How We Do Birthdays

Today is a big day in the OFB household. It’s a certain somebody’s birthday. I’ll give you three hints who:

1. Johnny.
2. JOHNNY.
3. JOHNNNNYYYYYY!!!!!!

Here are a few things you may not know about Johnny:

• He loves Southern food, especially fried okra and boiled peanuts. I’ve converted him to my Dirty South ways.
• He’s excellent at remembering something I’ve had my eye on and then surprising me with it when I least expect it.
• Someday he’ll be involved in politics. Govnuh Johnny 2032. (Of course, first we must find our forever place.)
• He never loses his cool, which offsets me very well. 🙂
• A certain five-month-old has already figured out he’s the funny one.
• He listens and cares about every little problem or stupid story I share. And, boy, can I ramble.

Oh, and he’s sorta the best. Everrrr. With him by my side, I’m 1000000x better. That’s a lot.

And today we celebrate him! Our birthday celebrations are notoriously low key since neither of us enjoys attention on ourselves. Put all eyes on me, and things get real awkward, folks. Like any other celebration, we stick to a budget for our birthdays. We try not to spend more than $50 on gifts for each other. And we get to pick a nice place to eat (with Johnny it’s usually a place with good steak). And there is always delicious cake. I might not ever know what to buy my boy, especially when he wants really weird stuff. But I know that he loves him some homemade chocolate cake with ice cream.

But one of our favorite birthday traditions is combining our birthdays with a fun experience we’d already been planning. In years past we’ve done Harry Potter World and a live taping of Late Night with Conan O’Brien. Of course, we’ve also had birthdays where we’ve both had to work our tails off and barely had time to celebrate at all. But not this year!

As we celebrate Johnny’s birthday, we’ll be on Hilton Head Island for a few days. My brother is staying at our place and caring for our cat, Persie, while we try to go from translucent to just pasty-white. If we’re slow on commenting, it’s probably because we’re embracing beach bum status — or severely regretting going on vacation with a five-month-old. One of those two. It’s our first road trip with our girl, so wish us luck!