Family Birthdays!

Yesterday was my grandson Isaac's birthday party. He turned two on the 15th. Today is my birthday. Slowly but surely the years are passing and I'm edging closer and closer to fifty. 48 - and I don't feel any different than I did at 30. I look different - when I look in the mirror I can see the lines on my face and when you look in the pictures I have that weight gain that screams peri-menopause. However, even though the eyelids wrinkle when I put on makeup, inside there is no change. Perhaps the change is in how I look at myself and how I feel about who I am. I don't feel any different, but I certainly think different. I'm much more settled with who I am as a person, as a woman. I'm much more confident in myself and care less what other people think of me. It's so freeing.

The more I think about it, the more I like getting older. I worry a little about my health, but not so much about age. I want to look good and I denfinately need to do something about my fitness and my weight - but I'm not too worried. Some women really hate getting older. I'm not sure what the fear is, except that I know for me, I'm a much more analytical person - logic. So I look at the whole experience differently than others might.

As my grandchildren grow and multiply, I find that I'm looking at life in a new way. I wasn't ready for grandchildren and being a working mom and very busy, I don't have as much time for my children, let alone six more added to the group. If you look at the family picture to the right on this blog, you'll notice that there are now 17 people in it. That's a far cry from six years ago when there were just nine, including my mom. However, since then the girls have married and had more children and my brother has now come to reside with our family. It's a mixed bag of family members who now gather to celebrate different birthdays and holidays.

However, it's a lot of fun too. There is so much noise and chaos, at times it's awful, but at other times it's fun. It's crazy. The kids love it. It's going to be so different for the grandchildren and our youngest children who will be much more conditioned to the noise and confusion.

My bd celebration is tonight at Swiss Chalet - I'll post some beautiful new pics of my beautiful new hairdo for tomorrow. For now, I'm going to go and rest and relax - my birthday has fallen on my day off!

grace...kathie