Babies Birthday Quotes

Abby touched her palm to my cheek. "You know what, Mr. Maddox?" "What, baby?" Her expression turned serious. "In another life, I could love you." I watched her for a moment, staring into her glassed over eyes. She was drunk, but just for a moment it didn't seem wrong to pretend that she meant it. "I might love you in this one.

Wish on everything. Pink cars are good, especially old ones. And stars of course, first stars and shooting stars. Planes will do if they are the first light in the sky and look like stars. Wish in tunnels, holding your breath and lifting your feet off the ground. Birthday candles. Baby teeth.

Birthdays are ghost bounty hunters that track you down to ask, "Que pasa, baby?

This isn’t lust. Lust wants, does the obvious, and pads back into the forest. Love is greedier. Love wants round-the-clock care; protection; rings, vows, joint accounts; scented candles on birthdays; life insurance. Babies. Love’s a dictator.

Baby,” he whispers, his hands shaking. “I hope you love me, because I love you like crazy, and I’m going to want you the rest of my life. I tried to stay away, because I thought it was the right thing, but I fucking can’t. I need you, and I love you. This doesn’t happen twice, and I’m not going to be stupid again. I promise.

The hideous thing is this: I want to forgive him. Even after everything, I do. A baby before my 17th birthday and a future as lonely as the surface of the moon and still the sight of him feels like a homecoming, like a song I used to know but somehow forgot.

You were the best birthday present I ever got." "Thank you." "I wanted to give you something back, but I've got to warn you that it's not half as good as my present. Even so, you have to keep it." "All right." He draped the pink bow around his neck and grinned. "Happy birthday, Rosebud.

You are everything that's ever been my favourite thing," she wanted to tell him. "You're my love song, my birthday cake, the sound of ocean waves and French words and a baby's laugh. You're a snow angel, crème brulée, a kaleidoscope filled with glitter. I love you and you'll never catch up, because I've gotten a head start and my heart is racing at light speed.

Growing up in my family meant ambushes on your birthday, crossbows for Christmas, and games of dodge ball where the balls were occasionally rigged to explode. It also meant learning how to work your way out of a wide variety of death traps. Failure to get loose on your own could lead to missing dinner, or worse, being forced to admit that you missed dinner because your baby sister had tied you to the couch. Again.

For Jenn At 12 years old I started bleeding with the moon and beating up boys who dreamed of becoming astronauts. I fought with my knuckles white as stars, and left bruises the shape of Salem. There are things we know by heart, and things we don't. At 13 my friend Jen tried to teach me how to blow rings of smoke. I'd watch the nicotine rising from her lips like halos, but I could never make dying beautiful. The sky didn't fill with colors the night I convinced myself veins are kite strings you can only cut free. I suppose I love this life, in spite of my clenched fist. I open my palm and my lifelines look like branches from an Aspen tree, and there are songbirds perched on the tips of my fingers, and I wonder if Beethoven held his breath the first time his fingers touched the keys the same way a soldier holds his breath the first time his finger clicks the trigger. We all have different reasons for forgetting to breathe. But my lungs remember the day my mother took my hand and placed it on her belly and told me the symphony beneath was my baby sister's heartbeat. And I knew life would tremble like the first tear on a prison guard's hardened cheek, like a prayer on a dying man's lips, like a vet holding a full bottle of whisky like an empty gun in a war zone… just take me just take me Sometimes the scales themselves weigh far too much, the heaviness of forever balancing blue sky with red blood. We were all born on days when too many people died in terrible ways, but you still have to call it a birthday. You still have to fall for the prettiest girl on the playground at recess and hope she knows you can hit a baseball further than any boy in the whole third grade and I've been running for home through the windpipe of a man who sings while his hands playing washboard with a spoon on a street corner in New Orleans where every boarded up window is still painted with the words We're Coming Back like a promise to the ocean that we will always keep moving towards the music, the way Basquait slept in a cardboard box to be closer to the rain. Beauty, catch me on your tongue. Thunder, clap us open. The pupils in our eyes were not born to hide beneath their desks. Tonight lay us down to rest in the Arizona desert, then wake us washing the feet of pregnant women who climbed across the border with their bellies aimed towards the sun. I know a thousand things louder than a soldier's gun. I know the heartbeat of his mother. Don't cover your ears, Love. Don't cover your ears, Life. There is a boy writing poems in Central Park and as he writes he moves and his bones become the bars of Mandela's jail cell stretching apart, and there are men playing chess in the December cold who can't tell if the breath rising from the board is their opponents or their own, and there's a woman on the stairwell of the subway swearing she can hear Niagara Falls from her rooftop in Brooklyn, and I'm remembering how Niagara Falls is a city overrun with strip malls and traffic and vendors and one incredibly brave river that makes it all worth it. Ya'll, I know this world is far from perfect. I am not the type to mistake a streetlight for the moon. I know our wounds are deep as the Atlantic. But every ocean has a shoreline and every shoreline has a tide that is constantly returning to wake the songbirds in our hands, to wake the music in our bones, to place one fearless kiss on the mouth of that brave river that has to run through the center of our hearts to find its way home.

Shepley walked out of his bedroom pulling a T-shirt over his head. His eyebrows pushed together. “Did they just leave?” “Yeah,” I said absently, rinsing my cereal bowl and dumping Abby’s leftover oatmeal in the sink. She’d barely touched it. “Well, what the hell? Mare didn’t even say goodbye.” “You knew she was going to class. Quit being a cry baby.” Shepley pointed to his chest. “I’m the cry baby? Do you remember last night?” “Shut up.” “That’s what I thought.” He sat on the couch and slipped on his sneakers. “Did you ask Abby about her birthday?” “She didn’t say much, except that she’s not into birthdays.” “So what are we doing?” “Throwing her a party.” Shepley nodded, waiting for me to explain. “I thought we’d surprise her. Invite some of our friends over and have America take her out for a while.” Shepley put on his white ball cap, pulling it down so low over his brows I couldn’t see his eyes. “She can manage that. Anything else?” “How do you feel about a puppy?” Shepley laughed once. “It’s not my birthday, bro.” I walked around the breakfast bar and leaned my hip against the stool. “I know, but she lives in the dorms. She can’t have a puppy.” “Keep it here? Seriously? What are we going to do with a dog?” “I found a Cairn Terrier online. It’s perfect.” “A what?” “Pidge is from Kansas. It’s the same kind of dog Dorothy had in the Wizard of Oz.” Shepley’s face was blank. “The Wizard of Oz.” “What? I liked the scarecrow when I was a little kid, shut the fuck up.” “It’s going to crap every where, Travis. It’ll bark and whine and … I don’t know.” “So does America … minus the crapping.” Shepley wasn’t amused. “I’ll take it out and clean up after it. I’ll keep it in my room. You won’t even know it’s here.” “You can’t keep it from barking.” “Think about it. You gotta admit it’ll win her over.” Shepley smiled. “Is that what this is all about? You’re trying to win over Abby?” My brows pulled together. “Quit it.” His smile widened. “You can get the damn dog…” I grinned with victory. “…if you admit you have feelings for Abby.” I frowned in defeat. “C’mon, man!” “Admit it,” Shepley said, crossing his arms. What a tool. He was actually going to make me say it. I looked to the floor, and everywhere else except Shepley’s smug ass smile. I fought it for a while, but the puppy was fucking brilliant. Abby would flip out (in a good way for once), and I could keep it at the apartment. She’d want to be there every day. “I like her,” I said through my teeth. Shepley held his hand to his ear. “What? I couldn’t quite hear you.” “You’re an asshole! Did you hear that?” Shepley crossed his arms. “Say it.” “I like her, okay?” “Not good enough.” “I have feelings for her. I care about her. A lot. I can’t stand it when she’s not around. Happy?” “For now,” he said, grabbing his backpack off the floor.

I KNEW IT WAS OVER when tonight you couldn't make the phone ring when you used to make the sun rise when trees used to throw themselves in front of you to be paper for love letters that was how i knew i had to do it swaddle the kids we never had against january's cold slice bundle them in winter clothes they never needed so i could drop them off at my mom's even though she lives on the other side of the country and at this late west coast hour is assuredly east coast sleeping peacefully her house was lit like a candle the way homes should be warm and golden and home and the kids ran in and jumped at the bichon frise named lucky that she never had they hugged the dog it wriggled and the kids were happy yours and mine the ones we never had and my mom was grand maternal, which is to say, with style that only comes when you've seen enough to know grace like when to pretend it's christmas or a birthday so she lit her voice with tiny lights and pretended she didn't see me crying as i drove away to the hotel connected to the bar where i ordered the cheapest whisky they had just because it shares your first name because they don't make a whisky called baby and i only thought what i got was what i ordered i toasted the hangover inevitable as sun that used to rise in your name i toasted the carnivals we never went to and the things you never won for me the ferris wheels we never kissed on and all the dreams between us that sat there like balloons on a carney's board waiting to explode with passion but slowly deflated hung slave under the pin- prick of a tack hung heads down like lovers when it doesn't work, like me at last call after too many cheap too many sweet too much whisky makes me sick, like the smell of cheap, like the smell of the dead like the cheap, dead flowers you never sent that i never threw out of the window of a car i never really owned

November 30th marks Luna Hale's eighteenth birthday. Time fucking flies - I remember when she was just a baby and we'd tap each other's noses and say beep beep.

It's just that, right now, I want to hear you promise me that if we do run out of time and I go mad, like Miranda, it ends with me. The curse ends here, because our baby will be safe. You will make that happen. Isn't that so?" It took him a minute. "Yes," he said finnally. "It's so. Although, if we're just going to talk about the baby, I can think of an easier way to save her." Oh? What?" I'd just lock her up from her sixteenth birthday on." Lucy didn't laugh. "Don't think I haven't thought of that too, love. but here's the thing. That parents try that in all the fairy tales. It never works.

Whoa there,” Trey said, pulling me back to him. “Not so fast, and I will ask you to be more careful, Ms. Preston. After all, you're carrying my birthday present.

The baby was almost certainly one year old. They knew this because of the red rosette pinned to her front, which read, 1! "Or rather," said Charles Maxim, "the child is either one year old or she has come first in a competition. I believe babies are rarely keen participants in competitive sport. Shall we therefore assume it is the former?

Once upon a time there was a king who had three beautiful daughters. No, no, wait. Once upon a time there were three bears who lived in a wee house in the woods. Once upon a time there were three soldiers, tramping together down the road after the war. Once upon a time there were three little pigs. Once upon a time there were three brothers. No, this is it. This is the variation I want. Once upon a time there were three Beautiful children, two boys and a girl. When each baby was born, the parents rejoiced, the heavens rejoiced, even the fairies rejoiced. The fairies came to christening parties and gave the babies magical gifts. Bounce, effort, and snark. Contemplation and enthusiasm. Ambition and strong coffee. Sugar, curiosity, and rain. And yet, there was a witch. There's always a witch. This which was the same age as the beautiful children, and as she and they grew, she was jealous of the girl, and jealous of the boys, too. They were blessed with all these fairy gifts, gifts the witch had been denied at her own christening. The eldest boy was strong and fast, capable and handsome. Though it's true, he was exceptionally short. The next boy was studious and open hearted. Though it's true, he was an outsider. And the girl was witty, Generous, and ethical. Though it's true, she felt powerless. The witch, she was none of these things, for her parents had angered the fairies. No gifts were ever bestowed upon her. She was lonely. Her only strength was her dark and ugly magic. She confuse being spartan with being charitable, and gave away her possessions without truly doing good with them. She confuse being sick with being brave, and suffered agonies while imagining she merited praise for it. She confused wit with intelligence, and made people laugh rather than lightening their hearts are making them think. Hey magic was all she had, and she used it to destroy what she most admired. She visited each young person in turn in their tenth birthday, but did not harm them out right. The protection of some kind fairy - the lilac fairy, perhaps - prevented her from doing so. What she did instead was cursed them. "When you are sixteen," proclaimed the witch in a rage of jealousy, "you shall prick your finger on a spindle - no, you shall strike a match - yes, you will strike a match and did in its flame." The parents of the beautiful children were frightened of the curse, and tried, as people will do, to avoid it. They moved themselves and the children far away, to a castle on a windswept Island. A castle where there were no matches. There, surely, they would be safe. There, Surely, the witch would never find them. But find them she did. And when they were fifteen, these beautiful children, just before their sixteenth birthdays and when they're nervous parents not yet expecting it, the jealous which toxic, hateful self into their lives in the shape of a blonde meeting. The maiden befriended the beautiful children. She kissed him and took them on the boat rides and brought them fudge and told them stories. Then she gave them a box of matches. The children were entranced, for nearly sixteen they have never seen fire. Go on, strike, said the witch, smiling. Fire is beautiful. Nothing bad will happen. Go on, she said, the flames will cleanse your souls. Go on, she said, for you are independent thinkers. Go on, she said. What is this life we lead, if you did not take action? And they listened. They took the matches from her and they struck them. The witch watched their beauty burn, Their bounce, Their intelligence, Their wit, Their open hearts, Their charm, Their dreams for the future. She watched it all disappear in smoke.

Speaking of, “When is your birthday?” Strider asked Kaia. Wide silver-gold eyes swung to him. “You don’t know?” “No.” Pouting, she twirled a strand of her hair. “How can you not know?” “Do you know mine?” he asked. “Of course I do. It’s the day you met me. As good a day as any. “No, it’s not, because that was a trick question, baby doll. I don’t actually have a birthday. I was created fully formed, not born.” True story. “You can be such a moron.” She threw up her arms, exasperated. “Don’t argue with me about this kind of thing. I’ll always be right. Seriously. You were dead until you met me and we both know it. Which means I brought you to life. So, happy belated birthday.

My own kind. I'm not sure there's a name for us. I suspect we're born this way: our hearts screwed in tight, already a little broken. We hate sentimentality and yet we're deeply sentimental. Low-grade Romantics. Tough but susceptible. Afflicted by parking lots, empty courtyards, nostalgic pop music. When we cried for no reason as babies, just hauled off and wailed, our parents seemed to know, instinctively, that it wasn't diaper rash or colic. It was something deeper that they couldn't find a comfort for, though the good ones tried mightily, shaking rattles like maniacs and singing, "Happy Birthday" a little louder than called for. We weren't morose little kids. We could be really happy.

Did you ever think our misfortune is directly related to your good fortune? Maybe the house your parents bought was on the market because the sellers didn't want my mama in the neighborhood. Maybe the good grades that eventually led you to law school were possible because your mama didn't have to work eighteen hours a day, and was there to read to you at night, or make sure you did your homework. How often do you remind yourself how lucky you are that you own your house, because you were able to build up equity through generations in a way families of color can't? How often do you open your mouth at work and think how awesome it is that no one's thinking you're speaking for everyone with the same skin color you have? How hard is it for you to find the greeting card for your baby's birthday with a picture of a child that has the same color skin as her? How many times have you seen a painting of Jesus that looks like you? Prejudice goes both ways, you know. There are people who suffer from it, and there are people who profit from it.

You are my baby boy, furry with four paws and such, tender and cuddly I love you so much! You are loving and sweet and oh such a joy! I'm so very happy that you are my baby boy!

On my birthday, every year since I turned eighteen, she called me at twelve twenty in the morning to wish me happy birthday and tell me how much joy I brought her. She’d told me she was sorry she couldn’t do it when I turned thirty, and handed me a box filled with little bits of paper. She’d written Happy Birthday to my baby boy on every one. There must have been fifty of them.

I was in the fifth grade the first time I thought about turning thirty. My best friend Darcy and I came across a perpetual calendar in the back of the phone book, where you could look up any date in the future, and by using this little grid, determine what the day of the week would be. So we located our birthdays in the following year, mine in May and hers in September. I got Wednesday, a school night. She got a Friday. A small victory, but typical. Darcy was always the lucky one. Her skin tanned more quickly, her hair feathered more easily, and she didn't need braces. Her moonwalk was superior, as were her cart-wheels and her front handsprings (I couldn't handspring at all). She had a better sticker collection. More Michael Jackson pins. Forenze sweaters in turquoise, red, and peach (my mother allowed me none- said they were too trendy and expensive). And a pair of fifty-dollar Guess jeans with zippers at the ankles (ditto). Darcy had double-pierced ears and a sibling- even if it was just a brother, it was better than being an only child as I was. But at least I was a few months older and she would never quite catch up. That's when I decided to check out my thirtieth birthday- in a year so far away that it sounded like science fiction. It fell on a Sunday, which meant that my dashing husband and I would secure a responsible baby-sitter for our two (possibly three) children on that Saturday evening, dine at a fancy French restaurant with cloth napkins, and stay out past midnight, so technically we would be celebrating on my actual birthday. I would have just won a big case- somehow proven that an innocent man didn't do it. And my husband would toast me: "To Rachel, my beautiful wife, the mother of my chidren and the finest lawyer in Indy." I shared my fantasy with Darcy as we discovered that her thirtieth birthday fell on a Monday. Bummer for her. I watched her purse her lips as she processed this information. "You know, Rachel, who cares what day of the week we turn thirty?" she said, shrugging a smooth, olive shoulder. "We'll be old by then. Birthdays don't matter when you get that old." I thought of my parents, who were in their thirties, and their lackluster approach to their own birthdays. My dad had just given my mom a toaster for her birthday because ours broke the week before. The new one toasted four slices at a time instead of just two. It wasn't much of a gift. But my mom had seemed pleased enough with her new appliance; nowhere did I detect the disappointment that I felt when my Christmas stash didn't quite meet expectations. So Darcy was probably right. Fun stuff like birthdays wouldn't matter as much by the time we reached thirty. The next time I really thought about being thirty was our senior year in high school, when Darcy and I started watching ths show Thirty Something together. It wasn't our favorite- we preferred cheerful sit-coms like Who's the Boss? and Growing Pains- but we watched it anyway. My big problem with Thirty Something was the whiny characters and their depressing issues that they seemed to bring upon themselves. I remember thinking that they should grow up, suck it up. Stop pondering the meaning of life and start making grocery lists. That was back when I thought my teenage years were dragging and my twenties would surealy last forever. Then I reached my twenties. And the early twenties did seem to last forever. When I heard acquaintances a few years older lament the end of their youth, I felt smug, not yet in the danger zone myself. I had plenty of time..

People think blood red, but blood don't got no colour. Not when blood wash the floor she lying on as she scream for that son of a bitch to come, the lone baby of 1785. Not when the baby wash in crimson and squealing like it just depart heaven to come to hell, another place of red. Not when the midwife know that the mother shed too much blood, and she who don't reach fourteen birthday yet speak curse 'pon the chile and the papa, and then she drop down dead like old horse. Not when blood spurt from the skin, on spring from the axe, the cat-o'-nine, the whip, the cane and the blackjack and every day in slave life is a day that colour red. It soon come to pass when red no different from white or blue or black or nothing. Two black legs spread wide and mother mouth screaming. A black baby wiggling in blood on the floor with skin darker than midnight but the greenest eyes anybody ever done seen. I goin' call her Lilith. You can call her what they call her.

Baby, he whispers, his hands shaking. I hope you love me, because I love you like crazy, and I'm going to want you the rest of my life. I tried to stay away, because I thought it was the right thing, but I fucking can't. I need you, and I love you. This doesn't happen twice, and I'm not going to be stupid again. I promise.

DD/MM/YYYY was not an ordinary day. Early in the morning, before the sunrise, a Baby Girl Fairy was dropped from the Fairy Lands to the Earth. There were songs of joys and rejoices everywhere. Cool breeze was playing and running across the meadows. Dew drops were dancing and floating over the leaves. Birds were swaying and singing in chorus: "Happy Birthday Happy Birthday Happy Birthday (Name), Happy Birthday Happy Birthday Happy Birthday to you.

Oh, fuck, fuck…” she cries. “Pike…” “I know, baby.” You feel so good.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABY JESUS

One survey conducted in 2010 estimated that the average parent spends $6,800 on baby items before a child’s first birthday.7.9

Honey, men are wimps. Why do you think it’s women who have the babies?

Although we couldn’t entertain on the same level we had previously enjoyed, we did have several friends over for dinner and managed to cook some delectable meals. For Mama’s birthday, we made a delicious chilled artichoke soup to accompany a French Provencal chicken dish served with leeks, rice, and John’s special green salad. We poured a classic white Burgundy and topped it off with a frozen lemon souffle. Not too bad for an out-of-work couple with a new baby.

I’ve watched it time and time again—a woman always slots into a man’s life better than he slots into hers. She will be the one who spends the most time at his flat, she will be the one who makes friends with all his friends and their girlfriends. She will be the one who sends his mother a bunch of flowers on her birthday. Women don’t like this rigmarole any more than men do, but they’re better at it—they just get on with it. This means that when a woman my age falls in love with a man, the list of priorities goes from this: Family Friends To this: Family Boyfriend Boyfriend’s family Boyfriend’s friends Girlfriends of the boyfriend’s friends Friends Which means, on average, you go from seeing your friend every weekend to once every six weekends. She becomes a baton and you’re the one at the very end of the track. You get your go for, say, your birthday or a brunch, then you have to pass her back round to the boyfriend to start the long, boring rotation again. These gaps in each other’s lives slowly but surely form a gap in the middle of your friendship. The love is still there, but the familiarity is not. Before you know it, you’re not living life together anymore. You’re living life separately with respective boyfriends then meeting up for dinner every six weekends to tell each other what living is like. I now understand why our mums cleaned the house before their best friend came round and asked them “What’s the news, then?” in a jolly, stilted way. I get how that happens. So don’t tell me when you move in with your boyfriend that nothing will change. There will be no road trip. The cycle works when it comes to holidays as well—I’ll get my buddy back for every sixth summer, unless she has a baby in which case I’ll get my road trip in eighteen years’ time. It never stops happening. Everything will change.

Baby," he whispers, his hands shaking. "I hope you love me, because I love you like crazy, and I'm going to want you the rest of my life. I tried to stay away, because I thought it was the right thing, but I fucking can't. I need you, and I love you. This doesn't happen twice, and I'm not going to be stupid again. I promise.

Oooh, and I should check if Fletch is around.” “Fletch?” “Kyle Fletcher, but I call him Fletch,” she says absently. “Ex-boyfriend.” My head swivels toward her. “You’re making plans with your ex-boyfriend?” “Retract those claws, missy. Fletch is still a good friend of mine.” I can’t fight my curiosity. “How long were you together?” “Three years.” I whistle softly. “And then three and a half more with Sean…You’re a nester, huh?” “No, I’m not,” she protests. “Babe, that’s almost seven years of your life spent in a serious relationship. And you’re only twenty-two.” “Twenty-one. I’m a Christmas baby.” “For real? Your birthday’s the twenty-fifth?” “The twenty-fourth. I guess that makes me a Christmas Eve baby. Sorry.” “You better be sorry. How dare you mislead me like that?

Libby was a Christmas baby, which meant she never got the right amount of presents. Patty would hold one extra gift aside—and Happy Birthday to Libby!—but they all knew the truth, Libby got ripped off. Libby rarely felt less than ripped off.

It is true that almost everyone in the foothills farmed and hunted, so there were no breadlines, no men holding signs that begged for work and food, no children going door to door, as they did in Atlanta, asking for table scraps. Here, deep in the woods, was a different agony. Babies, the most tenuous, died from poor diet and simple things, like fevers and dehydration. In Georgia, one in seven babies died before their first birthday, and in Alabama it was worse. You could feed your family catfish and jack salmon, poke salad and possum, but medicine took cash money, and the poorest of the poor, blacks and whites, did not have it. Women, black and white, really did smother their babies to save them from slow death, to give a stronger, sounder child a little more, and stories of it swirled round and round until it became myth, because who can live with that much truth.

Someone said that thirty was a significant birthday, and everyone around the table agreed. Someone else said it was the first time you heard the bell. What bell? someone asked. But they all knew what bell. It was like you'd already completed a few laps, observed another, but this was the first time you'd properly heard the bell. There had been one at seven, but you hadn't heard it because you were so young; and then one at fourteen but you hadn't heard it because you were too busy looking over your shoulder; then another at twenty-one but you hadn't heard it because you were too busy talking; and then one at twenty-eight which for some reason took two years before you heard it. But they all agreed you did hear that one, eventually. Your lousy career, said one guest. Babies, said one of the women. Lovers, friends, travel, said another. Parents aging. Bong. All the things you hadn't done. Might not do. Bong.

They crawled toward each other, and then with some unspoken understanding, both pushed off the floor with their hands and stood. Four parents and many bemused party guests watched as the two babies took their very first steps, crashed into each other, and fell to the floor laughing.

I think we should kill her…What? She’s ruined my entire day. Made me fight with my wife and now you tell me she’s a spy sent to put us all under the jail. What part of ‘kill your enemies before they kill you’ did you sleep through? Your dad was an assassin, same as my mom. Don’t puss on me now, boy. You know what they’d do if they were here. Hell, your own mother would tear her up, spit her out in pieces, and not blink. (Sway) He’s right. None of you have any reason to help me. Why should you care? (She clicked the vid wall and a picture of a teenage girl was there.) That’s my baby sister, Tempest Elanari Gerran. Her birthday was day before yesterday. She turned sixteen in jail with my mother. I may be out of line, but I’ll bet when you guys turned sixteen, you had a celebration for it with presents and friends wishing you well. You won’t just be killing me. You’ll be killing them, too. Tempest is a prime sexual age and a virgin. Any idea what’s the first thing her new owner will do to her when she’s sold? I don’t want her to ever know the horror that was my sixteenth birthday. (Alix)

I am not a good friend. I have never been capable of or willing to commit to the maintenance that the rules of friendship dictate. I cannot remember birthdays. I do not want to meet for coffee. I will not host the baby shower. I won’t text back because it’s an eternal game of Ping-Pong, the texting. It never ends. I inevitably disappoint friends, so after enough of that, I decided I would stop trying. I don’t want to live in constant debt. This is okay with me. I have a sister and children and a dog. One cannot have it all.

A big birthday party, a family vacation, or other large-scale events like those are all wonderful, precious, and such a treat. But it's the day-to-day little things that we do - cleaning our home and our bodies, caring for ourselves in sickness and in health, nurturing a new baby - that carry the biggest impact in our lives and the lives of our children.

I drop my head into her shoulder, shaking with laughter. Anything you want, baby.

Baby, just a minute.” He sits up, and I scoot off him, letting him take the call.

In 1850, one in four American babies died before his or her first birthday.

Sleep, baby, Sleep. Our cottage vale is deep. The fearsome lamb is on the green, With woolly fleece so soft and clean. Sleep, baby, sleep. Her Birthday as Ashes in S

Im going to let you rant, because I’m going to die soon anyway. I’ll die hearing this and I’ll die holding it in.

Both born on the thirtieth. I’m a winter baby, and you’re a spring child.

Read between the lines, Richard. She said Mommy, I don't want this motherfucking baby born on my birthday month.

The birth of a new born baby is a great joy.

Could anyone fully understand the wonders of how a baby develops in the womb of a woman? This is the mystery about birth. Birth is by divine power of God.

You are everything that’s ever been my favorite thing,” she wanted to tell him. “You are my love song, my birthday cake, the sound of ocean waves and French words and a baby’s laugh. You’re a snow angel, crème brulée, a kaleidoscope filled with glitter. I love you and you’ll never catch up, because I’ve gotten a head start and my heart is racing at light speed.

The back of my neck breaks out in a sweat, and I’m getting nervous. Why is he just standing there, staring at me? “What do you want?” I press, my tone curt. He opens his mouth but then closes it swallowing. “Pike, Jesus—” “The day you left,” he blurts out, and I stop. I wait, listening as a look of fear crosses his eyes. “The house was so empty,” he continues. “Like a quiet that was never there before. I couldn’t hear your footsteps upstairs or your hairdryer or anticipate you walking into a room. You were gone. Everything was…” he drops his eyes, “gone.” A ball lodges in my throat, and I feel tears threaten, but I tense my jaw, refusing to let it out. “But I could still feel you,” he whispers. “You were still everywhere. The container of cookies in the fridge, the backsplash you picked out, the way you put all my pictures back in the wrong spot after you dusted my bookshelves.” He smiles to himself. “But I couldn’t rearrange them, because you were the last to touch them, and I wanted everything the way you had it.” My chin trembles, and I fold my arms over my chest, hiding my balled fists under my arms. He pauses and then goes on. “Nothing would ever go back to the way it was before you came into my house. I didn’t want it to.” He shakes his head. “I went to work, and I came home, and I stayed there every night and all weekend, every weekend, because that’s where we were together. That’s where I could still feel you.” He steps closer, dropping his voice. “That’s where I could wrap myself up in you and hang on to every last thread in that house that proved you were mine for just a little while.” His tone grows thick, and I see his eyes water. “I really thought I was doing what was best,” he says, knitting his brow. “I thought I was taking advantage of you, because you’re young and beautiful and so happy and hopeful despite everything you’d been through. You made me feel like the world was a big place again.” My breathing shakes, and I don’t know what to do. I hate that he’s here. I hate that I love that he’s here. I hate him. “I couldn’t steal your life from you and keep you to myself, you know?” he explains. “But then I realized that you’re not happy or hopeful or making me feel good because you’re young. You are those things and you’re capable of those things, because you’re a good person. It’s who you are.” A tear spills over, gliding down my cheek. “Baby,” he whispers, his hands shaking. “I hope you love me, because I love you like crazy, and I’m going to want you the rest of my life. I tried to stay away, because I thought it was the right thing, but I fucking can’t. I need you, and I love you. This doesn’t happen twice, and I’m not going to be stupid again. I promise.” My chin trembles, and something lodges in my throat, and I try to hold it in, but I can’t. My face cracks, and I break down, turning away from him. The tears come like a goddamn waterfall, and I hate him. I fucking hate him. His arms are around me in a second, and he hugs me from behind, burying his face in my neck. “I’m sorry I took so long,” he whispers in my ear.

Sure, some movies don’t work. Some fail in their intent. But anyone who says they hated a movie is treating a voluntarily shared human experience like a bad Red-Eye out of LAX. The departure is delayed for hours, there’s turbulence that scares even the flight attendants, the guy across from you vomits, they can’t serve any food and the booze runs out, you’re seated next to twin babies with the colic, and you land too late for your meeting in the city. You can hate that. But hating a movie misses the damn point. Would you say you hated the seventh birthday party of your girlfriend’s niece or a ball game that went eleven innings and ended 1–0? You hate cake and extra baseball for your money? Hate should be saved for fascism and steamed broccoli that’s gone cold.

I’ve sometimes found it difficult to mark the passage of time in my own life. Being untethered, thrilling though it often is, also means being unstuck in time for much of the time. I’m disconnected from nearly every ritual commonly used to mark progress and worthiness: engagement parties, weddings, baby showers, children’s birthdays, children’s school years, marriage anniversaries, Mother’s Day.

he was known for throwing elaborate parties, known as “freak dinners”—perhaps most notably the “Gondola Party” he hosted in 1905 at the Savoy Hotel in London, where he filled the hotel’s courtyard with water, dressed everyone in Venetian garb, and served dinner to guests aboard a giant gondola. Lest this be deemed insufficient, he arranged to have a birthday cake—five feet tall—brought in on the back of a baby elephant.

The effect of the weather on the inhabitants of Provence is immediate and obvious. They expect every day to be sunny, and their disposition suffers when it isn't. Rain they take as a personal affront, shaking their heads and commiserating with each other in the cafes, looking with profound suspicion at the sky as though a plague of locusts is about to descend, and picking their way with distaste through the puddles on the pavement. If anything worse than a rainy day should come along, such as this sub-zero snap, the result is startling: most the population disappears... But what did everyone else do? The earth was frozen, the vines were clipped and dormant, it was too cold to hunt. Had they all gone on holiday?...It was a puzzle, until we realized how many of the local people had their birthdays in September or October, and then a possible but unverifiable answer suggested itself: they were busy indoors making babies. There is a season for everything in Provence, and the first two months of the year must be devoted to procreation. We have never dared to ask.

My mother who died young In an outlandish rhythm Would have been seventy now And perhaps dead in funeral time. So I may start to mourn As I would celebrate The first or second birthday Of a still-born baby. - Out of Season

In a windowless nook of a downtown Roanoke funeral parlor, not far from where Tess once roamed the streets, Patricia caressed the back of the scar, as if cupping a baby's head, and told her poet goodbye. It was January 2, Tess's birthday. She would have been twenty-nine. Patricia tucked the treasures of her daughter's life inside the vest--a picture of her boy and one of his cotton onesies that was Tess's favorite, some strands of Koda's hair, and a sand dollar.

Ty and Livvy were the last to come say good-bye to Jules; Livvy embraced him fiercely, and Ty gave him a soft, shy smile. Julian wondered where Kit was. He'd been glued to Ty's and Livvy's sides the whole time they'd been in London, but he appeared to have vanished for the family farewell. "I've got something for you," Ty said. He held out a box, which Julian took with some surprise. Ty was absolutely punctual about Christmas and birthday presents, but he rarely gave gifs spontaneously. Curious, Julian popped open the top of the box to find a set of colored pencils. He didn't know the brand, but they looked pristine and unused. "Where did you get these?" "Fleet Street," said Ty. "I went out early this morning." An ache of love pressed against the back of Julian's throat. It reminded him of when Ty was a baby, serious and quiet. He hadn't been able to go to sleep for a long time without someone holding him, and though Julian had been very small himself, he remembered holding Ty while he fell asleep, all round wrists and straight black hair and long lashes. He'd felt so much love for his brother even then it had been like an explosion in his heart. "Thanks. I've missed drawing," Julian said, and tucked the box into his duffel bag. He didn't fuss; Ty didn't like fuss, but Julian made his tone as warm as he could, and Ty beamed. Jules thought of Livvy, the night before, the way she'd kissed his forehead. Her thank-you. This was Ty's.

Fuck, baby, I can’t wait. I need to get inside you.” “It’s my birthday! Don’t I get a say?” “After this, I need to take the edge off.” Chris scoots up the bed, thrusting inside me, hard and fast. “Goddamn, eating that pussy gets me so fucking hard.

Feeding (more on this in chapter 8) Breast pump Breast pads Breast cream (Lansinoh) Breast milk containers Twin nursing pillow Boppy Formula Baby bottles (8-oz. wide neck; 16–20 bottles if you’re doing formula exclusively) Dishwasher baskets Bottle brush High chairs Booster seat Food processor or immersion blender Bottle warmer Bottle drying rack Bowls and spoons Baby food storage containers Keepsakes Baby books Thank-you notes/stationery Newspaper from birthday CD player/dock for music Twin photo albums/frames

If we think of eroticism not as sex per se, but as a vibrant, creative energy, it’s easy to see that Stephanie’s erotic pulse is alive and well. But her eroticism no longer revolves around her husband. Instead, it’s been channeled to her children. There are regular playdates for Jake but only three dates a year for Stephanie and Warren: two birthdays, hers and his, and one anniversary. There is the latest in kids’ fashion for Sophia, but only college sweats for Stephanie. They rent twenty G-rated movies for every R-rated movie. There are languorous hugs for the kids while the grown-ups must survive on a diet of quick pecks. This brings me to another point. Stephanie gets tremendous physical pleasure from her children. Let me be perfectly clear here: she knows the difference between adult sexuality and the sensuousness of caring for small children. She, like most mothers, would never dream of seeking sexual gratification from her children. But, in a sense, a certain replacement has occurred. The sensuality that women experience with their children is, in some ways, much more in keeping with female sexuality in general. For women, much more than for men, sexuality exists along what the Italian historian Francesco Alberoni calls a “principle of continuity.” Female eroticism is diffuse, not localized in the genitals but distributed throughout the body, mind, and senses. It is tactile and auditory, linked to smell, skin, and contact; arousal is often more subjective than physical, and desire arises on a lattice of emotion. In the physicality between mother and child lie a multitude of sensuous experiences. We caress their silky skin, we kiss, we cradle, we rock. We nibble their toes, they touch our faces, we lick their fingers, let them bite us when they’re teething. We are captivated by them and can stare at them for hours. When they devour us with those big eyes, we are besotted, and so are they. This blissful fusion bears a striking resemblance to the physical connection between lovers. In fact, when Stephanie describes the early rapture of her relationship with Warren—lingering gazes, weekends in bed, baby talk, toe-nibbling—the echoes are unmistakable. When she says, “At the end of the day, I have nothing left to give,” I believe her. But I also have come to believe that at the end of the day, there may be nothing more she needs. All this play activity and intimate involvement with her children’s development, all this fleshy connection, has captured Stephanie’s erotic potency to the detriment of the couple’s intimacy and sexuality. This is eros redirected. Her sublimated energy is displaced onto the children, who become the centerpiece of her emotional gratification.

Once upon a time-which, when you come to think of it, is the only proper way to begin a story-the only way that really smacks of romance and fairyland-all the Harmony members of the Lesley clan assembled at Cloud of Spruce to celebrate Old Grandmother's birthday as usual. Also to name Lorraine's baby.

Only let down the veil, the veil, the veil. If it were death I would admire the deep gravity of it, its timeless eyes. I would know you were serious. There would be a nobility then, there would be a birthday. And the knife not carve, but enter Pure and clean as the cry of a baby, And the universe slide from my side.

Only let down the veil, the veil, the veil. If it were death I would admire the deep gravity of it, its timeless eyes. I would know you were serious. There would be a nobility then, there would be a birthday. And the knife not carve, but enter Pure and clean as the cry of a baby, And the universe slide from my side. 30 September 1962

Anyway, time is more than counting days. On the outside, people think clocks tell them the time. They set an alarm for work and wake up to a blinking light that says six a.m. They look to an office wall to tell them if it is time to go home. The truth is, clocks don’t tell time. Time is measured in meaning. I better get up for work or It’s time to feed the baby. Or That was the year I got cancer or That is the day we celebrate your birthday. Or Remember when our father died or Let’s remember to plant turnips this spring. It is meaning that drives most people forward into time, and it is meaning that reminds them of the past, so they know where they are in the universe.

And you could do it. I promise. It’s not even that hard. I mean look at me.’ She directed my attention to her unclean clothes, her swollen chest, damp spots on the cushions and looked about to laugh, then like she was going to cry, then merely exhausted. I asked her what she wanted for her birthday. Ingrid said, ‘When is it?’ I told her it was tomorrow. ‘In that case, a bag of salty liquorice. The kind from Ikea.’ The baby squirmed and pulled off. Ingrid let out a little cry and covered her breast. I helped her turn the cushion around and once he was on again, I asked if I could get her a kind of liquorice that didn’t require a journey to Croydon. She did cry then, telling me through tears that if I understood what it was like, being woken up fifty times a night and having to feed a baby every two hours when it takes an hour and fifty-nine minutes and feels like being stabbed in the nipple with four hundred knives, then I would be like, do you know what? I think I will just get my sister the liquorice she specifically likes.

There are two ways to turn devils into angels: First, acknowledge things about them that you genuinely appreciate. Uncle Morty took you to the beach when you were a kid. Your mom still sends you money on your birthday. Your ex-wife is a good mother to your children. There must be something you sincerely appreciate about this person. Shift your attention from the mean and nasty things they have said or done to the kind and helpful things they have said or done—even if there are just a few or even only one. You have defined this person by their iniquities. You can just as easily—actually, more easily—define them by their redeeming qualities. It’s your movie. Change the script. Perhaps you are still arguing that the person who has hurt you has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. She is evil incarnate, Rosemary’s baby conceived with Satan himself, poster child for the dark side of the Force, destined to wreak havoc and horror in the lives of everyone she touches. A nastier bitch never walked the earth. Got it. Let’s say all of this is true—the person who troubles you is a no-good, cheating, lying SOB. Now here’s the second devil-transformer. Consider: How has this person helped you to grow? What spiritual muscles have you developed that you would not have built if this person had been nicer to you? Have you learned to hold your power and self-esteem in the presence of attempted insult? Do you now speak your truth more quickly and directly? Are you now asking for what you want instead of passively deferring? Are you setting healthier boundaries? Have you deepened in patience and compassion? Do you make more self-honoring choices? There are many benefits you might have gained, or still might gain, from someone who challenges you.

In our living room we have a whole shelf devoted to the visual history of our family. Everyone's baby pictures are there, and some school head shots, and then various photos from vacations and birthdays and holidays. They make me think of notches on a belt or scratches on a prison wall--proof that time's passed, that we haven't all just been swimming in limbo.

You are everything that’s ever been my favorite thing,” she wanted to tell him. “You are my love song, my birthday cake, the sound of ocean waves and French words and a baby’s laugh. You’re a snow angel, crème brulée, a kaleidoscope filled with glitter. I love you and you’ll never catch up, because I’ve gotten a head start and my heart is racing at light speed.” Someday

We fell into a dreamy assonance. I drifted on the couch cushions down on the floor, attached to a warm baby limpet who was nearing his first birthday. Pollux’s breathing evened out and grew deeper. He was asleep. I stared at my husband’s face, the new cheekbones of a skinny man, his surprising beauty, and I decided to live for love again and take the chance of another lifetime.

...a final word to "the children": do you want to get suckered like your big brothers and sisters? Those saps who spent 2008 standing behind the Obamessiah swaying and chanting, "We are the dawning of the Hopeychange" like brainwashed cult extras? Sooner or later you guys have to crawl out from under the social engineering and rediscover the contrarian spirit for which youth was once known...This will be the great battle of the next generation--to reclaim your birthright from those who spent it. If you don't, the entire global order will teeter and fall. But, if you do, you will have won a great victory. Every time a politician proposes new spending, tell him he's already spent your money, get his hand out of your pocket. Every time a politician says you can stay a child until your twenty-seventh birthday, tell him, "No, you're the big baby, not me--you've spent irresponsibly, and me and my pals are the ones who are gonna have to be the adults and clean up your mess. Don't treat met like a kid when your immaturity got us into this hole." This is a battle for the American idea, and it's an epic one, but--to reprise the lamest of lame-o-lines--you can do anything you want to do. So do it.

What is this, behind this veil, is it ugly, is it beautiful? It is shimmering, has it breasts, has it edges? I am sure it is unique, I am sure it is what I want. When I am quiet at my cooking I feel it looking, I feel it thinking 'Is this the one I am too appear for, Is this the elect one, the one with black eye-pits and a scar? Measuring the flour, cutting off the surplus, Adhering to rules, to rules, to rules. Is this the one for the annunciation? My god, what a laugh!' But it shimmers, it does not stop, and I think it wants me. I would not mind if it were bones, or a pearl button. I do not want much of a present, anyway, this year. After all I am alive only by accident. I would have killed myself gladly that time any possible way. Now there are these veils, shimmering like curtains, The diaphanous satins of a January window White as babies' bedding and glittering with dead breath. O ivory! It must be a tusk there, a ghost column. Can you not see I do not mind what it is. Can you not give it to me? Do not be ashamed--I do not mind if it is small. Do not be mean, I am ready for enormity. Let us sit down to it, one on either side, admiring the gleam, The glaze, the mirrory variety of it. Let us eat our last supper at it, like a hospital plate. I know why you will not give it to me, You are terrified The world will go up in a shriek, and your head with it, Bossed, brazen, an antique shield, A marvel to your great-grandchildren. Do not be afraid, it is not so. I will only take it and go aside quietly. You will not even hear me opening it, no paper crackle, No falling ribbons, no scream at the end. I do not think you credit me with this discretion. If you only knew how the veils were killing my days. To you they are only transparencies, clear air. But my god, the clouds are like cotton. Armies of them. They are carbon monoxide. Sweetly, sweetly I breathe in, Filling my veins with invisibles, with the million Probable motes that tick the years off my life. You are silver-suited for the occasion. O adding machine----- Is it impossible for you to let something go and have it go whole? Must you stamp each piece purple, Must you kill what you can? There is one thing I want today, and only you can give it to me. It stands at my window, big as the sky. It breathes from my sheets, the cold dead center Where split lives congeal and stiffen to history. Let it not come by the mail, finger by finger. Let it not come by word of mouth, I should be sixty By the time the whole of it was delivered, and to numb to use it. Only let down the veil, the veil, the veil. If it were death I would admire the deep gravity of it, its timeless eyes. I would know you were serious. There would be a nobility then, there would be a birthday. And the knife not carve, but enter Pure and clean as the cry of a baby, And the universe slide from my side.

You know, I still feel in my wrists certain echoes of the pram-pusher’s knack, such as, for example, the glib downward pressure one applied to the handle in order to have the carriage tip up and climb the curb. First came an elaborate mouse-gray vehicle of Belgian make, with fat autoid tires and luxurious springs, so large that it could not enter our puny elevator. It rolled on sidewalks in a slow stately mystery, with the trapped baby inside lying supine, well covered with down, silk and fur; only his eyes moved, warily, and sometimes they turned upward with one swift sweep of their showy lashes to follow the receding of branch-patterned blueness that flowed away from the edge of the half-cocked hood of the carriage, and presently he would dart a suspicious glance at my face to see if the teasing trees and sky did not belong, perhaps to the same order of things as did rattles and parental humor. There followed a lighter carriage, and in this, as he spun along, he would tend to rise, straining at his straps; clutching at the edges; standing there less like the groggy passenger of a pleasure boat than like an entranced scientist in a spaceship; surveying the speckled skeins of a live, warm world; eyeing with philosophic interest the pillow he had managed to throw overboard; falling out himself when a strap burst one day. Still later he rode in one of those small contraptions called strollers; from initial springy and secure heights the child came lower and lower, until, when he was about one and a half, he touched ground in front of the moving stroller by slipping forward out of his seat and beating the sidewalk with his heels in anticipation of being set loose in some public garden. A new wave of evolution started to swell, gradually lifting him again from the ground, when, for his second birthday, he received a four-foot-long, silver-painted Mercedes racing car operated by inside pedals, like an organ, and in this he used to drive with a pumping, clanking noise up and down the sidewalk of the Kurfurstendamm while from open windows came the multiplied roar of a dictator still pounding his chest in the Neander valley we had left far behind.

Today was my forty-fifth birthday. Impending old age and a problem marriage were staring me in the face. Not a good place to be. I figured that right now, I had two choices — crawl out of the pit, or wallow and die. To wallow or not to wallow? That was the question. Look at Scarlett O’Hara. Did she cry and whine when Rhett walked out the door not giving a damn? Well, okay, she did. But not for long, I’ll bet. Not Scarlett. Same story here, baby, same story here.

She was the first close friend who I felt like I’d re­ally cho­sen. We weren’t in each other’s lives be­cause of any obli­ga­tion to the past or con­ve­nience of the present. We had no shared his­tory and we had no rea­son to spend all our time to­ gether. But we did. Our friend­ship in­ten­si­fied as all our friends had chil­dren – she, like me, was un­con­vinced about hav­ing kids. And she, like me, found her­self in a re­la­tion­ship in her early thir­ties where they weren’t specif­i­cally work­ing to­wards start­ing a fam­ily. By the time I was thirty-four, Sarah was my only good friend who hadn’t had a baby. Ev­ery time there was an­other preg­nancy an­nounce­ment from a friend, I’d just text the words ‘And an­other one!’ and she’d know what I meant. She be­came the per­son I spent most of my free time with other than Andy, be­cause she was the only friend who had any free time. She could meet me for a drink with­out plan­ning it a month in ad­vance. Our friend­ship made me feel lib­er­ated as well as safe. I looked at her life choices with no sym­pa­thy or con­cern for her. If I could ad­mire her de­ci­sion to re­main child-free, I felt en­cour­aged to ad­mire my own. She made me feel nor­mal. As long as I had our friend­ship, I wasn’t alone and I had rea­son to be­lieve I was on the right track. We ar­ranged to meet for din­ner in Soho af­ter work on a Fri­day. The waiter took our drinks or­der and I asked for our usual – two Dirty Vodka Mar­ti­nis. ‘Er, not for me,’ she said. ‘A sparkling wa­ter, thank you.’ I was ready to make a joke about her un­char­ac­ter­is­tic ab­sti­nence, which she sensed, so as soon as the waiter left she said: ‘I’m preg­nant.’ I didn’t know what to say. I can’t imag­ine the ex­pres­sion on my face was par­tic­u­larly en­thu­si­as­tic, but I couldn’t help it – I was shocked and felt an un­war­ranted but in­tense sense of be­trayal. In a de­layed re­ac­tion, I stood up and went to her side of the ta­ble to hug her, un­able to find words of con­grat­u­la­tions. I asked what had made her change her mind and she spoke in va­garies about it ‘just be­ing the right time’ and wouldn’t elab­o­rate any fur­ther and give me an an­swer. And I needed an an­swer. I needed an an­swer more than any­thing that night. I needed to know whether she’d had a re­al­iza­tion that I hadn’t and, if so, I wanted to know how to get it. When I woke up the next day, I re­al­ized the feel­ing I was ex­pe­ri­enc­ing was not anger or jeal­ousy or bit­ter­ness – it was grief. I had no one left. They’d all gone. Of course, they hadn’t re­ally gone, they were still my friends and I still loved them. But huge parts of them had dis­ap­peared and there was noth­ing they could do to change that. Un­less I joined them in their spa­ces, on their sched­ules, with their fam­i­lies, I would barely see them. And I started dream­ing of an­other life, one com­pletely re­moved from all of it. No more chil­dren’s birth­day par­ties, no more chris­ten­ings, no more bar­be­cues in the sub­urbs. A life I hadn’t ever se­ri­ously con­tem­plated be­fore. I started dream­ing of what it would be like to start all over again. Be­cause as long as I was here in the only Lon­don I knew – mid­dle-class Lon­don, cor­po­rate Lon­don, mid-thir­ties Lon­don, mar­ried Lon­don – I was in their world. And I knew there was a whole other world out there.

At the same time, medical experts of every persuasion agree that African Americans share the most deplorable health profile in the nation by far, one that resembles that of Third World countries. When Dr. Harold Freedman observed that the health status of Harlem men resembles that of Bangladeshis more closely than that of their Manhattan neighbors, he did not exaggerate. Twice as many African American babies as babies of other ethnic groups die before their first birthday. One and half times as many African American adults as white adults die every year. Blacks have dramatically higher rates of nearly every cancer, of AIDS, of heart disease, of diabetes, of liver disease, of infectious diseases, and they even suffer from higher rates of accidental death, homicide, and mental illness. Before they die young in droves from eminently preventable diseases, African Americans also suffer far more devastating but equally preventable disease complications, such as blindness, confinement to wheelchairs, and limb loss.

Giving is often more comfortable than receiving. When you’re giving, you’re in control, and you have the power. When you’re receiving, the roles are reversed. I would rather stand on a stage and give a presentation to three thousand people than stand in a room and have thirty people sing “Happy Birthday” to me. I’d rather host a baby shower for someone than have one thrown for me. Sometimes it’s hard to receive, and that’s often the same reason many of us struggle to sell. Whether you realize it or not, sales is about being willing to be vulnerable and receive.

Then: how can a birthday mean nothing? Then: a reminder that time will tell. Then this phrase: item of mortality: three words that mean a baby, a person; more—the item of mortality could mean the whole book, like I was somehow holding an item of mortality in my hands. Then: this world of sorrow. When I read those words I felt again the weight of my own sorrow, the world I carried on my own back; and at exactly the same time the fact that someone somewhere sometime else had thought of the world as a world of sorrow too made the weight on my own back feel a bit better.

Attempting to be her friend would be like intentionally writing a bad check. I am not a good friend. I have never been capable of or willing to commit to the maintenance that the rules of friendship dictate. I cannot remember birthdays. I do not want to meet for coffee. I will not host the baby shower. I won’t text back because it’s an eternal game of Ping-Pong, the texting. It never ends. I inevitably disappoint friends, so after enough of that, I decided I would stop trying. I don’t want to live in constant debt. This is okay with me. I have a sister and children and a dog. One cannot have it all.

Cecily let her cheek fall to Leta’s shoulder and hugged her back. It felt so nice to be loved by someone in the world. Since her mother’s death, she’d had no one of her own. It was a lonely life, despite the excitement and adventure her work held for her. She wasn’t openly affectionate at all, except with Leta. “For God’s sake, next you’ll be rocking her to sleep at night!” came a deep, disgusted voice at Cecily’s back, and Cecily stiffened because she recognized it immediately. “She’s my baby girl,” Leta told her tall, handsome son with a grin. “Shut up.” Cecily turned a little awkwardly. She hadn’t expected this. Tate Winthrop towered over both of them. His jet-black hair was loose as he never wore it in the city, falling thick and straight almost to his waist. He was wearing a breastplate with buckskin leggings and high-topped mocassins. There were two feathers straight up in his hair with notches that had meaning among his people, marks of bravery. Cecily tried not to stare at him. He was the most beautiful man she’d ever known. Since her seventeenth birthday, Tate had been her world. Fortunately he didn’t realize that her mad flirting hid a true emotion. In fact, he treated her exactly as he had when she came to him for comfort after her mother had died suddenly; as he had when she came to him again with bruises all over her thin, young body from her drunken stepfather’s violent attack. Although she dated, she’d never had a serious boyfriend. She had secret terrors of intimacy that had never really gone away, except when she thought of Tate that way. She loved him… “Why aren’t you dressed properly?” Tate asked, scowling at her skirt and blouse. “I bought you buckskins for your birthday, didn’t I?” “Three years ago,” she said without meeting his probing eyes. She didn’t like remembering that he’d forgotten her birthday this year. “I gained weight since then.” “Oh. Well, find something you like here…” She held up a hand. “I don’t want you to buy me anything else,” she said flatly, and didn’t back down from the sudden menace in his dark eyes. “I’m not dressing up like a Lakota woman. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m blond. I don’t want to be mistaken for some sort of overstimulated Native American groupie buying up artificial artifacts and enthusing over citified Native American flute music, trying to act like a member of the tribe.” “You belong to it,” he returned. “We adopted you years ago.” “So you did,” she said. That was how he thought of her-a sister. That wasn’t the way she wanted him to think of her. She smiled faintly. “But I won’t pass for a Lakota, whatever I wear.” “You could take your hair down,” he continued thoughtfully. She shook her head. She only let her hair loose at night, when she went to bed. Perhaps she kept it tightly coiled for pure spite, because he loved long hair and she knew it. “How old are you?” he asked, trying to remember. “Twenty, isn’t it?” “I was, give years ago,” she said, exasperated. “You used to work for the CIA. I seem to remember that you went to college, too, and got a law degree. Didn’t they teach you how to count?” He looked surprised. Where had the years gone? She hadn’t aged, not visibly.

I hadn’t seen him in quite a while and he’d grown at least four inches in the months between our visits. With his perfect teeth and constant huge smile I found myself looking at him in a whole new way. Gone was the skinny kid whose birthday was the day before my own and loved saying we were the same age for that twenty four hour period before I officially turned a year older than him. He wasn’t that twelve year old who’d yanked on my hair and put baby oil in the sunblock so I got a nasty burn when we visited a theme park together. Suddenly I saw Jim wasn’t a little kid anymore. He was a guy—a hot guy at that. A hot guy who spent the entire day glued to my side.

Consider it a Solstice and birthday present in one.' He gestured to the house, the gardens, the grounds that flowed to the river's edge. With a perfect view of the Rainbow at night, thanks to the land's curve. 'It's yours. Ours. I purchased it on Solstice Eve. Workers are coming in two days to begin clearing the rubble and knock down the rest of the house.' I blinked again, long and slow. 'You bought me an estate?' 'Technically, it will be our estate, but the house is yours. Build it to your heart's content. Everything you want, everything you need- build it.' The cost alone, the sheer size of this gift had to astronomical. 'Rhys.' He paced a few steps, running his hands through his blue-black hair, his wings tucked in tight. 'We have no space at the town house. You and I can barely fit everything in the bedroom. And no one wants to be at the House of Wind.' He again gestured to the magnificent estate around us. 'So build a house for us, Feyre. Dream as wildly as you want. It's yours.' I didn't have words for it. What cascaded through me. 'It- the cost-' 'Don't worry about the cost.' 'But...' I gaped at the sleeping, tangled land, the ruined house. Pictured what I might want there. My knees wobbled. 'Rhys- it's too much.' His face became deadly serious. 'Not for you. Never for you.' He slid his arms around my waist, kissing my temple. 'Build a house with a painting studio.' He kissed my other temple. 'Build a house with an office for you, and one for me. Build a house with a bathtub big enough for two- and for wings.' Another kiss, this time to my cheek. 'Build a house with a garden for Elain, a training ring for the Illyrian babies, a library for Amren, and an enormous dressing room for Mor.' I choked on a laugh at that. But Rhys silenced it with a kiss to my mouth, lingering and sweet. 'Build a house with a nursery, Feyre.' My heart tightened to the point of pain, and I kissed him back. Kissed him again and again, the property wide and clear around us. 'I will,' I promised.

TO MY BELOVED, Its neither a piece of paper nor a letter, rather it's my small heart which I'm gifting it to you darling.It seems time stood still without ur presence around me. My days and nights have gone worthless. All my heart could do is to recall the memories of time which we have spend together. My heart gets rejoiced whenever your beautiful face comes before my eyes. Your mesmerizing eyes drive me to another world. Your flowing hair looks tantalizing and your rosy lips seems to be meant only for saying lovely words. While having a cup of coffee yesterday, numerous moments striked my heart. Our first meeting, when you were looking like a fairy in white salwar-suit. Still fresh in my mind, your pretty smile and bowing your head down to laugh with your hand on your lips. I confess that your every action was stealing my heart and I couldn't withdraw myself from lookig you. The gift you presented me on my birthday gives me a sigh of relief that you are always there with me. Sweetheart, In the classroom, I cracked useless jokes and PJ's just to see your charming smile. Kept gazing your lips, just to heat some golden words. You had stolen my heart. Dedicated '' I don't know when and how you arrived in my life, Don't know when my heart star beating for you, day n night.... My eyes kept staring the window pane, Wishing one day u'll come in my lane.... Darling you're the only one whom I admire, It's you whom my heart desperately desires... Being with you is my only need, You are now the medicine of my heartbeat... I Craved your name on my heart, The day when I decided not to loose you ever, And I promise you sweetheart that, I love you & i'll love you for ever, ever n ever...... It's true my baby that, i love you like anything. Miss you from very morning 2 the night. MY senses are active to feel you, to hear you, to see you, to taste every sorrow and happiness of your life. Jaana, get embedded in me, in my soul so that i can live with you, for you........ Dying to have your reply..... Truly Your's PK

Sometimes I forgot that Mimi was dead. Like, one morning, I woke up to the smell of coffee and thought, Mimi’s already in the kitchen. And one afternoon I was in a card store and suddenly thought, almost in a panic, Mimi’s birthday is only a week away and I don’t have a card or a present for her. Each time, the awful truth would then blaze its way back into my brain. Other times, I wouldn’t be thinking about Mimi at all, and her memory would come crashing back to me. Those times were the most inconvenient, because I wanted to forget, not remember. Once, I was listening to the radio, and a song was playing and there was a line in it about a gentle person or a gentle life or something like that, and it brought Mimi to mind right away.

But what did everyone else do? The earth was frozen, the vines were clipped and dormant, it was too cold to hunt. Had they all gone on holiday? No, surely not. These were not the kind of gentlemen farmers who spent their winters on the ski slopes or yachting in the Caribbean. Holidays here were taken at home during August, eating too much, enjoying siestas and resting up before the long days of the vendange. It was a puzzle, until we realized how many of the local people had their birthdays in September or October, and then a possible but unverifiable answer suggested itself: they were busy indoors making babies. There is a season for everything in Provence, and the first two months of the year must be devoted to procreation. We have never dared ask.

Two days after his twelfth birthday, a fortnight before his father was jailed for debt, Charles Dickens was sent to work in a blacking factory. There, in a rat-infested room by the docks, he sat for twelve hours a day, labelling boot polish and learning the pain of abandonment. While he never spoke publicly of this ordeal, it would always be with him: in his social conscience and burning ambition, in the hordes of innocent children who languished and died in his fiction. Pete thinks we all have a blacking factory: some awful moment, early on, when we surrender our childish hearts as surely as we lose our baby teeth. And the outcome can't be called. Some of us end up like Dickens, others like Jeffrey Dahmer. It's not a question of good or evil, Pete believes. Just the random brutality of the universe and our native ability to withstand it.

To my children three. Life is like a movie, it starts and it ends.If you are reading this probably i'm gone. but my presence is always with you. All wanted to say how much I loved you. and I wanted to share my life journey with all of you. When I Conceived each of you, I can feel the butterflies in my tummy and I already fail in love with you. When each of you were born, tears dropped of my eye, I know it that was a happy tears. When you said dada, I was excited and happy to hear you saying it over and over. I see you growing like a flower and flying like a bird in front of my eye, in front of the pales a colorful garden who always stay blooming. Slowly you gew wing and all you flew away from the nest. All i'm left with good memories an album full of beautiful of pictures.from you baby showers, 1st word, 1st birthdays,1st trip to Disney or Universal Studios, each of you got to meet your favored TV characters. Your smiley faces was telling me I was doing ok as a parent, although I been told I'm the worst mom. But I know you did not mean that, you meant to say I love you mom. and I love you to my children, It was a nice journey. If I have to go back on time to change the way I raised you, I won't change a thing, beside some of your friends, but you were old enough and free to make your own choices. You have to make your mistakes and i'm pretty sure you learned from them. But at the end I never worry about you, because I'm pretty sure I give 200% as a parent. I know I taught, I armed and I shield you with everything including knowledge you need to survive in world. Remember don't matter how old are you, you always will be my babies. and I always be your Angel ! "Toko - Lock " te ka nana sho. Love Mom & Grandma!

But then they hand you your beautiful baby, and the baby gazes up at you and says hello, and your heart just melts.” “It talks?” Sophie asked, then remembered Alden telling her months earlier that elvin babies spoke from birth. It sounded even stranger now that she could picture it. “Your speaking caused quite the uproar,” Mr. Forkle told her. “Though luckily no one could understand the Enlightened Language, so they thought you were babbling. I spent the majority of your infancy inventing excuses for the elvin things you did.” “Okay,” Sophie said, wishing he’d stop with the weird-info overload. “But what I mean is . . . I’ve been counting my age from my birthday.” Mr. Forkle didn’t look surprised. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked. “How could I? Humans built everything around their birthdays. As long as you were living with them I had to let you do the same. And since you’ve been in the Lost Cities, we’ve had so little contact. I assumed someone would notice, since your proper ID is on your Foxfire record—and in the registry. But I don’t think anyone realized you were counting differently.” “Alden wouldn’t have thought to check,” Della agreed. “Neither of us knew humans didn’t count inception.” “So wait,” Biana jumped in, “does that mean that by our rules Sophie is—” “Thirty-nine weeks older than she’s been saying,” Mr. Forkle finished for her. Fitz cocked his head as he stared at Sophie, like everything had turned sideways. “So then you’re not thirteen . . .” “Not according to the way we count,” Mr. Forkle agreed. “Going by Sophie’s ID, she’s fourteen and a little more than five months old.” Keefe laughed. “Only Foster would find a way to age nine months in a day. Also, welcome to the cool fourteen-year-olds club!” He held out his hand for a high five.

The cardboard that he stopped at had been written on in February, 1938. The handwriting, in blue-lead pencil, was his brother Seymour's: My twenty-first birthday. Presents, presents, presents. Zooey and the baby, as usual, shopped lower Broadway. They gave me a fine supply of itching powder and a box of three stink bombs. I'm to drop the bombs in the elevator at Columbia or ‘someplace very crowded’ as soon as I get a good chance. Several acts of vaudeville tonight for my entertainment. Les and Bessie did a lovely soft-shoe on sand swiped by Boo Boo from the urn in the lobby. When they were finished, B. and Boo Boo did a pretty funny imitation of them. Les nearly in tears. The baby sang ‘Abdul Abulbul Amir.’ Z. did the Will Mahoney exit Les taught him, ran smack into the bookcase, and was furious. The twins did B.'s and my old Buck & Bubbles imitation. But to perfection. Marvellous. In the middle of it, the doorman called up on the housephone and asked if anybody was dancing up there. A Mr. Seligman, on the fourth—

Dear Natasha, if you are reading this, it means something has happened to your dad and me, and I am so sorry that I left you alone, baby, and I really hope you are happy. Happy Fourteenth Birthday, sweetheart. Everything you need to know is in the diaries and if you have any questions, I hope Mark and Anna will be able to answer them. I never meant to leave you like this, but your Dad and I made some very stupid and impulsive decisions and put your life in danger. I hope once you realize why we did what we did, you will forgive us. The world you are going to be exposed to is scary and I hope my diaries and weapons will help you navigate through the labyrinths of obstacles that you will face. They will find you soon, and when they do, remember to make smart and thoughtful decisions—decisions that will depend on your knowledge and wisdom and not feelings or family. Always remember that Luna, we and he are always looking out for you. Remember that I love you and I never meant to do what I did. I am sorry. And if you find him, please take care of each other. Love, Mom

2/ KICK YOUR OWN ASS, GENTLY. I’ve been trying to set a few modest goals, both daily and weekly. In the course of a day, it’s good to get some stupid things accomplished, and off your “list.” I guess because it leaves you feeling that you and the “rest of the world” still have something to do with each other! Like today, for example, I can think back on sending a fax to my brother on his birthday, leaving a phone message for Brutus at his “hotel” on his birthday, phoning my Dad on his birthday (yep, all on the same day), then driving to Morin Heights to the ATM machine, to St. Sauveur for grocery shopping, and planning all that so I’d still have enough daylight left to go snowshoeing in the woods. And then I could drink. Not a high-pressure day, and hardly earth-shaking activities, but I laid them out for myself and did them (even though tempted to “not bother” with each of them at one point or another). I gave myself a gentle kick in the ass when necessary, or cursed myself out for a lazy fool, and because of all that, I consider today a satisfactory day. Everything that needed to be done got done. And by “needs” I certainly include taking my little baby soul out for a ride. And drinking. And there are little side benefits from such activities, like when the cashier in the grocery store wished me a genuinely-pleasant “Bonjour,” and I forced myself to look at her and return the greeting. The world still seems unreal to me, but I try not to purposely avoid contact with pleasant strangers. It wouldn’t be polite! Another “little goal” for me right now is spending an hour or two at the desk every morning, writing a letter or a fax to someone like you, or Brutus, or Danny, who I want to reach out to, or conversely, to someone I’ve been out of touch with for a long while, maybe for a year-and-a-half or two years. These are friends that I’ve decided I still value, and that I want as part of my “new life,” whatever it may be. It doesn’t really matter what, but just so you can say that you changed something in the course of your day: a neglected friend is no longer neglected; an errand that ought to be dealt with has been dealt with.

Dear Natasha, if you are reading this, it means something has happened to your dad and me, and I am so sorry that I left you alone, baby, and I really hope you are happy. Happy Fourteenth Birthday, sweetheart. Everything you need to know is in the diaries and if you have any questions, I hope Mark and Anna will be able to answer them. I never meant to leave you like this, but your Dad and I made some very stupid and impulsive decisions and put your life in danger. I hope once you realize why we did 8 what we did, you will forgive us. The world you are going to be exposed to is scary and I hope my diaries and weapons will help you navigate through the labyrinths of obstacles that you will face. They will find you soon, and when they do, remember to make smart and thoughtful decisions—decisions that will depend on your knowledge and wisdom and not feelings or family. Always remember that Luna, we and he are always looking out for you. Remember that I love you and I never meant to do what I did. I am sorry. And if you find him, please take care of each other. Love, Mom

Then came lunch back at the house, attended by the family, the godparents, and the church rector. Beaverbrook stood up to propose a toast to the child. But Churchill rose immediately and said, “As it was my birthday yesterday, I am going to ask you all to drink to my health first.” A wave of good-natured protest rose from the guests, as did shouts of “Sit down, Daddy!” Churchill resisted, then took his seat. After the toasts to the baby, Beaverbrook raised a glass to honor Churchill, calling him “the greatest man in the world.” Again Churchill wept. A call went up for his reply. He stood. As he spoke, his voice shook and tears streamed. “In these days,” he said, “I often think of Our Lord.” He could say no more. He sat down and looked at no one—the great orator made speechless by the weight of the day. Cowles found herself deeply moved. “I have never forgotten those simple words and if he enjoyed waging the war let it be remembered that he understood the anguish of it as well.” The next day, apparently in need of a little attention himself, Beaverbrook resigned again.

After that came more injections, pills, low-quality eggs, toilets and screens with naked women on them and the pressure to fill the plastic cup, baptisms they didn’t attend, the question “So when’s the first child coming along?” repeated ad nauseum, operating rooms he wasn’t allowed to enter so that he could hold her hand and she wouldn’t feel so alone, more debt, other people’s babies, the babies of those who could, fluid retention, mood swings, conversations about the possibility of adopting, phone calls to the bank, children’s birthday parties they wanted to escape, more hormones, chronic fatigue and more unfertilized eggs, tears, hurtful words, Mother’s Days in silence, the hope for an embryo, the list of possible names, Leonardo if it was a boy, Aria if it was a girl, pregnancy tests thrown helplessly into the trash can, fights, the search for an egg donor, questions about genetic identity, letters from the bank, the waiting, the fears, the acceptance that maternity isn’t a question of chromosomes, the mortgage, the pregnancy, the birth, the euphoria, the happiness, the death.

With indifference people are continuously breeding a society full of disparity – they are constantly aiding the creation of more inequality. We are constantly making way for a world where some parents give their kids x-box to soothe them, for their birthday, and many more parents are forced to use leftover cardboard boxes as cradle for their babies because they don't even have a roof over their head. This is our so called civilization - this is our so called modern humanity - shame on us - shame on us as a species - shame on us as civilized beings - shame on us as thinking and breathing individuals of conscience. No more - no more - we must break this disparity - and we must do it right now - and we are not going to do it by fighting over whose ideology is the best - we are going to do it only by taking actual responsibility of our society - by taking actual responsibility of the world - we are going to do it by acting as a living cure for those disparities, by using our own resources as means to erase those gaps however we can. Only with action born from our heart can we end disparity, not with talks of argument and inaction of complacency.

A few years ago, a couple of young men from my church came to our home for dinner. During the course of the dinner, the conversation turned from religion to various world mythologies and we began to play the game of ‘Name That Character.” To play this game, you pick a category such as famous actors, superheroes or historical characters. In turn, each person describes events in a famous character’s life while everyone else tries to guess who the character is. Strategically you try to describe the deeds of a character in such a way that it might fit any number of characters in that category. After three guesses, if no one knows who your character is, then you win. Choosing the category of Bible Characters, we played a couple of fairly easy rounds with the typical figures, then it was my turn. Now, knowing these well meaning young men had very little religious experience or understanding outside of their own religion, I posed a trick question. I said, “Now my character may seem obvious, but please wait until the end of my description to answer.” I took a long breath for dramatic effect, and began, “My character was the son of the King of Heaven and a mortal woman.” Immediately both young men smiled knowingly, but I raised a finger asking them to wait to give their responses. I continued, “While he was just a baby, a jealous rival attempted to kill him and he was forced into hiding for several years. As he grew older, he developed amazing powers. Among these were the ability to turn water into wine and to control the mental health of other people. He became a great leader and inspired an entire religious movement. Eventually he ascended into heaven and sat with his father as a ruler in heaven.” Certain they knew who I was describing, my two guests were eager to give the winning answer. However, I held them off and continued, “Now I know adding these last parts will seem like overkill, but I simply cannot describe this character without mentioning them. This person’s birthday is celebrated on December 25th and he is worshipped in a spring festival. He defied death, journeyed to the underworld to raise his loved ones from the dead and was resurrected. He was granted immortality by his Father, the king of the gods, and was worshipped as a savior god by entire cultures.” The two young men were practically climbing out of their seats, their faces beaming with the kind of smile only supreme confidence can produce. Deciding to end the charade I said, “I think we all know the answer, but to make it fair, on the count of three just yell out the answer. One. Two. Three.” “Jesus Christ” they both exclaimed in unison – was that your answer as well? Both young men sat back completely satisfied with their answer, confident it was the right one…, but I remained silent. Five seconds ticked away without a response, then ten. The confidence of my two young friends clearly began to drain away. It was about this time that my wife began to shake her head and smile to herself. Finally, one of them asked, “It is Jesus Christ, right? It has to be!” Shaking my head, I said, “Actually, I was describing the Greek god Dionysus.

to look at Louisa, stroked her cheek, and was rewarded by a dazzling smile. She had been surprised by how light-skinned the child was. Her features were much more like Eva’s than Bill’s. A small turned-up nose, big hazel eyes, and long dark eyelashes. Her golden-brown hair protruded from under the deep peak of her bonnet in a cascade of ringlets. “Do you think she’d come to me?” Cathy asked. “You can try.” Eva handed her over. “She’s got so heavy, she’s making my arms ache!” She gave a nervous laugh as she took the parcel from Cathy and peered at the postmark. “What’s that, Mam?” David craned his neck and gave a short rasping cough. “Is it sweets?” “No, my love.” Eva and Cathy exchanged glances. “It’s just something Auntie Cathy’s brought from the old house. Are you going to show Mikey your flags?” The boy dug eagerly in his pocket, and before long he and Michael were walking ahead, deep in conversation about the paper flags Eva had bought for them to decorate sand castles. Louisa didn’t cry when Eva handed her over. She seemed fascinated by Cathy’s hair, and as they walked along, Cathy amused her by singing “Old MacDonald.” The beach was only a short walk from the station, and it wasn’t long before the boys were filling their buckets with sand. “I hardly dare open it,” Eva said, fingering the string on the parcel. “I know. I was desperate to open it myself.” Cathy looked at her. “I hope you haven’t built up your hopes, too much, Eva. I’m so worried it might be . . . you know.” Eva nodded quickly. “I thought of that too.” She untied the string, her fingers trembling. The paper fell away to reveal a box with the words “Benson’s Baby Wear” written across it in gold italic script. Eva lifted the lid. Inside was an exquisite pink lace dress with matching bootees and a hat. The label said, “Age 2–3 Years.” Beneath it was a handwritten note:   Dear Eva, This is a little something for our baby girl from her daddy. I don’t know the exact date of her birthday, but I wanted you to know that I haven’t forgotten. I hope things are going well for you and your husband. Please thank him from me for what he’s doing for our daughter: he’s a fine man and I don’t blame you for wanting to start over with him. I’m back in the army now, traveling around. I’m due to be posted overseas soon, but I don’t know where yet. I’ll write and let you know when I get my new address. It would be terrific if I could have a photograph of her in this little dress, if your husband doesn’t mind. Best wishes to you all, Bill   For several seconds they sat staring at the piece of paper. When Eva spoke, her voice was tight with emotion. “Cathy, he thinks I chose to stay with Eddie!” Cathy nodded, her mind reeling. “Eddie showed me the letter he sent. Bill wouldn’t have known you were in Wales, would he? He would have assumed you and Eddie had already been reunited—that he’d written with your consent on behalf of you both.” She was afraid to look at Eva. “What are you going to do?” Eva’s face had gone very pale. “I don’t know.” She glanced at David, who was jabbing a Welsh flag into a sand castle. “He said he was going to be posted overseas. Suppose they send him to Britain?” Cathy bit her lip. “It could be anywhere, couldn’t it? It could be the other side of the world.” She could see what was going through Eva’s mind. “You think if he came here, you and he could be together without . . .” Her eyes went to the boys. Eva gave a quick, almost imperceptible nod, as if she was afraid someone might see her. “What about Eddie?” “I don’t know!” The tone of her voice made David look up. She put on a smile, which disappeared the

My bedroom looked very different the morning of my eighteenth birthday. It looked lonely. I opened my eyes just as the sun started creeping through the window, and I stared at the white chest of drawers that had greeted me every morning since I could remember. Maybe it’s stupid to think that a piece of furniture had feelings, but then again, I’m the same girl who kept my tattered old baby doll dressed in a sweater and knitted cap so she wouldn’t get cold sitting on the top shelf of my closet. And this morning that chest of drawers was looking sad. All the photographs and trophies and silly knickknacks that had blanketed the top and told my life story better than any words ever could were gone, packed in brown cardboard boxes and neatly stacked in the cellar. Even my pretty pink walls were bare. Mama picked that color after I was born, and I’ve never wanted to change it. Ruthis Morgan used to try to convince me that my walls should be painted some other color. ‘Pink’s just not your color, Catherine Grace. You know as well as I do that there’s not a speck of pink on the football field.’ There was nothing she could say that was going to change my mind of the color on my walls. If I had I would have lost another piece of my mama. And I wasn’t letting go of any piece of her, pink or not. Daddy insisted on replacing my tired, worn curtains a while back, but I threw such a fit that he spent a good seven weeks looking for the very same fabric, little bitsy pink flowers on a white -and-pink-checkered background. He finally found a few yards in some textile mill down in South Carolina. I told him there were a few things in life that should never be allowed to change, and my curtains were one of them. So many other things were never going to stay the same, and this morning was one of them. I’d been praying for this day for as long as I could remember, and now that it was here, all I wanted to do was crawl under my covers and pretend it was any other day. . . . I know that this would be the last morning I would wake up in this bed as a Sunday-school-going, dishwashing, tomato-watering member of this family. I knew this would be the last morning I would wake up in the same bed where I had calculated God only knows how many algebra problems, the same bed I had hid under playing hide-and-seek with Martha Ann, and the same bed I had lain on and cried myself to sleep too many nights after Mama died. I wasn’t sure how I was going to make it through the day considering I was having such a hard time just saying good-bye to my bed.

In her first year of life, your baby's brain will double in size and by her first birthday it will be half the size of an adult brain.