It's My Birthday!

Saturday is my birthday! I will be 33, I can hardly believe how quickly the last few years have flown by. Having babies kinda does that to you. Funny, I don't feel the least bit sad at being another year older. I am in a much better place in so many areas of my life than I was a year ago. I will be relieved to let go of 32. I think I may actually be growing up (a little). Finally!

For me, a big bonus of being in my thirties is that I am finally old enough to be a mom. It was not easy for me to be a 25 year old, who looked 18 and be the mother of a 6 and 3 year olds. People either thought I was the baby sitter, or looked down their noses at me for being one of 'those' girls who got knocked up as a teen, or I had women 20 years older than me asking me for parenting advice. I appreciated those women the most. They took the time to get to know me and my children and recognized that my kids were pretty amazing and I was an intelligent, thoughtful woman who had something to offer.

There are not a lot of women of my generation who had kids as young as I, or who got married as young as I did either. It wasn't really part of my plan. Mine was to finish my undergrad, start my postgraduate studies, get married, finish school, work, and then start having babies at about 30. Reality was to go to one year of college, get married, have a baby and stay home for a couple of years. Work and get pregnant again, stay home for a few more years. Send my kids off to school and start thumbing through University catalogues and get pregnant again! Then I brought my kids home to school and had 2 more babies. This year I was going to start my degree by correspondence and then I got preggo again!

Now my plan is to raise my kids and keep my brain fresh and stimulated informally. (I am learning Latin right now and refreshing my French) When they are at an age where they don't need so much of my time, then I will think about University again. Maybe. Honestly, I am learning so much more while teaching them, than I did in college. And I get to study whatever I like! My main motivation for a degree at this point is to model that for my kids. I want them to value education and love to learn as much as I do.

At 32 and 364 days, I still have women say to me, "You have four kids??? You look way too young!" Now I love those comments;) Because honestly, I totally look my age now. I think I aged 10 years between 28 and 30. I went from looking 18 to looking 30, and that is just fine with me. I hope I still feel that way in 10 years or in 20 years.

I am really looking forward to tomorrow, to just hanging out with my kids and Brent. He is still working 12 hour nights, but he is hoping to get home early in the morning so he can get up earlier and we can do something. I am thinking a nice hike through the river valley and then maybe a cook out. Cook outs are one of my all time favourite activities, nothing like hot dogs burned over an open fire. OOH and S'mores! Yum! Maybe I will get lucky and my kids will bake a cake for me again, last year's was yummy.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and when you drop by, I would love to hear some of your thoughts on getting older.