Birthdays

It is my daughter's birthday today. She is 27. She lives in Miami, Florida so we had to do the celebration by mail and phone. Birthdays have always been a pretty big deal in my family. As kids, my parents allowed us to have a party every other year, and it was no small affair. One year, I had a Detective party, and the guests were fingerprinted, and had to find clues to solve a crime. Now you can buy a party game with everything already designed for you ( Mary had one of those parties, too) but, when I was a kid, my father thought the whole thing up himself. My husband's birthday was yesterday, and we didn't have a party. We did have dinner at a nice restaurant. Birthdays really need more, though, something with the joy of children's laughter and silly games, birthday cake and candles, lots of presents. I have had lots of birthdays, but the ones I remember best were the ones filled with happy noise. Maybe our next birthdays should be held at Chuck E Cheese. Even if the children screaming are not ours, we can still pretend. We can have big balloons and cheap plastic party favors and play skeeball. We can have our picture taken with Chuck E himself, and fill up on cake and ice cream. Happy Birthday to you!