Shameless Bragging

It`s my birthday! Yaaaaaaay, me! All I did was get another year older -- no feat in itself, I guess, but I`m celebrating, anyway. We`re going out for sushi tonight.

(Age? 41 -- one year past the big "oh-my-god-I`m-so-OLD" year, so this year came as no shock.)

My friends here gave me a gift certificate for a spa pedicure, and one baked an apple tart. Then I went to the school mass this morning (since God obviously has a wicked sense of humor, and had me born on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception) and got the biggest surprise of all: Big Son was on the honor roll for the first quarter.

I probably didn`t make the best impression on his teacher, the Puritan Maiden, when I asked her, "Was there some mistake?"

I thought a kid couldn`t get honors if he got C`s, and Big Son got a few. However, our school`s honor roll is based on GPA, and his A`s apparently were enough to give him a high enough average to get into the lowest rung of its three-tier honor roll.

I don`t care so much about things like GPA`s, but I will never forget the look on his face when they called his name, to go up to the alter and get his certificate. He was trying so hard not to smile.

He wasn`t expecting it, either.

Daughter sang with the choir -- she`s really into it. She insists she`s an alto, although her voice sounds like a high-pitched little-girl soprano to me. The main reason I even went to the mass was for her, because she said she wanted me to come hear her sing.

After church I picked up Little Son at his preschool. He made me a paper Christmas tree ornament today -- "a star with a hat on."

And it occurred to me, that as far as my life goes....

...it doesn`t get any better than this.