We have several very important birthday traditions in our house, mostly revolving around food.

1. The Birthday Kid gets to choose the birthday cereal.

2. The Birthday Kid gets to choose what’s for supper.

3. The Birthday Kid gets to choose the cake/dessert. In fact, until they reach age 5 or so, they think that birthday and cake are synonymous, as in “I want a chocolate birthday with pink icing.”

4. The Birthday Kid is exempt from chores.

So, birthdays are really big deals, anticipated for weeks ahead of time (and sometimes months, as is the case for Sweetsie, who is counting down the six months until she turns five). In fact, they get so excited that they pop out of bed way too early because they just can’t wait to dig into their sugary bowl of breakfast cereal. A sugar-based diet for a sleep-deprived, highly-excited child is not smart. But that’s how it’s done around here. I figure I get my way (ha!) the other 361 days, so I best just shut up and buck up.

Miss Becca Boo picked Lucky Charms for her breakfast cereal. She wanted the generic kind that comes in a bag because it’s bigger than the box (it was one-half ounce bigger, but half the cost, so I didn’t argue). I did make them eat a little bowl of granola first because I couldn’t bear the thought of them starting their day with nothing in their tanks but sugared air, but then I let them eat their fill, mostly—I did have to put the breaks on Yo-Yo Boy.

For morning snack we had bananas (a specialty item here) and lunch was meat-and-cheese bagel sandwiches and carrot sticks. Afternoon snack will be Cheese Curls, and supper will be cheese fondue with broccoli, apples, hot dogs, sausages, toasted bread chunks, and grapes. And strawberry cake for dessert.

Miss Becca Boo keeps sticking her head out of her room (she’s in rest time), checking to see if I’ve started on the cake yet. She’s getting rather anxious, and I certainly don’t want to cause the Birthday Girl anxiety, so I’d better get busy.

Seven years ago, right about now, 6:20 am, Mr. Handsome and I had just arrived at the hospital after a quick stop by the Seven-Eleven for a phone card. Labor progressed quickly, and by 10:15 I was pushing Miss Becca Boo into the world. Here are some excerpts from her birth story (her’s was my first natural birth, since Yo-Yo Boy was a c-section baby).

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The midwife explained that for the next push I needed to stop after the head came out and then she would tell me when I could push for the body. The contraction came and I was determined to get the head out in one long push, so I pushed as hard as I could. I felt something give and the midwife said, “Okay, stop. Alright, never mind.” And there was a little (BIG) baby lying on the plastic—she had come out in one push. I just hung on the bar and looked at the bloody mess of a human. The cord was covering the crotch, and I watched as the midwife lifted it up to check the sex. We both saw at the same time that it was a girl. A girl!

The midwife rapidly suctioned her out and then handed her to me. I was shocked by how hot that little body was, uncomfortably so. Miss Becca Boo only cried a little. Her eyes were wide open and she was looking at me. She was all cheesy and bloody, and the first thing I said to her was, “You are so ugly!” Her nose was smashed flat and pressed to the right. Her one ear was perfectly flat. Her fingernails were long and the skin on her hands and feet was papery. I didn’t cry like I thought I would and neither did Mr. Handsome. I was just so intent on watching the whole process and soaking everything up. It was such a novel happening, and I felt like a Curious George, asking all sorts of questions.

The nurses helped me to take off my gown so I could nurse, and Miss Becca Boo latched on immediately and nursed for the whole time they were sewing me up. They draped a thick, heated blanket over us, and I kept peaking under it to see what she looked like. She was lying across my belly, looking at me with her big eyes, nursing, looking just like a little princess or like one of those voluptuous women of the renaissance who would lie naked on ornate sofas. She looked like she held the world in the center of her hand.

Sweetsie woke up late this morning, after 8 o’clock. She wandered into my room (I had already been up for nearly three hours, but I was just then getting dressed). She said, “Mama, I slept a bunch of hours!”

And a little later when I told her to get dressed, “I wanna stay in my nightmare because I don’t wanna get cold in clothes.”