Surprise in the Air

On Tuesday, I get to have yet another birthday.  I remember a time when I used to anticipate it all the way through the month of April, but now it kind of sneaks up on me.  What do you mean it’s already May?  I have to come up with a birthday list right away?  And suddenly there’s pressure instead of just the excitement.  Having M around helps some.  We tend to play down our own birthdays a bit, making them a little less stressful (although less exciting too).  His also falls in the middle of April, so once the festivities surrounding his are over, he starts pushing me into telling him what I want so that he can buy early.  That’s how I ended up with my new laptop a full week before my birthday this year.

But just because I’ve gotten my only present from him already and we’ve already cracked into my birthday cake that we got last night, I know there’s still something to expect on the actual day.  My mom makes a point to make a huge deal out of birthdays.  She was a little late getting M’s in the mail, so he finally got the rest of his gifts from her last week.  Yes, she sent several gifts for her son-in-law.  Imagine what she does for her own kids.

I gave my mom a reasonable list, and I expect at least part of the present to come straight from the list.  But there’s still this strange atmosphere of surprise in the air.  I know M and my mom have been e-mailing about birthday stuff, and when I slyly mentioned the fact, M claimed it had to do with the one birthday present of his that was still on its way.  Yet, when I saw him receive the e-mail from my mother that was titled “birthday,” he closed that sucker in one quick move and then tried to pretend it had never happened.  Suspicious.

I had a sudden brainstorm on Friday, based in part on recent conversations with my mom, that maybe she and my dad were coming here for the weekend.  I got it so much into my mindset that I almost did a little cleaning in our guest room and wanted to keep alluding to when my mom was going to be here this weekend.  I’m kind of disappointed that wasn’t the surprise after all, after I let myself hope that was it for so much of the day Friday.  Now I’m really anxious to see my mommy again.  I hope I can wait until Memorial Day when we have a planned weekend trip up there.

At least there will still be some sort of surprise surrounding my birthday, even if it wasn’t what I hoped.  I’m anxious for my birthday to get here so I can find out what all the conversations behind my back have been around.  Usually M is awful at keeping surprises, so I’m proud of him for keeping the secret this long, whatever it is.  Only two more days until I get to find out!