I turned 44 at 1:07 a.m. this morning. Missed being a Valentine by an hour, but my mom would tell you that I am her’s anyway. 🙂
I love my birthday. Kind of a crazy love that I have had for as long as I can remember. Since I have been working, I have taken my birthday off, and so today, I took off from my normal work day and celebrated me.
I had thought about going for a run this morning. The thought crept into my mind last night as I was planning what I was going to do to make my day the best. Starting out my day with a run was something I did for many, many, many years, until I had kids and sleep became higher on my priority list. But nowadays I have to be up at 6:30a.m. anyway to see my middle schooler off so I thought maybe after Danielle was also out the door that I would go. But another thought occurred to me and I asked Dani if she wanted to go for a birthday run with me. Everything sounds better with the word birthday in front of it, even running.
Much to my delight, she gave me a very enthusiastic “Yes!” Dani is going to start a program called Girls On The Run in a few weeks, so she is thinking about this running thing anyway. Well out the door we went and it was so beautiful and sunny this morning, just for my birthday! The run I do is about 2 miles long. It is the run I have been doing for a while, just to keep running. Nothing hard, nothing stressful, but I can say I went for a run. Danielle and I started off down the road and met the trail head at about a quarter mile…off onto the Cabin John Trail we went. About a minute onto the trail she told me that her ankle hurt, so we stopped and walked. After three attempts and failures to get her jogging again I felt a little frustration brewing in me. I wanted to RUN!
Then something nice happened and I relaxed. I remembered that my nine year old had only done this running thing once before and wasn’t as type A as I was about it. I turned around to look at her, about to use my “encouraging” voice once more, and shut my mouth. I smiled to myself and stopped and waited for her to catch up with me. ”Do you want to go in front?” I asked. ”Sure”, she said and she scooted around me and the dog (who was very glad we decided to walk) and led the way through the woods.
We walked the rest of the loop, talked about random things, listened to at least five different kinds of bird songs and one woodpecker knocking, and laughed about how her camp counselor calls poison ivy “the fuzzy vines.” (Not such a funny thing to someone who doesn’t know what “fuzzy vines” are!)
My birthday “run” was the best! So were my birthday pancakes that she made me when we got home! And the day is still young! A little birthday taekwondo tonight with some kind of birthday chocolate afterward, and the recipe for amazingly wonderful birthday will be complete!
What do you like to do to celebrate your birthday?
