Birthday Deja vu, As Dictated To My Husband By Cody

 Today, October 20th is a very special day.

photo from "Happy Birthday To You" by Dr.Seuss

It is my Mom, Caren's birthday!  Hooray! Concatulations! To borrow a phrase from Dr.Phil, or was it Dr.Seuss, "lets keep it real."

For reasons unfathomable to me, my dad or anyone else except my mom and Mr.Hallmark, many years ago my Mom decreed that the start of Sweetest Day was the official beginning of her birthday.

This proclamation always begins with,  excuse the expression, "cat fighting" between Mom's friends  to secure breakfast, lunch, dinner, coffee, bagel, frozen yogurt  or "lets get together for a drink  to catch up" reservations with my mom.These endless culinary connections, along with the inevitable belated greetings and meetings make it a certainty that mom's date of birth is still being acclaimed well into the Thanksgiving season.

Not to be catty, but  toasts to my Moms birthday were still occuring as Santa was dispensing his goodies. Being  a cat I'm lucky to have nine lives, but even I, (the one whom Mom adores!)  don't have nine weeks of birthdays!

 Mom, I tried to buy you a birthday cake but I'm on a special diet and rabbit birthday cakes arent in big demand at the local bakery. But I did steal one off the Internet for you!

Image source:http://ingoodcompanymo.net/birthday.html 

I am very appreciative of the comfy existence you have provided for me, but lets face facts, I'm a cat we can look comfortable sleeping anywhere and on anything!

Time flies ,another year is in the books and when I wished you a happy birthday,your response was ''Another birthday?  It feels like

 "I JUST HAD ONE THE OTHER DAY''.

Guess what Mom, you did.

                                                         Pawty Down!!

Love, Cody

                               A NOTE FROM MOM: Thank you precious Cody  for your wonderful birthday wishes! Your Dad did a great job of making a mess  of     organizing  your thoughts for you!

Just a small aside as to where my obsession with birthdays (not just mine, I love everyone else's birthday too, I derive great joy in giving presents on birthdays!) arose from.

As a child of approximately 4 years old my favorite book was HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU, by Dr.Seuss:

From Wikipedia: "Happy Birthday to You! is a 1959 children's book by Dr. Seuss. It deals with a fantastic land called Katroo, where the Birthday Bird throws everyone an amazing party on their special day. It has almost no plot and consists of one long fantastical celebration, narrated in the second person, of the reader's birthday.

The Birthday Bird appears in an episode of The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss.

The book is dedicated to his "good friends" and "The Children of San Diego County."

I delighted in traveling with the "birthday boy" as the Birthday Bird pops his head in the window at possibly 5am or earlier and takes the little boy on the most glorious adventures for his birthday! Being food obsessed, I remember the illustration of a never ending string of hot dogs. There were bands playing and creatures paying homage to the little boy, all sorts of delightful events took place. At sundown the Birthday Bird returns the little boy to his bed where he drifts happily into slumber, exhausted, and blissfully loved.

For some reason the images and message from that book never left me. It is STILL one of my favorites from my childhood.

My wish for everyone on his or her birthday is that for even a moment,  you can be transcended back into your childhood and experience the joy that birthdays were sure to bring.  A day full of laughter, expectations of the unexpected, delighting in spontaneity, fully living in the moment worry-free and believing when you blow out the candles on your birthday cake, that anything and everything is possible!  Long live our inner child!

Quote from "Happy Birthday To You"
By Dr.Seuss