HAPPY BIRTHDAYS OF THE FUTURE WITH CHILL

Happy birthdays seem to tail off the older you get, and that’s just sad.

We all get excited for little kids’ birthdays, but what happens when they get older?

Around my place they get better.

Here’s why:

From the start I haven’t had major doubts about my kids. Or their momma.

We were a good team from the beginning.

To make sure they weren’t switched in the hospital, our kids were home-birthed.

The real reason is because my wife was a home birth specialist then, delivering around three hundred and fifty babies.

“It means a lot for the women who decide to do home birth. It means a lot to me. We can do it.”

How was I going to disagree? Besides, she was doing all of the work. Have a baby where you’re most comfortable, is what I thought.

Turns out new dads are very busy during a home birth keeping everyone updated.

My mom called to ask how things were going:

“Shouldn’t you be in a hospital?”

“I think so, but I can’t leave with everyone here.”

She’d had one baby in a Navy hospital in Bremerton, another in an Army hospital in San Francisco. Very spartan affairs according to her. Just dropped off and picked up.

After four kids total, my mom’s party time for happy birthdays needed a rest.

We pick up the slack.

TRADITIONAL BIRTHDAY DINNER

To keep things rolling along, start with a happy birthday staple:

A mashed potatoes, sausage, and cheese casserole.

Nothing rings in happy birthdays better than a heaping helping of food that was as welcome in the Great Depression as it is in 2022.

It’s a plateful that keeps getting better each time.

It originally started with hotdogs, Velveeta, and powdered potatoes.

Now it’s Adele’s organic chicken and apple sausage and sautéed vegetables covered in thin skinned boiled potatoes mashed with yogurt and oat-milk and cheese, finished with a shredded Irish cheddar top and a sprinkling of paprika.

With that as a settled side dish for eternity, add a roasted chicken, a flank steak marinated in a secret sauce, salad, and dogs.

Real dogs.

Dogs And Happy Birthdays?

Yesterday’s birthday included two dogs, puppies, one of them a big hyperactive puppy.

That’s her at the top, also know as my dog.

The other was White Lightning, my eldest’s dog. My younger, the birthday boy, saw dog wrangling at its finest.

He showed his own skills when they decided the dogs didn’t need no stinking leashes.

They ripped through the neighborhood like furry bats out of hell in a full speed race to see everything they could before jumping off high walls and sliding home.

After the wild dogs settled the gathering got down to the business of lifting weights, drinking beer, and eating together at a table set for three men, three women, and one of the sweetest sights on earth: a full-tilt toddler.

Our own baby was at the opposite end with the Special plate.

Afterwards it was guitar playing, drum thumping, baby rocking, and a special light in the moment.

It’s the light of cooperation and helpfulness, the warmth of being together, and with the addition of dogs, it’s something to bottle up and ship to troubled times and places.

Call it the perfect forecast for all future happy birthdays, like yours and mine.

More than anything, happy birthdays that stay happy feel like an accomplishment.

They are a springboard to the next year’s challenges instead of another weight added to the anchors of responsibility and accountability.

I’m feeling light-footed just thinking about it.