Two Very Special Birthday Boys!

Today, though there isn’t any art this time around…and I apologize for missing this last couple of Sundays, as I didn’t have anything I thought worth while to show at the time…today is an extra special day! For it was the day that my boyfriend was born in the year 1972, and my nephew was born in the year 2000! HAPPY BIRTHDAY GUYS!

So, despite having to work all day, as my boyfriend is scheduled to do so, we’ll be going out for sushi come dinner time; my treat to him as it’s something we both enjoy immensely, and can never get enough of due to the lack of funds. I can’t really remember the first birthday present I ever got him, but I do remember our first Christmas together. He’s the first boyfriend I ever brought home for the holidays, and perhaps the only one that I was overly excited to introduce to my parents. I can’t say all of my past boyfriends were bad boys, but out of all of them this one is by far the sweetest and more family sociable.

He loves kids, and when my sister brought her three kids to our parents’ house for Christmas, I knew just who to sick the older two on. While he and my niece and nephew played at one end of the house, Kermit and I were hanging out at the other end. She was startled at how quiet it was, to which I put my arm around her shoulder and wished her a Merry Christmas. “Do I get to take him home with me?” She asked, to which I told her no, because I needed him down here with me.

That Christmas, my dad took him out to gift shop for me. Admittedly, there was little my boyfriend knew for sure what I wanted, and simply got me a couple of books wrapped with an envelope stating that he owed me one LARPing event.

What is LARPing? Live Action Role Playing. Yes, I used to run around in costume and beat people up with foam weapons. But finances got tight, and I’ve had to stop playing. My boyfriend knows how much I love to play make-believe, come up with storylines and pretend to be someone I’m not. So, he made up the IOU so that someday I can play again. I’ve been saving it for an event a couple of friends want to take me to up in the state north of us.

I racked my brain for nearly a month trying to figure out what to get my boyfriend for Christmas, and his best friend who knew him longer than I kept asking me for advice as well. I think I finally got through to him to just simply give the man gift cards, since there isn’t a whole lot of inexpensive things my boyfriend wants. However, I had the luck of figuring out what to get him after “I want a Hippopotamus for Christmas” came onto the radio that year. Since my boyfriend started obsessing over it, as we had never heard it before then, I went out and ordered him a CD with the song on it, as well as an illustrated book that had the lyrics, and topped it all off with a stuffed hippo I saw down the street from where I worked at the time. He plays the CD every Christmas at work now, and the hippo is on a gargoyle post/shelf thing that I have on the corner step of the stairs. A part of me wishes I could get Abby’s farting hippo from NCIS, as I think he would love that for the fact that it’s a prop that coincides with our favorite character in the show.


My sister has named my nephew Scooter on her blog, so I will be calling him that here as well. I got to meet him when he was four months old, when my sister brought him to CAMP so our dad’s friends could meet him. I remember when we went to the airport to pick them up, and Kermit handed him over to me to hold for a moment, it was the most awkward moment. When it comes to babies, I can’t hold them for anything; I sign of my lack in motherly instinct. But I managed long enough for them to take a picture of us, and my sister soon took him out of my arms.

There is a picture of have of him and my other sister lying on the couch. It’s a profile of her, with him lying atop of her chest as he faces the camera. The lighting is soft and warm, but it’s still a rather dark photo. Truly beautiful in showing a maternal glow within my oldest sister. They’ve tried to replicate the photo with the children that followed, but they don’t compare to the original.

Scooter is smart, vibrant, energetic, and quick to learn. His first love was trains, soon followed by tornadoes and later by the Titanic. His brain soaks in information he reads, hears, and watches like a sponge, and he’ll pour it all back out to anyone who will simply listen. My dad bought him his first train set, which we’re in the process of getting fixed up after his younger brother got a hold of it. I even remember talking to Scooter on the phone one time, telling him about the shop my boyfriend and I work at, and how it was filled with model trains and had a layout and all sorts of things I know he’d enjoy. “Mommy! Mommy! Aunt Cere says there’s a store that’s full of trains! We have to go so we can go see the train store!” I forgot to mention about all the layouts the train club has up at the train museum…but I don’t see them visiting me anytime soon.

Here’s hoping your Birthdays are special and filled with all the joys of spending time with your friends and family.