I Leave My Twenties Behind

That's right folks, today, July 8, 2009, my parents officially become "old." That is because it is my THIRTIETH birthday. I celebrated in high style. In the morning, Rachel gave me a birthday wish in her gmail status and promised to keep it there all day. Then, I got a card each from Donny, Ariella, and Yaakov. Ariella and Yaakov's cards were hidden, scavenger-hunt style, and I had to go search for them, following the clever clues. ("Look in the bookcase, Mommy! Next to the games!") Yaakov translated his card for me, "I love Ariella, wif Mommy Daddy." Then, LISA took me out to our favorite restaurant for breakfast, where we got lunch. In the afternoon, Ariella and Yaakov took me out (although I did the driving and paying....kids these days) for ice cream at the mall! There we were surprised by....Tonster Monster, Leezy, and Amichai! Leezy had planned on coming over and surprising me with a cake. She called me on her way over (without telling me she was coming, of course; hence the surprise) and I mentioned that I was about to leave to get ice cream. Uh-oh! Emergency! What followed was some fancy footwork and phone calls between Lisa and Leezy, trying to figure out where I was going, without letting me know that's what they were doing. In the end, this little boy in a baseball cap ran up to me at the ice cream counter and shouted, "Happy Birthday!" Weird, I thought. There's another English-speaker here whose birthday is today? Then, I looked under the baseball cap, and saw that it was, in fact, Tani, one of my top 8 favorite nephews!

Leezy gave me my cake, although we were too full from the awesome fro-yo (a kosher one, this time) to eat it. All in all, a fantabulous birthday.

When we got home, I served reheated noodles for dinner (who needs a fancy dinner when you have a tummy full of bullets in a goblet? Haha - let's see which Loyal Readers can decode that!) Ariella suddenly became very teary. This is a frequent occurrence, usually due to some provocation on Yaakov's part. She is quite the girl, tears-wise. Anyway, this particular instance of wailing was because she is very sad that one day she will have to leave us and go live on her own. I reassured her that if she wants, she can live with us, gulp, FOR-EV-ER. She can even live with us after she gets married. "I don't want to get married," she told me, "I just want to stay with you." It was, of course, very touching.

Now, there is a reason I am recording this with as much detail as possible. In about 5-10 years (ploose/meenoose), Ariella will be saying something along the lines of, "I hate you/ I want to move out/ I can't wait till I don't have to live in this stupid house with these stupid parents/ Moshe and I are in love and we're getting married and going to outer space together [the astronaut plan is currently under discussion with Moshe]/Noam and I are in love and we're getting married and going to camp together/etc, etc, etc." At that moment in time, I will sit down at my computer, whip out my reading glasses, and come back to this blog post, to recall that at one point, she did love me.

Anyway, for the moment, Ariella and I were able to compromise by agreeing to all buy houses next to each other. Mommy and Daddy will, of course, be in the middle, with Ariella one one side and Yaakov on the other. Sounds pretty good to me, actually.