The story of Linzy’s birthday, for years, was actually the story both of the day of and the days leading up to the day she was born.
So pretty much it was a story about Kimmer ‘n I in which Linzy shows up at the very end.
Tada!
We did celebrate that day in all kinds of fun and surprising ways ever after. Although every six to seven years that day would fall right smack on Thanksgiving Day... so yeah. Not optimal.
Oh we’d for sure celebrate Linzy’s birthday on that day still and move Thanksgiving to the next day or even the weekend... but anything celebratory we might do outside our home was still either unavailable or closed for the holiday.
Much like the near-entirety of 2020.
So we celebrated this morning in our apartment. A bit of a breakfast party filled with friends, birthday cupcakes (with candles), frittata cups, along with massive popovers that earlier had set off our unit’s smoke alarm.
Not once. But twice.
Linzy really wanted those popovers, though. Smothered in butter. Topped with raspberry jam.
So there you go.
It turned out to be a very yummy morning. A very chatty morning. A morning filled in with music from It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown... giving way to music from Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown... giving way to Linzy’s boyfriend, Martin, noodling and jamming a bit on the mandolin at first along with the Christmas music... and then on his own.
He’s got serious game, by the way.
Rachel was there, too, and her boyfriend, David. Which absolutely helped make the morning a completely familiar, super easy and lovely and fun and funny experience.
Family but not... you know?
At some point Linzy’s showing me what she’s working on. She’s got Logic Pro open and we’re listening to arrangements of a pair of songs she’ll release under different brands, positioned for separate audiences, each one in association with its own producer.
We talked composition. We talked arrangement. We talked production. We talked music.
Later, Linzy ‘n Martin drove down to Oregon to hang out with friends and to perform a formal, Christmas, streaming gig for a client. An absolutely paid gig, by the way.
At a fantastic hourly rate.
Now that’s growing up. :-)
Once upon a time, Kimmer ‘n I had a story about today that became a progressively older story with each passing year. It’s a great story. Maybe I’ll tell it to you some day.
For right now, though, even as our stories overlap in significant ways, the story of Linzy’s birthday as we tell it ends... right where hers has it’s premiere: The Linzy Show.
And what a show it is.
We lived a ton of it with her, for sure. That’s the parenting gig and it’s been all kinds of adventure. All kinds of story.
And although it’s not as if I’m realizing this for the first time, it absolutely bears saying out loud that, 23 years later, she’s a breathtaking young woman in all kinds of ways.
Living out the fullness of her story.
Happy Birthday, sweetheart. :-)