I’m now officially THAT age. You know, the age where someone asks you how old you are and you give them an answer that would have been correct several years ago and not because you have youth issues, but because you just don’t know your age. As in the ability to do math is not really something that happens in the space between the question of age and my answer of it. I’m thirty something.
The last year of my life was one of the most complicated and scary and wonderful and awful and blessed. I can look back and see where the bottom fell out and then see the taut fabric of friends and dear ones lifting me up and never letting me totally fall. I can see the glorious moments made all the more glorious just because they were witnessed with love by you all.
Right now W is laughing. It is this squeak THRILL of a gasping laugh that sounds like Fozzy Bear on helium. Wocka wocka wocka. What a splendid thing to hear. But in the small, tiny, moment of silence I miss Grandmother. I miss her deeply and dearly. I miss stability and security and stupid things like cable tv. But I am growing and am ready to face all that this new year of life will reveal.
The first birthday that I remember is probably my fourth birthday. I remember wearing a brand new, light blue reversible poncho with fringe. GM had gifted me with TWO birthday cakes and I felt very special. Except I soon found out that one of the cakes was not really for me. We took the cake to a daycare that I attended and gifted the cake to them and I had to stand there and listen to people sing at me and then watch them eat my cake. MY cake. And I had to be happy about that. I remember swaying to make the fringe of my poncho twirl out and being told to settle down. I guess eventually I got around to enjoying my own cake but I honestly don’t remember it. I just remember having to be good and watch other people eat cake.
Here I am on my first birthday:
And here I am year 3:
Question eight: What is the first birthday that you remember?
My fifth. My mom made a POPCORN CAKE!!! which is like a big Rice Krispie treat I guess. I don’t actually think it was yummy, but it was AWESOME!!!
Happy Birthday! I’m sure it will be a fabulous year!
I don’t specifically remember any of my birthdays. But, since my birthday is around the 4th of July, I frequently had sparklers on my cake. I know that I would usually ask my mom to make ribs, and one year I wanted French Silk pie from Baker’s Square. Other than that, I couldn’t tell you anything about my birthdays. Also, I don’t celebrate my birthday now.
Happy Birthday before noon!!!
Have a wonderful Birthday Enjoying that beautiful little boy of yours! You can’t buy presents like that 
Super cute Cali! Happy birthday!!
I think the first one I clearly remember was around 7?? The other ones I can’t distinguish at all. I remember earlier Christmases, but not birthdays. At that one, I had a big party where all the “mountain” kids (I grew up in the mountains, and to come up from OFF the mountain was a big deal, so we tended to hang together) and family came to our yard b/c it was actually a pretty October day. All I wanted was a He-Man toy. I think I did get one, but the vast majority of what I got were dolls of all sorts, shapes and sizes along with hair kits and such. I had boy neighbors. I had no use for such things. But I smiled and said thank you and then proceeded to make the “glamour gals” girlfriends of He-Man that he had to save all the time. hehe. I asked Mom to give the most offensive doll to me to someone who needed it. haha. I think she took it to Good Will.
I’m… not actually sure I remember any until my mom & step-dad got married (I was 8). No, I think maybe one of the years we lived with my grandparents, we went out to a restaurant I loved. But I honestly can’t remember.
Happy, happy birthday!
Happy Happy birthday to you! May the next year be filled with nothing but joy! I don’t really remember anything from early childhood. I’m sure the memories are in my brain somewhere, but I can no longer make the correct neurological connections to find them. Perhpas hypnosis would help?
And wow, look at the size of that typewriter. You were an author even at the wee age of one
Happy Birthday Cali! May the coming year bring you joy, happiness and laughter.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY DARLIN’ Till NOON AND BEYOND!!!!
I remember a birthday when I was pretty young, maybe 4 or 5 and I remember being at a beach, and digging for clams. I got a Yoda figurine that I buried when I got back to pre-school/kindergarten (not sure which) and never saw again. It was with my mom and her then husband Zan, I guess he actually still has pictures from it. I felt really loved, which my mom was really good at doing…. I remember the birthdays I spent with her. I don’t remember the birthdays with my dad, they weren’t happy. Geez, downer, yay Mandy! I hope that you have a truly spectacular birthday!!!! I loooove you!!!
Happy birthday!!!!
I can’t remember my birthdays very clearly. I think my memories start around six or seven. I always got to pick what I wanted for dinner (pasta primavera and fruit pizza for dessert).
I really don’t remember my birthdays. I remember my brother’s birthdays – he has a July birthday so his party was always a really fun picnic in the yard for all his friends (and me). By the time it was my birthday in October it was always cold and rainy. I can’t remember much except the disappointment of not being able to play in the garden, although I suppose we must have done something or other. Except with a reduced number of friends as we couldn’t fit many people around our table.
Happy Birthday!!!! I hope you have a good day.
I don’t honestly remember birthdays specifically since we didn’t celebrate them when I was a kid.
Happy Birthday, my dear! Hope its a wonderful day–and you are right–what a year it has been for you…
First one I remember is my 6th–I didnt sleep at all the night before–and I specifically remember taking a picture in a sun dress holding my new Care Bear
HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY !!!!!
Happy Birthday Beautiful!
Happy Birthday, Cali! I hope you have a fantastic year!
First birthday I remember was my third. We had the party at McDonald’s. All my cousins were there, we sat at my favorite booth to eat a cake with my name on it, I got to wear my favorite red dress, we played pin the tail on the donkey, and the employees gave me this huge inflatable Grimace doll. Best birthday ever.
Happy Birthday. Growing through all the changes of the last year has to be scary and exciting at the same time. I hope the next year brings you more amazing things.
Happy Birthday!
Happy birthday to you and a Merry Christmas, too!
In the first picture, it looks a lot like W!
happy birthday, sweetie!!! love you and hope to see you SOOON…oh, wait…i WILL see you soon!!! xoxoxo (more later on first remembered birthday)
My first birthday memory is from my fifth birthday. My family used to go camping every summer with two other families, and it was the night of my birthday, in July, after dark and the kids were all sitting together at a picnic table hanging out. All of a sudden, every said, “Lisa, Lisa, look over there!” And I looked over and my dad was standing there with a two-wheeled bicycle in favorite color, blue! My first and and one of my favorite birthday memories.
And HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! (Sorry my internet cut out while I was composing last comment and I got all turned around about what I had and hadn’t written in my comment.)
Happy Birthday Calli. My first real birthday memory is when I was 6.
Happy Birthday!!!
Geepers. I’d be well into double digits in age before I have a birthday memory.
I’m not dementing, I think, it’s just that I’ve never been in a family where birthdays were a big deal.
And then I married a man who forgets it completely, too, so I am thirty FOREVER. Hah. (Okay, yes, there is a something at the end of my age, too)
g
The first birthday I remember was either my 7th or 8th birthday, but I think it was my 8th. Two things happened. One, I had a small party, which being a summer baby did not happen often. The neighborhood kids came and Mom made cupcakes. The second thing that happened is why I cannot remember if it was my 7th or 8th birthday. My right pinky finger was wrapped in medical dressings. Two days before my 7th birthday, I had the numb from my 6th finger removed from the middle joint of my pinky finger (I was born with 12 fingers). On my 8th birthday, I had stitches on the same finger from a “baby corn on the cob peeling incident”. Boy, the leaves on a baby corn husk are razor sharp! (We lived next to a corn field. Playing with baby corn was fun!)
a poncho with fringe, eh? You were H.O.T.!!!
Happy birthday. I don’t have the energy to remember the first birthday I remember, so I’ll just skip out on that question. But I just had to comment back to you!
Happy Birthday Cali! It’s been a long time between blog comments, sorry. I hope your day was lovely.
It’s hard to sort out the real memories from the fake ones you think you have after looking at the old photos. But I think the first birthday I remember is my eighth, when i’d just seen the musical Annie onstage, and it was the first live musical I’d ever seen, and I was OBSESSED with it, the soundtrack I had on cassette and the notion of being an orphan for real. So at my 8th party it was fancy dress and I went, naturally, as Annie…only my Mum is not exactly a stickler for realism and the only wig she could find was black. So I looked more like baby Michael Jackson in drag than Little Orphan Annie. But I was too dumb to care.
Dude. You were WAY too cute. Happy Birthday and Merry Christmas! I don’t remember my first birthday and I’m starting to forget how old I am. I have to have The Daver or Ben remind me otherwise I’d be all “uh, uh, uh, uh” and look as though I was trying to lie, when really, I’m just an idiot.