We have this day

In the weeks before my birthday, I had these dreams of stretching out, my toes just shy of the tide, my back buried in white sand that is just a little too warm.

What would it be like, I wondered, to celebrate with the only stresses centered on the inevitable sunburn splayed across my chest or the what kind of seafood I would eat for dinner? 

I did that once, enveloping my birthday into the delayed honeymoon my then husband and I took to Maui. It was heavenly. Glorious. The world that lay beyond the bluest water I'd ever seen didn't matter one drop for the hours that were all wonderfully, selfishly, sweetly my own.

The truth is, though, that not one moment of that vacation birthday or the fantasies that filled my head earlier this month were as entertaining, energetic, soothing and perfect as the hours I spent with my boy today.

We went to our favorite museum, which is really his favorite museum, touring the mummy tombs, visiting the dinosaurs, crouched down and reading about prayer wheels at the Tibet exhibit. We saw a phenomenal, funny, poignant performance of three Eric Carle books. We ate lunch by the uncovered bones of a T-Rex. We sang the Glee version of "Don't Stop Believin'" as loud as we could toward the water as we sped down Lake Shore Drive. We complimented the necklace he made for me over and over and over. We lay restless during nap time until we just needed to get up and dance and laugh and whisper about the necklace some more. 

One birthday, I do believe I will feel the salt air blow over me. There are many years ahead for that to happen. I just feel like I have so few opportunities to hold this boy on my lap while he laughs and claps at a puppeteer making a caterpillar inch across stage, thinking to myself in the dark and among the day-glow painted scenery how very blessed I am. Not just to have the day, not just to celebrate, but to mark the moment I was born with the person I gave birth to.

I'll hold on to that a little bit longer. The birthdays will continue to come. The beach will wait. My boy will not.