Birthday, Mythology and Pluto

Today was my birthday. I was a late-Christmas/early-New Year's baby. I was fortunate growing up to be an only child, because I was able to have definite birthday gifts, separate from Christmas. As a parent now with more than one child, I can see how it would have been very difficult to have a child with a holiday birthday! Of course, now that I have children my birthday tends to be overlooked, as I'm sure is the case with many adults. Since I'm typically on holiday break for my birthday, it's rarely even recognized at work. Oh, well--I suppose I'm used to it! :)

This year was different, though--I actually had THREE birthday celebrations! Such fun.

1) Celebrating at Nana and Papa's House

My first celebration was while we were still in Little Rock at my parent's house. Since everything Christmas fell on a weekend and we were able to stay a few days longer, we had a separate birthday dinner. Nana had some little blow-up letters spelling out "Happy Birthday" that were originally intended for Shawn's birthday in October. Since they weren't used then, the boys and Nana blew them up for me and set them out in the sunroom. (Yes, the spelling is incorrect; Shawn apparently "misplaced" a letter. It was found later, but we didn't get a new picture.)

I became princess for the day! Since I live in a house of boys (including the dogs), I take full advantage of every opportunity to be a princess! A few years ago I had a tiara as part of my Halloween costume, and have kept it available for these types of occasions. Shawn loves it when I wear what he calls my "crown."

 

 

2) Dinner with HoneyBear
The night before my birthday the boys spent the night at Grandma's house so we could do dinner and a movie as another birthday celebration. HoneyBear was off Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, but had to work Thursday and Friday, so celebrating on Tuesday night made more sense than on my actual birthday on Wednesday.

After some debate, we had dinner at Mermaid's restaurant. Even though the building was a Pizza Inn for years, it's been a relatively upscale seafood restaurant for a while.  I loved the Ahi Tuna Tower with spinach, as always! HoneyBear got his usual seafood trio with wonderful scallops that he shared with me, so I got the best of both meals!

We have a tradition of going to Mermaids before going to shows at the Walton Arts Center, but don't have any shows planned this year, so haven't had the chance to go. This time, though, we headed to the cinema theater instead of the live theatre. Since we had already seen Avatar, we saw Sherlock Holmes and loved it.

As we were leaving the theater the predicted winter weather began, and huge white fluffy flakes were spotlighted in the lights of the parking lot. I was able to enjoy "snowflakes that stay on your nose and eyelashes." Since the 1-2 inches predicted didn't actually happen, this beautiful sight was even more special. (It seems that no date is complete for us, though, without a trip to WalMart, and this one was no different... My special birthday dinner was followed by a quick stop.)

3) Lunch as a Family
Because HoneyBear was able to be off work on my birthday, we had one more special time of celebration with lunch at Red Lobster with the boys. One of my favorite parts of the lunch came from a comment from Shawn.

As a bit of background, Tyler had gotten a much-desired book, The Lightning Thief, for Christmas.

We talked about the book at lunch, and because HoneyBear loves mythology, the basis of the book, he and Tyler began discussing Greek and Roman mythology. (We did emphasize multiple times that this is just myth, and that there is only one God. He didn't really understand why we made such a big deal about that--of course there's only one God! Isn't it great?!)

When HoneyBear mentioned the Roman god Pluto, also known as Hades in Greek mythology, Shawn suddenly jumped into the conversation.

"Pluto's not a planet anymore," he said.

"That's right, Shawn!"

"Now, it's just a dog who is Mickey Mouse's friend."

I do love some of the way his mind works!

I had to put away my princess tiara, but I enjoyed it while it lasted! Now it's time to shift into a new year, both as a count of my age and a date on the calendar. Happy birthday to me!