I was born four days after my mom’s 30th birthday. I know this because every year I hear the story of how my mom spent her 30th birthday sitting on the basement steps vomiting. Four days later, I emerged and completed the purge.
Four days ago, my mom turned 70. Which means today I’m 40.
Instead of issuing a pseudo-resolution birthday list that makes y’all feel like you want to vomit on my birthday, I thought I’d share part of the email that my husband sent to my mom on her birthday. If you don’t know my husband, you really need to read 5 Blog Topics My Husband Wanted To Write.
After sending my mom happy birthday greetings, he outlined his plans for my birthday. Then he decided to share with her gifts that would be hilariously inappropriate for me.
Here are my husband’s words, stolen from the email he sent to my mom:
These are the things I was going to do for Leanne’s birthday but decided against:
- Kidnap her from work and take her skydiving
- Get a male dancer to entertain her and her class at school
- Make her a present with things I’ve found at the dump
- Bake her a life-sized cake shaped like me
- Buy her 10,000 lottery tickets
- Paint the inside of the house black
- Compose a long letter filled with swear words to her boss asking for a raise and a company car on her behalf
- Sign her up for a three times weekly year-round scrapbooking course
- Get her a coupon for plastic surgery
- Get flames painted on our minivan
- Get a picture of her tattooed on my neck
- Take her duck hunting
- Buy her a Harley
- Get a pet llama for the backyard
- Buy a TV for the bathroom
- Videotape her snoring and post it on Youtube
As our nieces, nephews, and children know, you can’t take anything my husband says seriously. Except for the time he told me I was the third funniest woman he’s ever met. (And, yes, he meant this as a compliment).
Here’s to another decade of laughter.
Awww – your husband sounds like a riot (unless he follows through on that scrapbooking threat…in which case, divorce him). Hope your day is full of wining (you) as opposed to whining (everyone else in your house)…
Wining always beats whining…
Happy Birthday! And in case you haven’t heard, 40 is the new fabulous.
If see a mini-van with flames along the side crusing around the neighbourhood, I’ll know it’s you and will honk. Perhaps consider adding some ladies in bikinis wrestling with tigers to the motif?
Your line “Perhaps consider adding some ladies in bikinis wrestling with tigers to the motif” made me laugh out loud. And my husband howled, so now I may be the fourth funniest woman…
Hey Leanne,
Hilarious. We celebrated my 40th this past August by going to my (formerly) grandparent’s cabin in Manitoba. I thoughtfully built 40 dribble castles (an old fav pass time) on the beach while I reflected on each passing year. Without an exchange of words my husband romantically (and fittingly) joined in to help with the last 10. Before taking a step back to admire our work and smooch, our boys jumped on, ran threw, sat on & kicked over every single one of the last 10 (or maybe 15). Again, fitting.
Happy Birthday Leanne!
Too poetic, in that comedy way. Do you know I’m from Manitoba? Farm girl me…
Happy 40th Birthday, Leanne!!! Hope you have a wonderful day!!!
From, Jennifer, Ryan, Joshua and Jacob England
Thanks for the birthday wishes, Jen!
I’ve read many biographies but don’t think I’ve ever seen a greater opening line than the beginning of this post! You have this amazing ability to express everything that you are in style and person with such few words. So rare, one of the strongest writing voices I’ve ever seen.
This piece is hilarious too. Hubby is a character, and I definitely enjoy both of your senses of humor. Happy, happy birthday Mrs. Ironic. Have a great one!
Thanks, Clay. I’m going to save your comment to read on the days I want to stick my head in the garbage can along with 45 crumbled papers…
Happy Bday to the third funniest woman! Great post again, Leanne. Loved the cake and the list. Hubby did well. I totally want flames painted on my mini-van now. Hope you’re having an awesome day.
Flames on minivan = hot, in that suburban-car-seat-loser-cruiser kind of way.
Well Happy Birthday!! From what I’ve heard you’ve reached the best part.
P.S. I’ll take the scrapbooking course 🙂
Thanks, Christine. And if I win a scrapbooking course, it’s yours!
Gotta like fun husbands. I try my best to be one too.
Happy birthday, Leanne!
Thanks, Larry. Keep drawing!
Happiest of Birthdays!! Also, duck hunting?!
I prefer to see my meat dead on a plate…
I also had a child 4 days after my 30th birthday… She was my second, and I was so trying to have 2 during my twenties… We went on to have 4 more.
I wasn’t throwing up on my 30th birthday, though, because, as is clear from my name, kely, I am a guy. I don’t think my wife was throwing up either, but I could be wrong, since I wouldn’t remember, since, as I said, I’m a guy.
Happy 40th, by the way.
4 kids? Wow. You’re braver than me. I think we should all forget vomiting… although I suppose many people would imbibe even more alcohol if they didn’t remember that…
Happy Birthday! Really, is there any better way to spend the day than slicing through your own face? I thought your husband’s list was great. Nice to know he thought about you enough to come up with so many (albeit misguided) gift ideas.
I have to admit that slicing through my face was rather fun, in a demented way, I suppose! Thanks for the wishes.
See now, I don’t think having a pet llama in the backyard is such a bad idea. It’s a riff on the goat in the yard that I considered a few years ago. It’s the perfect combo of lawnmower/fertilizer. Plus, you could ride a llama to the corner store.
Happy Birthday!
You write convincingly about the usefulness of llamas. I’d like to see my neighbours as I saddled one up…
um… actually, i would cash in on the harley, if i were you.
Yes, the Harley was the least of all evils…
One thing you have to understand from a meatheads perspective,and I am one, so I should know, is that knowing what not to say is as, or more important ,than knowing what you can say. You have to be cunningly aware to realize what you can and cannot say, and even more brilliant to get the wife to print the stuff you know not to say. Its almost as if she was more proud of that ability , then the nice things you’ve said or done.
I have spent many hours writing things down aswell, lists, thoughts etc. , as much for my own form of theraphy, as just to be beable not to forget the things that I think, have made me who I am today. Keep writing those things down Meathead #2. When we are both gone ,those little bits of paper will be the things that our families treasure, even if right now, they seem like silly little lists.
My dad is gone now, and he left no silly little lists behind. I’ll always know the character he was, but I wish I had some writing of his around at times, to be able to pass his personality on to a few others.As for me, my nightside table is full of writing. Nobody reads it now, but they all know where it is, and I know when I go, that’s the first thing they’ll all look at……I still remember writing to you both when you were over seas, and you guys mentioning how you would make an event of reading those letters. Is there any real shock then, or surprize , that I would read your writing from time to time. From one meathead to the other, I always knew you could write, even if now its only tongue in cheek.Keep it up.I do it all the time when I have time. Its fun to re read that stuff a year or so later, to see what may have changed….
Thanks for reading, bro-in-law. This is a nice tribute to your dad, who was a fine man, as you know well. I agree that it’s nice to leave a legacy of words…no doubt Vivian and William will be taking mine with them to a therapist’s office someday. Thanks for taking the time to comment. Happy Monday!
Happy Birthday! (a bit belated)
Your hubby sounds super funny! I loved reading through that list, and had to chuckle when I saw the part about painting the inside of the house black. I actually knew a group of guys (morons) that did that to the house they were renting in college. It looked terrible and I’m betting there’s no way they got their security deposit back.
Christi Corbett
http://christicorbett.wordpress.com
Painting walls black sounds like a typical college boy thing to do…it’s hard to imagine what it would like like, though, beyond “dark.” Thanks for the birthday wishes!
Happy Birthday! Hope you had a great day.
Jenn
I did! And I’m trying to stretch out the celebrations to a couple of weeks…
Happy birthday, fellow Aquarius!
Do you think 3-day-a-week scrapbooking would be enough? You’re so crafty, I just can’t see that being enough to satisfy you…
Happy belated 40th.
Happy Birthday to you – a few days late is better than never. I hope you grabbed your 40th by the stones and had a great day!
And I’ve just read the 5 Blog Topics link, and kinda want you to let him guest post. Sounds like a riot! 🙂
Yes, he is a very funny man…
I did. And I’m going to celebrate it for a month!