It is my birthday!  Notice the exclamation point there?  Yep.  For someone fast approaching 40, you may not expect me to be at all excited about this anniversary of my birth, so very long ago.  Except that I am.  Here’s why: I had a fantastic birthday last year.  No, I didn’t have a huge party.  No, I didn’t get a ton of gifts.  And no, I didn’t travel anywhere special.  What made it fantastic?  Someone bought a banner to hang across the dining room. Someone bought me a cake with my name on it.  Someone put candles in that cake and actually lit them.  And then they sang to me.  And I got to open presents and have a family moment.  A bunch of them.  And it was fantastic.

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Being a single mom has lots of advantages.  Freedom to raise your child how you see fit, freedom to manage your finances how you see fit, freedom to wear your PJs all weekend long if you want to.  But it has some obvious downsides, too.  Like when you are sick.  There is nothing worse than being a sick single mom (OK, there are probably a lot of worse things, but not in my universe).  There is no one to take care of you, you can’t even take care of yourself, and oh, yeah, there’s this little one looking at you, wondering when you are going to make dinner.  And when you are single mom to a boy on the spectrum, it can get a little worse…

Before The Man, on my last birthday as a truly single mama, I wanted to go out to eat, at the very least.  I had prepared The Boy for it, the time came for us to go, and The Boy refused.  And I threw a fit, thinking, “It’s my birthday!  I just want to go out to eat, and I can’t even do that!”  The Boy simply said, “Remember what the Rolling Stones said, Mom.  You can’t always get what you want,” and walked out of my room.

So last year, when The Man came to visit expressly for my birthday, and very obviously took great pleasure in setting all of these things up for my birthday (as a surprise, no less), I couldn’t have felt more loved.  He had The Boy help him with every detail, and it was one of the best birthday “gifts” I have ever received.  This is the reason I have looked forward to today.  I get to spend it with my honey and my son.  What more could a girl ask for?