Happy Birthday Miss

Last week I celebrated my 30th birthday. It was one of the best birthdays I have ever had. Second in comparison was my 25th birthday, during my first year of teaching, when all my students stopped class to sing the Stevie Wonder rendition of Happy Birthday. This year, not only did family and friends send their love through phone calls, emails, text messages, cards, hugs, and birthday drinks, but so did my coworkers and even my students (minus the birthday drinks part).

In my advisory we had a holiday celebration filled with cookies, chocolates, cupcakes, apple cider, candy canes, and a Hanukkah cookie cake brought in by a parent. We filled the classroom with two fake Christmas trees, several strings of lights, garland and wreaths, holly, and the tiniest string of blue and silver Hanukkah decorations, essentially all the holiday decor we could find stored in the room from the last two teachers who resided here. We listened to holiday music on Pandora, skipping the songs that felt just a little bit too religious for school. It was a wonderful 90 minutes.

Kids I hadn't seen in days, weeks, or even months made an appearance, wished me a happy birthday, gave me a hug, asked me how old I was to which I replied "59" while they ogled the abundance of sweets before them. One student hugged me a little too tightly and for a little too long and signed my birthday card, "I <3 U". Another student believed me when I told him I was 45 saying, "You're the same age as my mom! But she actually looks younger than you." And the rest just asked, "What you doing tonight? Going to the bar? You gonna be hungover tomorrow?" To which I just played dumb and said, "I'm going to spend time with some friends." And in my head thought, "Hell yeah, I'm going to the bar and I'm not coming in until noon tomorrow!"