Happy Birthday Mom!

It seems a short blog post is in order today to wish Alice Flynn a very happy birthday. Growing up my mother always made a big deal out of our birthdays. And she says her mother always did the same for her.

Her birthday on Feb. 3 coincides with the Roman Catholic Blessing of the Throats, so part of every birthday was spent in church. Her other tradition involved eating her mother’s homemade hot water sponge cake. Being the youngest of six children, my mother concedes she was a little spoiled on birthdays (and probably in general), especially when her siblings started to work and could splurge on presents.

The fact that my mother made a fuss over our birthdays is even more impressive considering three of her four children’s birthdays were very close to Christmas: December 13, December 19 and January 15. She never did combination birthday/Christmas presents, although she may have wrapped birthday gifts in Christmas paper, but I forgive her now.

Summer birthday parties would have been much easier. Imagine tying the figure skate laces of 10 cranky, runny-nosed elementary school kids at a birthday party held for one of us on the pond across the street. I remember another party at Chuck E. Cheese’s for my brother, back when Chucky E. Cheese’s was The Thing. Tommy had so much fun running around in the tunnels, swimming in the ball pit, playing video games and eating pizza that he threw up on all of his friends on the way home.

I have always loved my birthday, and I know I have my mother to thank. Everyone should feel like a very big deal at least one day of the year.