Big Day for Me and JC

Title of this blog comes courtesy of Spouse's law school roommate, who, in his Facebook birthday wish to me, remarked on the fact that today was a "big day for me and JC."   I would say that, all things considered, JC's day was a wee bit bigger, but nevertheless I was humbled and honored to get to celebrate my birthday on this, the most joyous day on the Christian calendar.

Somewhat bittersweet was the realization that this is the last of four birthdays, and the last of seven major holidays, that we will celebrate in the apartment.  If you had told me, when we moved in and I was finding a place for our Halloween and Thanksgiving decorations, that I would still be here on Easter, I would have laughed at you - as it was, I felt pretty silly about bringing a couple of boxes of Christmas stuff and only justified it on the basis that we might have to stage some Christmas card photos in November.  The idea of being here in December - LET ALONE APRIL - was beyond me.

Nevertheless, here we are - and I have to say that we have had some fun times.  I gave myself - and the bunny - permission to phone this one in.  I actually could have accessed the Easter decorations, which are in the attic, which is now accessible, but I decided that it didn't make sense to drag over stuff that would almost immediately need to be dragged back.  So, instead, I cut some decorations out of paper, threw in a couple of stuffed Peeps that reside in my office the rest of the year, and planned on calling it good.  But then at the last second I decided to freestyle a bit:

Yes, I put bunny ears on family photos. I also dragged PJ's Bat Caves (plural), Joker's Fun House and Planet Oa into the living room, to give the bunny some creative egg-hiding options:

Before going to bed, I realized that we needed Robin - you know, on account of how Batman smells and Robin lays an egg?  Except our Robin didn't lay an egg, because that would just be too cliched:

He laid a giant carrot.

The bunny brought C "The Brick Bible," which is a faithful retelling of the major stories from the Old Testament - utilizing LEGO dioramas.  Here's a tip:  if you have a LEGO-obsessed boy, "The Brick Bible" is exactly what the doctor ordered if you want said boy to consider the Bible a real page-turner.  (As the parent of a LEGO-obsessed child, you will appreciate the clever use of LEGOs from various building sets - for example, Sampson's hair, pre-haircut, is Hagrid's hair from the Harry Potter "Hagrid's Hut.")

PJ was partial to the invisible ink pens with black lights in the caps.  We let him take them to church, in light of the facts that there would be no Sunday school and that we would have LOTS of Sanctuary time, since we had to get there early to hold seats for the confirmands.  When things dragged, we wrote secret messages to each other on the church bulletin.

As alluded to above, Easter morning started early for us, as C's confirmation class had to meet at 8:30 to stud the Easter cross with flowers.  Saturday had also started early for me, because I had to accompany C to his interview for a junior camp counselor position at the Zoo.  (Big week for C, too, I guess?)  Thus, one of my favorite gifts from my family was the opportunity to take a nap between church and Easter/birthday dinner.  (Equally exciting was coming home to a clean[er] house after my Saturday afternoon grocery run.)  We had a great dinner with my parents and grandmother that was heavier on the "Easter" than on the "birthday," which was just fine with me.  Thanks to my parents, grandmother and mom-in-law, I cleaned up in the gift department, crossing off twelve or so items from our Container Store housewarming registry.  (Okay, I caved and registered, primarily because I couldn't believe that such a thing as a  housewarming registry existed, and also because it was a way to keep track of items that I wanted - but people took me seriously, and now I have my expandable bamboo utensil drawer, and the matching knife drawer insert, and a bunch of stacking bamboo boxes for the drawer that will hold serving pieces, and a TON of refrigerator bins, and three types of drawer liners.  (Leave it to my mother to intuit that I would want off-white in the upper cabinets, brown in the lower cabinets and the clear ribbed stuff in certain of the drawers.)  I also got a folding bamboo chair to match my other folding bamboo chair,  so now I have two matching ones to pull out when we need extra seating.  (Since the breakfast room furniture is going bye-bye, I no longer have four matching Windsor chairs to press into service as needed.)

Apparently, birthday #42 is the "bamboo" birthday.  And I'm okay with that, since bamboo is a renewable resource, and I would like to think of my birthday as being something that is going to be repeated year in and year out.

Spouse and the kids didn't buy me gifts to open, on account of the big-ticket "gifts" that are getting delivered to us on pretty much a daily basis.  But Spouse did give me a card that I plan on holding onto for awhile.  It says: 

LIFE ISN'T ALWAYS A FAIRY TALE.
The castle gets messy,
the little peasants sometimes revolt,
and we both know your prince isn't always so charming.
BUT YOU HANDLE IT ROYALLY.
Thanks for making every single day feel like
HAPPY-EVER-AFTER.
Happy birthday to the QUEEN of our home,
the LOVE OF MY LIFE.

That's just the preprinted part.  He wrote his own message about sheetrock and 2x4's occasionally failing us and kids growing up and embarking on lives of their own, and opined that, no matter what life might throw at us, he would be okay as long as he had me to call "home."

Needless to say, I bawled like a baby - in part because it was so sweet, and in part because it didn't feel particularly well-earned.  Let's just say that I haven't been Princess Charming much lately, either.  His ability to see past all of that is pretty much the biggest and best gift that I could ask for.

Onward - and looking forward to celebrating Easter and my birthday back at the castle next year.