Special Day

Me and my babies.

The audible whispers at 6am woke me on Wednesday. I wasn’t sure what was going on but, next door in the twin’s room, it was high-excitement.

I heard them stealthily but noisily climb the stairs, whispering all the way and closing the kitchen door at the top. Minutes later their brother rose and joined them. What was going on?

And then as my foggy brain cleared, I remembered: it was my birthday!

The night before as I tucked them in, they had asked: “Are you excited mum?”

“No, not really,” I’d replied.

“Well we are.”

“You know I’m not having a party, don’t you?” I reminded them, because for some reason, the word ‘birthday’ to kids, signals party.

Actually I’d been in a grump that night. This year I couldn’t be bothered organising anything – all I wanted was to have a relaxing day off: no rushing out the door, no chores … which meant, to achieve this, I spent all of Tuesday night carrying out my usual mundane Wednesday tasks.

So after work, until late, I was still dusting, tidying, cleaning bathrooms, hovering and mopping, in amongst the usual dinner, bathing, homework, bedtime stories palava. Hence the grump.

However, the kids were so excited, I made sure we ended the day on a good note and eventually went to bed.

As I lay there the next morning wondering what was going on, visions of last year’s breakfast in bed came to mind: dry cereal and little bits of broken toast, because it had got stuck in the toaster, with big globs of marmite and peanut butter (not to mention the huge mess of smeared marmite, crumbs and spilt milk on the bench top). With this in mind, I tried to conjure up an appetite.

They were still busy at it upstairs so I got out of bed and had a quick shower before jumping back into bed, not wanting to spoil their surprise. Another half an hour went by – it was getting quite late and I was actually starting to feel hungry. Finally I got back out of bed, calling out ‘Good morning’, as I approached the kitchen so I didn’t catch them out.

No response.

“Where are my children,” I called as I turned the corner into the lounge.

“Surprise!” they all jumped out from behind the furniture clutching balloons and home-made cards and gifts.

“Oh!”

It turns out they hadn’t been good-naturedly trashing the kitchen after-all, but waiting patiently for me to come upstairs for the last hour while I waited downstairs. Master Eight had even placed a bowl of my cereal next to the computer in case I wanted to check my emails – it seemed they’d decided not to attempt the toast-making this year.

They were so happy and pleased with themselves, I couldn’t think of a nicer way to start the day.

Next I walked the kids up to the school – a rare novelty – where Master Six loudly announced to everyone in sundry it was his mum’s birthday, along with my age (thanks to the little boy who declared ‘Oh my mum and dad are way older than that!’).

Master Eight even allowed me in his class without getting too embarrassed.

Yes it’s the small things that count and, walking home, thankful I managed to leave the school grounds without getting hit on the head by a ball, I thought to myself that, some days, everything is just aligned for everything to go right and today was going to be one of those days.

And it was.