It Has Been Accomplished

 Fourteen of us gathered today to celebrate four birthdays. 
And it was pretty swell. 
Of course today is the actual day of Owen's birthday so in a way, this was especially his celebration but his mama and Virgil and August did pretty well in the being feted and loved area. 
Owen, as you can see, has not stopped growing at the age of seventeen. And as you can also see, his Boppy is pretty darn proud of him. 
We all are. 
Tomorrow's date belongs to both Lily and Vergil. 
Here's a picture I love of Lily and Owen. 

I could not love it more. I swear to you- Owen has every Moon gene there is, or at least every one of them his mother could possibly have passed on to him. Lily looks just like Glen's sisters and Owen looks just like her. 
I often feel as if I was simply an incubator whose mission was to grow, protect, and deliver my husband's DNA on to the next generations. 
And that is fine with me. 

It was a good day. I didn't get stressed out in the least and the cake, although I labeled it The Monstrocity, turned out to be a pretty delicious cake. I had a few bites and the cake part was especially nice. Everyone else liked the frosting but...cream cheese. 
Cream cheese goes on bagels in my opinion. But no one else seemed to feel that way. 
Here's what it looked like when a good portion of it had been eaten. 

The chocolate on the knife is from when it had been used to cut the incredibly delicious cheese cake Lily had made Owen at his request. Bittersweet chocolate ganache was involved. 

The tacos were good and Kelly, Lily's best friend since forever came and brought my favorite part of the meal which was the Velveeta cheese dip. Don't even bother to tell me how gross Velveeta cheese is. Just hand me a spoon and leave me alone to eat in peace and privacy. 
Kelly is our go-to for all things surgical or for doctor recommendations. She's a surgery tech who's seen it all and knows who's good and who it's best to avoid. And she'll tell us, too. Her knowledge has been a huge help and comfort to our entire family. Kelly is the woman you call, not only when you need advice on a surgeon, but also when you need a meal because you just had surgery. She is probably the most hardworking, goodhearted, loyal and steadfast woman I know. 

More pictures.

Rachel took that one. 

August's eleventh birthday is on Tuesday so he is one of the candle-blowers too. 
Presents were given to all the birthday people. Sweet ones, funny ones, impressive ones, loving ones. 
And cake and cheesecake were eaten. 

And then everyone helped clean up and put tables and chairs back where they belonged and I did very little. In fact, I am about 80% less exhausted tonight than I was last night. 

Here's a picture Vergil took upon my request of August and me. He'll be taller than I am soon. 

In honor of the birthday celebration I wore my Frida Kahlo t-shirt with the neck cut out which I've probably had for at least fifteen years. Also, please note- great grandmother's pearls. And I just realized that you can see the wild white explosion of the hair growing back on my head. I call it my granny hair. It reminds me very much of my mother's mother's hair. Soft and white and fine although hers was permed weekly and kept in place with a spiderweb-like hair net. Perhaps I should get one of those. Either that or just stay out of situations where I have a light behind me. 
Hmmm...
But isn't August beautiful? I cannot believe he is about to be eleven. 

And here's one of Levon that Vergil also took in my hallway. 

They were packing up to leave and he had a backpack filled with sports equipment, the four balloons you see, and a football. Both boys were experimenting with balloons to make as many different incredibly loud and obnoxious noises as they could. 
The possibilities are endless. 

Now, you may ask, where are Gibson and Maggie? Well, it is one of Gibson's best friend's birthday today too and he wanted to go the party being held for him. I so get that. At the age of fourteen, family events cannot possibly compete with peer events. We missed him but we all understood. 
As to Magnolia, she was there but stayed in the background, mostly. She is ten, soon enough eleven, and that's a tricky age, I think. She was sweet and funny and played with her cousins but as I said, she was not so interested in socializing. 
Again, I get it. 

And May and Michael, as I said yesterday, I think, were both working. Damn but I hate not having them with us. We are just not whole without them. 

Billy's birthday is Monday and he asked if I wanted to get together with him then. I told him that since it was his actual birthday, it was a lot of I-am-not-worthy. 
He told me I was. So I'll be driving into town and finally seeing his new apartment and giving him the fishy spoon rest I made him months and months ago. 
Something very dear to look forward to. 

We were talking about all the birthdays this week and Owen said, "It's almost like New Year's Eve was nine months before or something."
We all laughed. Owen generally doesn't even begin to go into the, uh, more intimate aspects of life, so I was a little surprised, and a little delighted. 
When he hugged me good-bye he told me he was going to go hang out with some friends and I told him that that is exactly what seventeen year olds should be doing. "Have a very good time," I said. 
"I'll be safe," he said, as if I had forgotten to give him those words of wisdom.  
"Well then, you'll be doing far better than I did when I was seventeen," I answered. 
He laughed but I was quite serious. What's up with these kids of the Alpha Generation? Don't they understand how to be teenagers and drive their mothers insane? 
I guess not. And perhaps that is a very, very good thing. 
But what do I know? 
Very little. 
But I do know that I have probably hosted more birthday parties and baked more birthday cakes than I could ever have imagined doing as a child. And this one was one of the really, really good ones. 

Love...Ms. Moon