Birthdays

Rem woke yesterday morning with a sense of purpose and importance, arriving as he did, to the grown up world of three. He presented the rest of the family with an evening of much needed amusement as he exclaimed with joy and appreciation at each dollar item his sisters had chosen for him from the bins at Target. He entertained us by singing one of his Kindermusik favorites, “Bumping Up and Down in my Little Red Wagon” as he relaxed in said wagon sent from Slidell wearing a plush robe and doing his best Hugh Heffner impersonation as each of us took turns taking him from room to room in the house. The cake he fantasized over for weeks met his expectations and he proudly pointed to the worms he made that sat curled in the dirt cake bearing a remarkable resemblance to the dead worms in the driveway that he suggested we use as models for the marzipan.


Rem’s savory birthday moments played alongside my vivid memories of that sunny day in May three years or a moment ago. Passed, unaware from sister to sister and grandmother to grandfather, back to father and again to mother, that little thing, folding in on himself and with a head full of dark hair, sleepily passed the first hours of life in the unabashed glow of a mother’s high. Those early minutes, as full as a Pollack painting and as equally difficult to label, indelibly pressed themselves into the limitless memory of my motherhood.

The more birthdays my children celebrate the more apparent it becomes to me that while parties and presents may be special to the celebrant, birthdays truly belong to parents. Whether carefully planned or surprisingly spontaneous, the consequential moment of birth forever etches into each parent an expression of the best of them together.

We travel from those moments, parents do, quickly, whether we want to or not. We travel in an out of busy schedules, trying parenting moments and the frustrations of unchartered waters. We race through precious family snapshots as we sing at the piano, hover around board games, jump from rocks in the frigid pools of mountain streams, celebrate triumphant bike rides. The quiet embraces as limbs grow longer than can be contained feel as fleeting as when those unwieldy limbs were swaddled in a baby blanket. Mothers, though always amazed at the speed of life, the passing of time, record life meticulously. I remember being awed as women easily recalled the births of their children, an anecdote brought to mind in the presence of a new born. My grandmother, while holding my babies, spoke of the births of her children as though they had just happened. Even friends whose children were older than me, recalled the moments with unusually fresh details. I understand, now, how present those memories are in the fabric of ourselves, wrapped about us no matter how far from those days we venture.

I am at the other end of the birthday reverie in early January of every year. I never can recall the exact time I was born but I know it was in the morning and when the phone rings I smile, knowing that my parents waited until that time, my actual birth moment, to call me. I thank them for having me but only they can relive my introduction to the world. Although I was fourth, they reminisce with alacrity and, if I ask, Mom will tell me which bed jacket she wore, what antics Dad played out to the oblivious baby and who came to see me in the hospital.

Birthdays belong to parents. We can stage dramatic parties to try to reciprocate the unbridled joy our children give to us or as they grow and take control, we happily turn our house over to large gatherings of girls for the night. But as parents, we claim forever, the source of those celebrations.