Some thoughts the week before my birthday

Flowers bloom every year

I.

On Wednesdays I am with the same group of 17 year olds for almost four hours of the day. They are an exceptional group of kids, and I ask a huge amount of them. We’re reading Persepolis, and I’m made a reading guide of over 120 questions that they’re working on over the course of April and have to turn in on April 23. I felt a bit cheeky as I created the dropbox and in the directions wrote “upload your fantastically analytical, absolutely completed question set here as a birthday present for Mrs. Jeffay”.

I have to admit, I like when people know it’s my birthday.

Today they tried to guess how old I was turning. Most guessed around thirty, a few older (citing my toddler and husband, two things that most Dutchies don’t have until they’re in their 40s). One boy confidently called out twenty-five, which made me laugh at what I thought was obvious brown-nosing. When I looked at his face, however, I watched as his facial expression shifted to one of horror. He almost whispered to himself and said, “no, that can’t be right, because there’s no way I will be as much of an adult as you are in less than seven years. That’s not enough time.”

II.

The flowers are popping up in Amsterdam. It’s perfection. Every year I am overcome with delight at the way the city lights up with blooms.

Today

By Billy Collins

If ever there were a spring day so perfect,

so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze

that it made you want to throw

open all the windows in the house

and unlatch the door to the canary's cage,

indeed, rip the little door from its jamb,

a day when the cool brick paths

and the garden bursting with peonies

seemed so etched in sunlight

that you felt like taking

a hammer to the glass paperweight

on the living room end table,

releasing the inhabitants

from their snow-covered cottage

so they could walk out,

holding hands and squinting

into this larger dome of blue and white,

well, today is just that kind of day.

III.

When I feel anxious, one of my coping mechanisms is imagining I’m living a life somewhere along the Mediterranean. I finalized the hotel for a trip we’re taking in June to a region of Italy I’ve never visited, Liguria. I took the sunny warm days of spring we had as a sign to make my favorite burst tomato pasta. I opened this cookbook, which contains both dreamy images and dreamy recipes. The first recipe in the book is perfection: la piscine, or a light wine poured over an excessive amount of ice. Serve immediately.

IV.

I bought some cool pants. Four different teenage girls told me I looked fire.

V.

In a voicenote the other day to my favorite author in the world, I mentioned how it feels like motherhood has made me more creative. I’m trying to make writing a more consistent habit, but the same ways that motherhood has made me more creative has limited me in my ability to exercise that creation. When I do get a chance to flex these muscles, I go to a local coffee shop and order an iced latte and a delicious blueberry muffin. The muffin is slightly chilled, which is odd to me, but it’s also what makes me love it. Every time it is chilled, despite coming out of the display case in the warm cafe. I do not understand it but every time it is exactly what I want.

VI.

The Bug has learned how to use utensils, and how to feed Ty. I cannot deal with how big she is.

VII.

We’ve kept a basil plant alive for almost a month. Last week I made a basil simple syrup for my in house bartender. He in turn made me a lemon basil spritz, and a strawberry gin basil smash.

VIII.

I’m having a little birthday party on Saturday. It’s funny, even though thirty is the big milestone year, it feels like this birthday is bigger, more adult. Maybe it’s because we’re in the nitty gritty of life this year in ways we weren’t last year on maternity and paternity leave, maybe it’s the fact that thirty-one is really in your thirties.

IX.

My motherly intuition is really impressive these days.

I surprisingly had a hankering for a gin martini out of nowhere this evening. While my parents drink martinis regularly, I do not, so this was a very odd craving. Dylan was about to head out to a birthday party while I put the Bug in the tub and did her bedtime routine on my own. He felt bad enough that I’d be solo parenting after a day of work to postpone his departure and fulfil my wishes.

To keep it cold while I put her in the tub, he put the martini glass in the freezer, mixed my drink with a gorgeous twist and popped it in the fridge so it would stay cold without any diloosh.

He finished up his bartender duties and I coaxed giggles out of a happy toddler in the tub. Suddenly, as he was lacing up his shoes and putting on his coat, I noticed a giant um, surprising and unwanted object, floating in the tub along with my happy baby. I cried out for assistance, he swept in to wrap her in the towel as she wailed at being removed from the splashing. Dylan diapered her up while I doused our bathtub with bleach.

After we got her down, he looked at me wryly and reminded me of my martini, a reward for this surprising Tuesday bedtime routine.

“And just think, if you hadn’t been craving one, I’d already have been gone.”