Next year, try not to throw your own party.

Well, hey there baby girl! This is Aurora Sophia Love, and she entered this world this afternoon, naked and screaming. Which is also how I woke up this morning, so in addition to our birthdays, we have that in common too!

Aurora is the daughter of my niece TJ, making me a Great-Aunt (at the ripe old age of 36!). Wasn’t that nice of TJ to deliver her baby on MY birthday (see how I turned that around and made it all about me again!).

So, Baby Aurora, here are a few things you can count on from your Great Aunt Marney:

• I will never forget your birthday.
• I will never, EVER wrap your birthday present in Christmas paper.
• I will not forget what year you were born, even if your own mother does.
• I will teach you proper karaoke technique.
• I will never ever buy you anything that is not pink (I only have boys, so get ready for a pink explosion. Sorry).
• I will teach you how to love the Cubs.

I am already planning our birthday party for next year, when I will buy her very first Lady Gaga album.

Welcome to the world, Aurora. And Happy Birthday!

IT IS MY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WOOOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

I am 36 years old today — but don’t tell my mother. She once gave me a lovely birthday card, one of those mini books that goes on about all the headlines of the year you were born.

“All the Headlines from the year you were born, 1973,” it read.

“Mom, I born in 1974,” I said.

“Oh…. well, you were due in 1973,” was her response.

I love birthdays. I like to put on a ribbon and find a reason to go out in public. If I am out on my birthday, and say, someone asks for my ID, I do not give them a chance to say “Happy Birthday!” Because I tell them. Loudly. So everyone can hear. I am a birthday brat.

I think (though my mother would have to tell me if I am correct or not) that my Grandmother was also a birthday brat, so maybe I inherited it from her. You know, most folks LOVE their birthday when they are young. It’s all about presents and parties when you are little. Then the excitement of becoming a teenager, the eagerness to drive a car at 16, to be “an adult” at 18, to drink (for the first time ever, of course) when you are 21. A lot of people usually see 25 as a milestone too. You know you are still young, but it seems like a doorway to adulthood.

But something happens to a lot of people when they hit 30. They DREAD it. I believe it was my mother who dyed her hair platinum blonde on her 30th birthday to prove she was still young. People make lists of the things they want to accomplish by the time they are 30! Then, if they don’t achieve it, they bump it up to 40. Because suddenly you are 35, 36, 37… and 30 doesn’t seem so old anymore. And on and on.

But not me.

Throw a surprise party for my Mom, and she’ll throw a surprise punch at your face. My sister Amy is the same way, don’t even THINK about wishing her a Happy Birthday, lest you have to listen to why it’s nothing to be so damn happy about!

But not me.

I wonder if there will be a birthday when I DO dread it. I don’t necessarily think my Grandmother ever did. I suppose it won’t be when I turn 40 that bothers me, it’s when my kid turns 40 that I might feel it. Of course, hopefully by that time I will be getting ready to embarrass my grandchildren at karaoke night. I can hear it already – ”Who is Lady Gaga, and why does Grandma keep singing about a disco stick? Make her stop dancing. We’re going to have to put her in a home sooner than we thought.”

Bah. Birthdays are ALWAYS fun.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!!!!!!!!!