Birthday Girl

When it comes to my birthday I am thoroughly and entirely shameless. To my mind, any and every event that occurs in March does so in direct relationship to my Happy Birthday. Cincinnati holds its Home and Garden Show to usher in the festivities of my birthday. The Saint Patty's Day Parade -- for my birthday. Daylight Savings Time, the result of my birthday.... Few events get me all tickled and thrilled as much as the prospect of my own birthday. This must be a holdover from having turned five and six and seven. If nothing else, when we are very little, our birthday is when we are first aware that simply because we are born it is all about us. We don't have to be better, smarter, prettier, funnier or better behaved than any one else -- just being alive provides for one entire day devoted entirely to us. And if you are like me you like it so much that you stretch out the birthday through the entire month.... There should always be a good reason to throw confetti and wear paper hats and blow up balloons. March happens to be a perfect time to do that because we've all had it up to our eyeballs with winter, we are eager to herald in spring, which is just another means to celebrate My Birthday.

Here's to me, for having been the brilliant mother who raised the adorable boy who is smart enough to marry the perfect girl who made me this beautiful birthday cake. I have been begging, pleading, howling for this cake for two years. "I want three layers. Carrot cake." This was my first mention. Every few months after I would suggest that the layers could be small... and colorful. Otherwise it was all up to Shanna. Although it wasn't small by any means, it also wasn't frightfully enormous. It fed only three tables of curious strangers at the crowded restaurant where we dined Saturday night. Everyone agreed it was fabulous. And it was. Am I the luckiest Birthday Girl ever or what? Oompa!