Happy Birthday to Me

So, last Monday was my birthday. Yes, thank you, thank you. I love birthdays, and I love being made a fuss over on my birthday. Which is why last year, my 30th birthday, was one of the worse ever. It was the day after my cousin's wedding in D.C., to which we had brought Caetlin so we could display her to the family, a real "Circle of Life" thing. She was only 3 weeks old, nursing like every couple of hours, we still weren't sleeping much. I was still bleeding, or maybe had just barely stopped. The day of my birthday was the day we drove back, and we spent several hours driving through Bruce's old stomping grounds in southern Maryland, pretending like we were road tripping like we used to pre-child. But we pushed it too long, and Caetlin fussed the last 45 minutes or so of the trip. I hated it for her, I felt so terrible that we made her unhappy.


So, woo, that was my 30th birthday. Completely overshadowed by my cousin's wedding and my own baby girl.

This year was similarly low-key, though without me feeling totally overlooked. I played volleyball with an intramural team from the firm, and Bruce cooked me dinner (which was fantastically tasty, I must say). Bruce also got me a Nintendo DS, since I have totally bogarted his since I bought it for him. Mine is pink and has been christened "Pinky." (Original, I know.)

This weekend I went back up to Charlotte; my friend Beth's birthday is the day after mine and she had a birthday/housewarming party for her new house and I made the quick trip up last evening. It was so good to see her, even if we didn't have a whole lot of time hanging out. I also miss Charlotte so damn bad. I listened to a good chunk of the Panthers game on the radio, and I just miss the team, the place, everything about it.


I drove back sooner than I wished, but still didn't get back until 4:30 this afternoon, and I've hung out with Caetlin and Bruce until now. I need to work- I have several hours of work to do this evening that I should have started already.

BUT: Bruce also got me this rad new camera, which I'm learning how to use. He's so wonderful- he remembered that I wanted a nice camera and how much I loved my photojournalism class in college. You can't judge the quality of the camera by the quality of the pictures here, but here are a couple of Caetlin at dinner time, where she was being a big girl (if a tired big girl, since she failed to take her afternoon nap today) and eating her food. One thing, though- she doesn't chew as well as she should, so she's constantly swallowing pieces that are too big, and making me crazy that she's going to choke. However, she has like three or four teeth coming in, so soon it will be easier than ever to chew better than before. As an aside, the one thing that has driven home to me that she's becoming toddler/little kid as opposed to baby is the visible-when-she-smiles appearance of teeth other than those in the bottom center. It kind of freaks me out, and I have no idea how she will look with a mouthful of teeth.


Anyway, here's new pictures tonight.