i woke up this morning to magnificent kissing my cheek. "happy birthday, tess" he whispered before heading off to reunion group.

i heard shushing and giggling and decided that i would stay in bed until the kids came powering into the room to wish me happy 38. but that never happened….or at least i don’t think it did because i fell back asleep! woke up again, toddled out into the living room, and instead of being greeted with a chorus of "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" was met with the kids crowding around me and touching me.

how sweet, i thought. they all want to hug me. wow. i do feel loved indeed.

instead of giving me loving hugs, the kids had an insistent question that needed answering right away.

"happybirthdaymummydidyoubuyusanythingforyourbirthday?"

huh! nice. not even an offer for a cuppa.

"no kids, only Jesus gives presents on his birthday and do i look like Jesus?"

their beady little disappointed eyes turned away and they returned to surreptitiously jumping on the sofa.

then the phone started ringing and i had to stop screaming at them to answer it and they were thrilled because mummy on the phone means they can be naughty right under my nose adn the phone kept ringing much to their delight and i realised that magnificent had been at work reminding people it was my birthday. good heavens. people were calling left right and centre and i was getting some great emails as well. pretty fun stuff. all in the name of 38.

other people couldn’t get through and so left messages, like doug and penny. my favourite message possibly came from my dad…"uh hello? maureen, can you come here? i am not sure if the lines are down, it’s not ringing anymore and she was talking to me but now there’s just silence…kiddo? kiddo? maureen, i think the line is down."

i got dressed and headed to my friend sheri’s house…we were sharing a taxi into town together for a ladies lunch at isola. i had requested to the girlfriends that instead of gifts that a donation be made to ICC, the charity where i volunteered in october. (international china concern), grudgingly they agreed, but to compensate, we had lunch at the divine ifc restaurant isola.

the anal retentive ones in the group, steph, sheri and i arrived five minutes early and went to be seated. we had a tough time located our reservation – cora was meant to make the reservation but she had made a last minute trip to japan when school was cancelled. steph took matters into her own hands and looked at the reservation list and saw that there was a reservation for six under the name mr a ha. cora’s husband is mr allan ha. perfect. we so loved our window table that we didn’t even make a fuss that the reservation should have been for eight persons.

at 12.45, mr ha and is five guests showed up wanting to be seated at their table ! gah! just a little embarrassing, but we managed to stay in our location anyway…hooray!

home, then back to sheri’s for easter egg decorating with her absolutely fantastic son olin, and then back home for the kids to be ornery on the playground and i went to sandi’s to hear about her trip to new zealand and to tell her what has been happening here in her absence and to just catch up. it was a lovely visit, actually.

then home to my honey and to the kids who actually all sang me happy birthday, FINALLY.

interestingly, today i was given a magazine. a few months ago, when charles gave me the card that donated three months of rice to 25 needy families in the philippines, one way that we said we would pay off that debt was for me not to buy vanity fair. i actually upped the ante, and haven’t bought one magazine since then. at times it has been tough, but not agonizingly so. i am surprised, actually.

some birthdays you feel very loved. today was one of them. Thirty-eight is off to a very great start. thank you everyone who called and wrote and send emails, so very appreciated.