My lip got quivery, and I'll admit it, tears were on their way. Stupid parent teacher conferences.

My dad always sends me flowers, but not this birthday. It felt like my entire family was shrugging. "Amy's birthday? Oh. Eh." Last year they sent a singing gorilla to my school.







So I thought for sure that when I rolled into my parent's later that night, there would be some sort of excitement. Nothing. Was I supposed to ask for my birthday presents? I did not understand the situation that I was in. Plus, my Grandma Bateman never called me. She ALWAYS calls super early and belts Happy Birthday in her sweet old lady sing-song voice.

Em eventually wandered up from the basement, and she asked what I got for my birthday. Nothing. She laughed really hard, realized I wasn't joking, and upped her laughter. "Stay right here," she assured me. She brought down a cute purse that has little trucks on it, and inside were red shoes. I love them. Good ol' Em saved my birthday. She and I went to the store and she bought us some Girl Scout Cookie ice cream. Delish. My dad managed to finish the whole thing in less than 24 hours. Not joking.

The next day on the announcements, my Geometry boy, Peter Hansen, wished me a happy birthday, one day too late. He and another SBO, Edward, found out at parent teacher conferences. I was bent over, totalling my parent visits, when I hear a whispered version of the birthday song drifting from behind me. They were softly singing to me, and I thought it was because they didn't want to let everyone else in the gym know. "No. We sang to Mrs. Gainer's mom, and Mrs. McCallum yelled at us because we were being 'obnoxious and loud'." After Peter's shout out on the announcements, all day long I listened to my little dears, "Why didn't you tell us?! I would have brought something." Maybe I should have told them. It sure would have cheered me up at school.

One of my geometry classes asked how old I was."Twenty whopping six," I replied."Whoa! Are you sad?" What? No, I'm not sad. I should have had them guess how old I was. I think they were shocked in a, "That's older than I thought" way. Hopefully at least.

A lot of kids told me that it was either their birthday too, or their brother's or sister's or mom's ... It's crazy how many people share my birthday. Is it selfish that I kind of hated having to share my birthday?