Close to Nowhere

Sissie and I recently celebrated our birthdays. I rooted for her to be born exactly on August 12, which is my birthday, but apparently she wanted her own special day and she waited to make her grand arrival on the 20th.

I won't tell you how old I am now, but Sissie (Ruby June) celebrated her second birthday last week. Because of the pandemic, she didn't have a birthday party, which is sad because I love birthday cake and her paternal grandmother has a bakery. And boy, can she bake!

Merideth, Tim, Shepard (who will be 4 in December) and Sissie came to visit the Sunday between our birthdays. I rarely get any time at all with Shepard nowadays. He'll come in for a quick hug, then he has to hit the outdoors and spend some quality time on the four-wheeler or following his dad around on his miniature John Deere tractor. That's his favorite thing. Actually anything involving his dad and outside is his favorite thing.

Sissie, on the other hand, is pure little girl. Her favorite thing to do here is get my rolling spice rack and distribute spices all over the house. I have a rack that an oversized roaster sits on and I often find lots of little spice jars all around it, where she's been "cooking." She loves to cook.

For her birthday this year I got her a soft, stuffed doll with a pink blanket. Sissie has her own pink blanket that goes everywhere with her. It's amazing to me how different she and her big brother are and how much they love each other.

Mere has a video of them jumping on a trampoline. Sissie is Shepard's shadow. He was firmly reprimanded for trying to do something silly, so he flopped down and just laid on the trampoline. Sissie, not to be outdone, flopped down right beside him ­ a little monkey see, monkey do.

Sissie has had days of people mailing her presents and dropping her off goodies. And she is pretty sure she deserves every bit of the adoration she receives.

Because of the pandemic, I made my own birthday cake. It wasn't anything special, although yellow cake with chocolate icing is my favorite.

I did get one very special treat on my birthday. Good friend and former co-worker Beth called me and sang "Happy Birthday" to me. I'm not going to have Beth much longer and yet she called and sang to me and remembered what my favorite cake was and was sorry she couldn't make me a cake for my birthday.

Sometimes, the little things that happen on your birthday are the ones that are most important.