Another Year

It was my birthday last week: seemingly, another year has passed, and yet I barely feel older than I did when I met DH in my early twenties. Although growing older has never really bothered me (not having particularly enjoyed being too young to know any better), the gentle havoc it wreaks on my appearance is admittedly starting to irritate slightly.

“Mummy, you look like a weirdo!” shrieked the Small Girl one night, sitting in the bath with her Very Small Brother and clapping her hands with glee at the sight of my panda-eyes as I took off my makeup.
“Thanks Sausage!” I laughed, “I suppose I do look a bit strange…” I wiped off the last of the day’s mascara and gazed at my bare face in the bathroom mirror: pale, lined and sagging slightly around the edges.

When I was a teenager, I used to make myself up to look as old as possible - eyeliner and lipstick lent me a convenient mask behind which I could slip unnoticed into certain undiscerning pubs well before the legal drinking age. But ironically, these days makeup is more about disguising the effects of age and giving myself the appearance of youth; hiding the lines and covering the dark circles in an attempt to look young and fresh-faced. (Which of course never works out the way it’s supposed to, because trying to apply makeup whilst holding a whingeing 25lb baby and pretending to be a toucan is like trying to juggle with cats – a noble idea but not terribly practical).

“I look old” I said to no-one in particular, peering into the mirror the night before my birthday.
“But darling, you look much younger than you are!” said DH cheerily, putting his arm around my shoulders.
“Really? How much younger?” I demanded.
“Well… at least five years!” he replied. And with a sinking feeling, I realised that even if I were five years younger, I’d still be in my thirties.

“Hello, lovely birthday girl!” said the Small Girl the following morning when she got up, before bursting into a hearty rendition of “Happy Birthday To You”. This cheered me up no end; to her, birthdays are simply about Being the Centre of Attention, and Eating Lots of Cake. Perhaps, I decided, I ought to take a leaf out of her book.

“Want to have a birthday tea with me when you and Baby Pie get back from playschool, Sausage?” I asked her.
“Yaay! Yaay!” she cried, jumping up and down and waving her arms in the air.

So it was decided: while my two lovely children were otherwise occupied, I spent my birthday morning buying cake, crisps, sweet treats and pink juice to share with my two Favourite People. And for once, I didn’t even bother to put on my makeup before leaving the house.