Birthdays & Babies & (a) Brontë.

Today is my 28th birthday, which of course means that it's time to quietly contemplate my own mortality and to look back fondly on the salad days when I was blessed with the gift of youth.

Kidding.

Mostly.

Last night we were all in the living room: K was in her cow chair (yep, she has a cow chair) coloring, Bob was in his Man Chair probably using both his laptop and his ipad simultaneously, and I was on the couch alternately trying to get some work done and ogling baby things I can't afford (because I waste my time ogling instead of working, probably), when it hit me: I had three and a half hours left to achieve something truly spectacular and then, well, die, if I wanted to be immortalized in the Forever 27 club. Bob just said, "Please don't," and K kept on ignoring me.

So midnight came and went, and I continued to toil away in relative obscurity. I gave K her morning dose o' drugs for her ear infection. I checked facebook to collect the first round of birthday wall posts. I took out the trash. I did a pregnancy workout that refers to one's ass as "buncakes" and repeats "squeeeeze the buncakes" so often that K starts saying it as soon as I put the DVD in. I did some actual work in between each of these things. I made lunch then realized that all I really wanted was an unlimited supply of baked potatoes and .... ketchup. I put back the non-potato components of my lunch and made myself a second potato. I threw my work manuscript in my purse, grabbed Starbucks (calories don't count on your birthday!) and we hit the playground since it got up to 65 today and it's supposed to maybe snow tomorrow and we wanted to take advantage of the weather. I rented Jane Eyre (um, and the Pooh movie and the new Barbie movie so maaaaybe K will stay in her room watching those long enough for me to get my Brontë on). I "made dishes," as K calls it. I worked some more. I popped open a bottle of sparkling apple-grape juice that I can't get anyone else to drink with me. I spent some time playing the "gas bubbles, or baby kicks?" game. If this is what 28 looks like, you better watch out when I hit 30. Who knows what kind of mayhem I will release upon the world!

Time is moving a lot faster these days. K is three now and has a full schedule that includes preschool and swimming lessons, in addition to her usual yoga and storytime routine. My grandma turned 90 last month. I'm fifteen weeks into this pregnancy and the list of decisions we need to make before the baby gets here is not getting any shorter. We're only 46 days away from Christmas. Christmas! Didn't we just get married on a 95 degree day? How is my car 8,000 miles overdue for an oil change already?

Questions for another day, I suppose. Maybe to be pondered over a nice glass of prune juice, and the early bird special.