33

The first birthday of Eric's that we celebrated together was also the beginning of an "us." It was 2003, and after months of neighborly chats in the hallway, finding excuses to dawdle in each others' doorways, studying together at the student center, and being wimps about sharing our real feelings, our wonderful friend, Mark, lovingly lied to Eric to get him to spill his guts. On Eric's 25th birthday, Mark told him a half-truth: that I had told Mark (which I hadn't) that I was interested in Eric (which I was). And as we all prepared to go out as a group to celebrate that evening, Mark "sent" Eric to my apartment to talk to me. But it wasn't until the end of a wonderful night with all our buds at Nevins, one of our favorite Evanston spots, a night which Eric and I spent laughing and talking on side-by-side stools, that he dawdled once again in my doorway...then came in at sat in my hideous, crunchy orange upholstered chair... And we kept finding reasons to keep talking until we wound our way slowly around to the truth that we both already knew: that there was something more there. Oh, how we laughed late into the night and early morning about all the ridiculous and sweet ways we had been so obvious while thinking we were sneaky as we both tried to protect ourselves from the possibility of rejection. Within days, Eric had met my parents, and six months later, we were engaged to be married.

And so Eric's birthday is not only a celebration of his life and of the miraculous day that he emerged from his mother, but a reminder of the gift of the life that we have together. A life that was birthed that day, with the support and encouragement of our friends, the midwives.

This 33rd birthday of Eric's was a sweet one, and, si Dios quiere (= "God willing" in Spanish), the last one that we will celebrate with just two of us! The day before, after the first session of our Birthing from Within class (which has been awesome!) in Portland, we went to the Alberta neighborhood and wandered around.

This is a wonderful little vegan bakery where we stopped for a snack:

Alberta Street:


A great little toy store where we found the perfect gift for sweet Freya, who just turned 2. If you haven't heard of The Imaginary World of Mr. Toast, it's pretty cool. We got Freya this and this. Maybe next year we can get her Shaky Bacon, unless that would be too weird coming from vegetarians.


We eventually worked up an appetite and made our way to the Vita Cafe, an amazing restaurant with endless vegetarian and vegan options. Sooooooo good!

After our vegan day, we indulged in some Tillamook Cookie Dough ice cream at home, cause we didn't want to make dairy feel too bad about itself.

Eric's actual birthday was on Sunday and so was a work day for him, but he spent much of the evening on the couch with some good buddies: the Sunday paper, a Rolling Rock (just because it has a "33" on the bottle--who knows why), some almonds, and some sort of sweet homemade goodies from some sweet church ladies.

Meanwhile, I was pregnant and barefoot in the kitchen (ha!) making him the most delicious cake in the world. It think it may have been my first from-scratch cake, a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. Pregnancy just might be waking up that one tiny spark of domesticity within me.

By the time I finished, it was definitely nighttime, but it was worth the wait!

My mom would be proud of the dense-ness (she is famous for her hearty, whole-wheat, super-tasty cakes) and my step-dad would be proud of the frosting-to-cake ratio, which was ridiculously high.

He liked it! And we happily ate it for three days! And I had so much frosting left over that I just had to make some red velvet cupcakes to use it up. We gave *most* of them away.

Happy birthday, my sweet Beez. I have a feeling that this 34th year of yours will be full of adventures.