<p>LOL Berurah, I am jealous, you have entirely too much fun. I am considering coming to live with you so that I can have this much fun, too. </p>
<p>Seriously, though, D’s birthday is in early January, and she is never home for it - always has to be back on campus for winter training. Basically, I just send a GIANT cake, plus goodies. The teammates and everyone else joins in the celebration because there’s so much to eat. </p>
<p>The more difficult holiday for me though is Easter - that’s a family holiday, many, many traditions. If she gets to come home for it at all, it’s for less than 48 hours, again the team commitment issue. That’s a very hard one for us.</p>
<p>I think it would be great to be one of B’s children, to grow up in a home with so much warmth & fun. There can be no doubt that her oldest can feel her love across the miles. I think its a great idea to have the siblings take turns writing e-mail cards. You can set the times for elivery for every hour.</p>
<p>berurah, you have automatically qualified for sainthood, being such a great mom to so many. You must have a lifetime supply of protein bars.</p>
<p>My family all have birthdays right before Christmas (except me) - it is always a budgeting exercise but everyone is home. Enjoy! And if you get glum, think of the grandchildren that will be on the way in the future. Your old age will be full of the laughing happy faces of adorable younglings.</p>
<p>i am still in the middle of my youngest son’s senior year. and i am still feeling blue everytime something happens for the last time. i am giving him an extra hug and kiss goodbye every morning. (one for next year when he’s 1400 miles away!)</p>
<p>i can’t even imagine how awful it will be next year to have so little to do. but people i know survive it year after year, so i guess i will, too.</p>
<p>i hope your son had a happy, happy day. i hope you had time to reflect on many happy memories!</p>
<p>kathiep~
Thank you SO much for sharing the story of your daughter’s 21st birthday!! I <em>LOVE</em> the idea of 21 gifts!! We’ve not had a 21-year-old yet, so I may have to “borrow” that idea! Very, very cool! </p>
<p>I just got some names of places around Duke that do cakes, so I’m going on a calling mission soon!</p>
<p>Maybe the acute pain of this is subsiding, but really, now I am left with what you had…the “slight funk.” And that shows no sign of lifting anytime soon, BUT…we do have some very important other birthdays to celebrate on Saturday and next Tuesday, and I’m sure that will help! :)</p>
<p>Thanks so very much for your support, and know that you have a sister in “birthday funk-hood.” <em>lol</em> ~berurah</p>
<p>latetoschool~
It really is quite impossible for you to know what these kind words
mean to me. Seriously–because <em>I</em> was not raised in a home like the one I am trying to provide for my kids, so I am basically shooting from the hip, clearing my own path, forging a new future. And because of that, your words are especially meaningful. It must be so difficult to be apart from your daughter on her birthday each year during these college years…I’ll be going through this too…I hope it gets easier! I so hope your sweet daughter will be able to come home for Easter this year, even if just for a short time. Family traditions are sooooooooooo important!</p>
<p>bookworm~
Wow! Just, WOW! Thank you sooooooooooooo much! It’s funny…yesterday, my oldest D’s boyfriend had a dentist appt. during school hours and came by here afterward just to kill the few minutes before his next class started. Everyone else was in school, so it was just the two of us here. We were talking about S’s birthday, and he just looked at me and said, "YOUR family’s birthdays are SO different from mine…and I LOVE them (of course he is treated exactly like one of my own! <em>lol</em>). I hope all of my children, both biological and “adopted” feel what you so kindly stated above…Thanks so much!</p>
<p>yulsie~
You have NO idea how tickled I am at the prospect of being the first Jewish saint!!! <em>lolololol</em> No protein bars, but plenty of chocolate and a daily nap!!! <em>lol</em> I can SO relate to the closely-spaced birthdays, especially centered around holidays. They ARE a financial challenge, but you are lucky in that everyone is home for them! Thanks so much for your support!</p>
<p>wbow~
Awwwwwwwwwww, thanks so much for the hugs…I can feel them across the miles! I can’t yet imagine being where YOU are now…my youngest a senior. I know you must be struggling with so very many emotions this year as you count your high school “lasts.” {{{{{HUGS}}}}} to you—and you will be fine…and then you can be a wonderful inspiration to ME!! :)</p>
<p>You know I have followed your story all along. And here I have a perspective. There are those people for whom, for some reason, the early childhood/early motherhood days provide something special. Who knows if it is psychological or just hormonal. But what I have come to understand is that those who are addicted to the rush of baby love will always have the need for that intensity in their life.</p>
<p>Now, people will tell you time to reconnect with H, etc. But face it, one H, no matter how fabulous, just cannot provide a substitute for the waves of baby love and the complete intimacy of mom and baby. No one other adult can fill those scoochy baby shoes. So were I you, which of course I am not, I would plan to find something as emotionally compelling as babies. Whether that is grandkids or the secret creative pursuit you have always wanted to follow or truly important social work, who knows. But I just think some of us are peak and valley types, and better to plan than to be caught unawares.</p>
<p>So I hope you enjoy planning your next heart-thumping, hormone-raising, universe-opening endeavour. I bet all your kids will support you in it too.</p>
<p>{{{{{{{{{{{{{{HUGS}}}}}}}}}}}}}} to you berurah!!!
I totally know how you are feeling!!! I just saw your thread, and have been thinking about you & all your clustered birthdays that you had told me about a couple of weeks ago!! </p>
<p>Our D’s birthday is in June, so we have never missed out on a celebration with her, and S1 is at Duke (like your S1!!!) for his first year, and we are thinking we might go down for his birthday since it is on a Sunday–I hope we can do that. But I know you are too far for that birthday visit, so I thought I’d tell you what we did for S2’s birthday this year. He is our New Year’s Eve baby, turning 16. But he went on a training trip with the swim team and was way too far from home for us to bring him anything, or celebrate with him. Well, we contacted the closest grocery store, and ordered a huge sheetcake, all decorated with balloons and school colors!! One of the chaperones went to pick it up (the grocery didn’t deliver) and they were able to surprise him with it at one of the dinners. He loved it, and there were 50 people singing “Happy Birthday” to him–great treat, plus we got the photos another chaperone took of the whole event!!</p>
<p>The Mad Hatter is a great sandwich/dessert place in the little shopping center (the one with Whole Foods) adjacent to the East Campus at Duke–walkable!! If you really want him to have a cake you might contact one of his friends to help you out. They could go get a cake that you’ve ordered (Mad Hatter might even deliver!!) and surprise him. The cookies sound like a really fantastic treat, though!!!</p>
<p>Also, getting him a Gift Card from the Duke Bookstore is something S1 has loved!! That way he has taken advantage of sales on Duke stuff!!! He never seems to have enough of the Blue Devil items!!! (especially as we get closer to March Madness, which I know is as huge in your house as it is in ours!!!)</p>
<p>Happy Birthdays to all of yours!!! Our D is turning 21 on her upcoming birthday, so I can totally sympathize with your sadness about them growing up too quickly–we blink and they’ve gone!!</p>
<p>It just occurred to me that next year both of my kids will be away for their birthdays. Huh. Well, I was always away for my birthdays when I was in college (late Sept), and it meant a lot to me just to get cards from everybody in my family. I’m with Aries, put something in the birthday box from each of his sibs, a handmade card, a drawing, a small gift, a magnetic photo, a gift certificate, plus your wonderful cookies (enough to share with friends). It’s often enough just to be remembered, which means far more than the actual present(s). </p>
<p>Whenever I talk to my D on her birthday, which falls during the week before finals each year, she is stressed out, worried about having enough time to study, sleep deprived, out of groceries, etc. But, here’s what I finally figured out…She wasn’t thinking about us nearly as much as we were thinking about her! And, she likes to celebrate her birthday with her friends. She will often postpone the celebration part until the time when she can go out with her b/f for a nice dinner or meet her friends at a fun place downtown. Btw, it gets easier to give them presents when they have their own apartment. Otherwise, when they’re still on the dorm, treats, money and things to share with their friends are always good.</p>
<p>So, my part in all of this is to remind the aunts, uncles, and grandparents that it’s time to send a card for one of my kids’ birthdays. If they want to put in 10 bucks, that’s great! One set of grandparents always includes a card and a dollar bill from their cats. So, we make the birthday celebration bigger by including as many close family members as I can nag. They each get a calendar from me every Christmas with stickers and reminders on ALL of the family birthdays, on the off-chance that they might forget. ;)</p>
<p>Berurah, thanks for that, you’re a class act. Your happiness and good will shines through your posts so clearly. Oh, and we needed a Jewish saint, too, so you got here just in time LOL!!! :)</p>
<p>Berurah,
If anyone deserves hugs when they request them, it is definitely you! So here you go {{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{HUGS}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}.
As far as suggestions you’ve gotten so many great ones, I am not going to be much help there. I can tell you that on my D’s first birthday at college, I emailed everyone on my address list and asked them to email her and wish her happy birthday on her special day. It worked out really well and she seemed quite pleased.
Naneth</p>
<p>I do know how you feel. my son will be 19 this year, and my daughter is off to college also. I then have a 4 year old. I very much miss my older children because we were so close when I divorced their father. when I remarried it took away from them, and I miss them. they don’t seem to miss me too much though, which i’m not sure if that’s better or worse. It is just a weird feeling. my 4 year old acts like a teenager because it’s all he knows.</p>
<p>B;
We feel your pain. There are many things I will miss about living with Mr Entertainment, my 17 year old who leaves next January on Gap Year, but the time has come for him to leave home.</p>
<p>He doesn’t believe us when we tell him how the world works. Not always, but much of time, we get The Eyeball Roll or The Hand. If he doesn’t learn those lessons in the next few years, he’s going to be a rather ghastly adult. So, it’s out into the world to learn by trial and error…for himself.</p>
<p>Cookie variation: Unable to send cookies through customs, I once ordered a batch of brilliant gourmet cookies to be delivered to S1. He never picked them up. Snail mail. He hardly ever goes to check it. </p>
<p>Eventually, the calcified (rancid?) cookies were returned to the cookie company. They promptly sent me an email.</p>
<p>No one had ever ‘returned’ their fabulous cookies before! They wanted to know if I was expecting a refund! (no).
Hah!</p>
<p>Alu~
omg…I just had to sit here reading your beautiful post over and over again to convince myself that someone else could POSSIBLY understand this so fully and completely. Wow, truly. It’s funny…when all of my friends were long done having babies–and of course I was still goin’ strong <em>lol</em>–I found it SO incredibly difficult to comprehend their excitement over painting the entryway a new shade of beige or finally getting the perfect drapes to match the new sofa. And that was because of this:
Oh sure, I’m learning to appreciate the less profound things in life…but you are right…I’m still looking for the unparalleled intensity of baby love…and at least right now, everything else seems like a rather poor substitute! <em>lol</em> Thanks, alu, for your tremendous insight and for your most lovely and poignant post. </p>
<p>irishforever~
Thank you SOOOOOOOOOO much for your support and hugs and of course, your fabulous suggestions!! I have actually gotten the name of several places near Duke that I’m going to call tomorrow–the Mad Hatter is one of them (we passed it about a bajillion times as we spent most of our time at Duke hopelessly LOST!!! <em>lol</em>). I have so enjoyed our sharing about Duke stuff and our kidlets. Of course we both have Dukies AND NYE babies!! I’m so glad that your youngest son’s birthday was made so special even though he was not home this year. And I hope that you can arrange to be with your Dukie on his birthday…I wish we lived closer too! Thanks so much for posting!</p>
<p>slugg~
OMG, I am just ROLLIN’!!! I think I may just have found that new endeavor to which alumother was referring!! <em>lol</em> Of course the other thing that’s COMPLETELY funny about this is the idea that any of our indifferent relatives COULD BE nagged into remembering any of my kids!! Your poor D…a birthday at finals time?? Well, I suppose her birthday will always be her birthday, but eventually, she WILL be out of school! And I think you’re so right about one thing…the act of being remembered is far more important than the specifics of HOW we are remembered (presents). Thanks for your support, sweetie!</p>
<p>latetoschool~
Awwwwwwwww, honey, thanks sooooooo much!! One day, I hope to meet you in person and give you a huge REAL-LIFE {{{{{HUG}}}}}!!!</p>
<p>naneth~
It’s sooooooooo good to “see” you…thanks so much for taking the time to post. I know what a difficult and challenging year you’ve had, so I especially appreciate your sympathy and support over this much more minor event. I actually think I AM going to use your suggestion and get my friends to send my son some email birthday greetings! I think he’d get a real kick out of that, so thanks for the great idea!! </p>
<p>OrangeBlossom~
Oh, sweetie, that is just the most beautiful thought EVER!! Thanks sooooooooooooo much! I’m definitely printing that out and hanging it up over my computer!! I so hope that your son is fully recovered from his December car accident, both physically and emotionally, and if not, that he’s well on the way. He continues to be in my thoughts and prayers. Thanks so much for your lovely post! (I will answer your pm ASAP, O.K.?)</p>
<p>amith~
{{{{{{{{hugs}}}}}}}} to you. It must have been so very difficult for you to see the relationship with your older children change upon your remarriage. I know that it may not SEEM like they miss you, but I am certain that they do. The thing is, if we have close relationships with our children and make them feel well-loved and secure, then they have the emotional freedom necessary to separate without trauma. I am sure that the fact that your children are able to do this simply reflects the fact that they are so secure in your love. Meanwhile, enjoy your little teenage 4-year-old <em>lol</em>…I’m sure he’s still good for plenty of snuggles! Thanks for posting!</p>
<p>cheers~
O.K., it is virtually impossible to read one of your posts and stay “down.” <strong>ROFLMAO</strong> I’m still giggling at the term “ghastly adult,” and the Eyeball Roll??? Don’t even get me STARTED on how much I hate THAT!!! About this:
I overnighted the box (at CONSIDERABLE COST, I might add) with presents/cookies today. It will be at Duke by 3:00 p.m. tomorrow. His birthday is on Sunday, but I didn’t want to chance anything. When I got home, I emailed my son and basically threatened to take the very life that I gave him nearly 19 years ago IF HE FAILED TO PICK UP THAT BOX BEFORE THE WEEKEND!!! <em>lol</em> The very thought of his not having birthday presents ON HIS SPECIAL DAY just 'cause he failed to pick up the box would crush me! I talked to him tonight on the phone, and he PROMISED to pick it up tomorrow. You can bet I’ll be checking up on him, especially after reading about your gourmet cookies!! Thanks for the smiles, cheers (AH! So THAT’S why they call you cheers!). I really needed them!</p>
<p>berurah~I’ll be thinking of you all weekend and sending mental {{{{{{HUGS}}}}}}!!! And I’ll tell S1 to follow the smell of homemade cookies across the east campus to your S’s dorm!! </p>
<p>We passed The Mad Hatter constantly during the move-in/orientation weekend, too~and then couldn’t resist a taste-test (probably a dozen different cookies/brownies for us and S1 & his roommate)–all were pronounced delicious!! You can’t go wrong with that place based on our dedicated sampling!!!</p>
<p>And yes, we’ve already wondered on the experience of having a NYE baby–ours is toooooooooo funny and, of course, worth every gray hair he’s given us!!!</p>
<p>Wow it must be really tough on parents. Just think that by the time your youngest hits 18 you may well have grandchildren to chase after (sorry if that freaks you out… i am aiming to make you feel better)</p>
<p>With girls flowers being deliverd is always lovely. However since you are asking about your son i may leave it to the boys or other mothers who have sons to suggest ideas for that department. <em>HUGS</em></p>
No protein bars, but plenty of chocolate and a daily nap!!! <em>lol</em> I can SO relate to the closely-spaced birthdays, especially centered around holidays. They ARE a financial challenge, but you are lucky in that everyone is home for them! Thanks so much for your support!</p>
So, we make the birthday celebration bigger by including as many close family members as I can nag. They each get a calendar from me every Christmas with stickers and reminders on ALL of the family birthdays, on the off-chance that they might forget. ;)</p>
And I think you’re so right about one thing…the act of being remembered is far more important than the specifics of HOW we are remembered (presents). Thanks for your support, sweetie!</p>
Thanks for the smiles, cheers (AH! So THAT’S why they call you cheers!). I really needed them!</p>