Birthdays and Half-Birthdays

Today is my most official half birthday; that's right, folks, I'm 25 1/2 today. When I was a kid we would get to pick out a cereal that we wanted on the week of our half birthday. This means a lot more when you realize that I was mainly raised on hot cereals, like Cream of Wheat, Cracked Wheat, Tapioca (betcha didn't know that could be a hot cereal even. It's delicious.), Rice Pudding (yet another surprise hot cereal. My mother has a broad imagination when it comes to hot cereals. And yet, I absolutely love this breakfast; I've never learned to make it though, I far prefer having her come and make it for me), and of course the old standard, Oatmeal.

So getting cereal at all was a big deal; I remember one Christmas, when I was in first grade, finding a box of Honeycomb under the Christmas tree. We were so excited for it, and of course immediately ate it for our Christmas breakfast. This memory stands out even more because it's the only thing that I do remember getting for Christmas that year. That's right, an entire Christmas morning was eclipsed by cold cereal. I could practically try out for Mary and Laura Ingalls, who when they got little cakes made completely with white sugar and flour for Christmas on the Prairie were speechless.

Of course, as we grew older my mom grew less diligent, and cold cereal crept into my life. But for much of my childhood getting to pick my own cereal was very exciting. The funny this is I can't actually remember any cereal that I did pick out for my half birthday. I do remember my older sister Camilla picking puffed rice, the kind that came in the big off brand bags for her cereal. This would have been when she was 10 or 11. I think the logic was how much cereal she could get, and also she had never tried it before. It turned out to be a flop for a cereal, but we did end up using it for months and months in our games when we played house, or whatnot.

This year I forgot about getting the cereal, and I didn't go grocery shopping with Avram because Lydia had a stomach bug yesterday, and so threw up everything she ate, so I stayed home with her while he went for us. So I didn't even get reminded. Avram did bring home a nice box of basic Cornflakes, which we've eaten most weeks since we've been here (to be fair, we haven't really followed this tradition since we've been married, and so it's not like he forgot to get me "my" cereal).

(Lydia had a blessing last night, and in it she was promised she would stop throwing up, and she did, even though it hadn't been 24 hours yet since she started being sick. I love the Priesthood. Today she's back to her old self).

Other than that I don't have a particular method of celebrating half-birthdays. In fact, my own birthday is pretty far from my mind; mainly I'm thinking of the soon-to-be-but-not-nearly-soon-enough birthday of little Elisheva. I'm thirty-five weeks along now, and I just want her out. I told Avram this this morning, and he suggested that we go to the hospital and tell them that, and they can just take her out. Ha, ha, if only they would. But then I'd have a C-section, which of course I don't want.

I've been spending way too much time reading homebirth stories in the UK, and although it helps me feel confident and prepared for labor and a home birth, at the same time it just really makes me want Elisheva out here with me, and not inside getting bigger. I'm driving poor Avram crazy, too. For one thing, his capacity of talking about the details of labor and birth is about five minutes (a little longer if I don't require a response from him). Mine at this point in my pregnancy is basically endless. It's rather pathetic, really. I'd like to think that I'm not a woman that gets so caught up in childbearing and raising that she can't talk about anything else, but at this stage in a pregnancy it's almost like being possessed by an alien; your body's not your own, and so it's natural that your thoughts aren't your own either. But this too shall pass; in five or six weeks (around May 8th) she'll come, and then I can return to obsessing about other areas of my life. Like what cold cereal to eat.