Rock On, Rickey!

Last night in the dark of the master bedroom way past midnight I apologized to my sweet husband for not doing anything for his 49th birthday. The special day when he entered our world is Feb. 3rd, but he was in Kansas City learning how to use the new glass cockpit on the King Air 250. Flight training trumps birthdays, obviously. And truthfully, I don’t think I could have come up with something to beat his enjoyment level of time in the flight simulator.

The nice people at Flight Safety realized it was Rick’s birthday when they copied his passport for identification. They gave him a Flight Safety polo shirt, a mug and a basket of goodies! See? He wasn’t entirely forgotten. Sheesh.

We couldn’t celebrate early because I was visiting my sister for 13 days, then Rick and I saw each other for two hours before he left for five days in KC. I have no excuse that I can remember for when he got home, but I know we were really busy. REALLY busy.

As our son, Austin, knows from experience, if you travel and are gone on your birthday it is forgotten. Period. He did ask me two months later if I would buy him a new Bible for his two-months-ago special day. I did. I’m the nice mom, remember?

After my apology, Rick replied, “Don’t worry about it, Honey. It’s okay.” My response surprised him as I said, “Okay. Thank you. … … … Don’t EVER forget my birthday!”

We shared a belly laugh and he summarized the comments, “And THAT is the difference between us!”

Happy belated birthday, Rickey! I love you!

I Lied Today

A survey came in my email box from our adoption agency.  It was a quick ten minute survey on how the agency did, in my humble opinion.  I gave them a good grade, but I lied.  It was the age group thing again.  They were grouped:  30-34, 35-39, 40-44, 45-49….. see the problem???  Had I taken the survey two weeks ago, I would have been in the same age bracket with my husband… the one that started with 40.  But NOOOOOO!  I took the survey today… and lied.

I justified my lying, however, and I’m okay with it.  I’m a bit emotionally spent at the moment…. and all with due reason: tomorrow marks our fourth month home with Nora, our Colombian princess; I started a new eating plan (talk about stress); there is one month left of homeschooling… and we’re not going to be done…. in fact I scrapped half of it a week or two ago and we’re just doing the basics (adding homeschool mom guilt); my daughter leaves for Africa in one month; we just passed tax season (this doesn’t stress me out at all, but it certainly does my husband); I spent the last two days on field trips with high school girls.  Bam!

If there had have been a “45 and 2 weeks” category, I might have been okay with that.  But there wasn’t.  It was the 4-ty-NINE in the same grouping that I had a problem with.  Instead of tears, I checked 40-44.  And I’m okay with that.