Happy Birthday?

Yesterday was my birthday.
I wasn't looking forward to it, if I am going to be honest with you.
I usually LOVE my birthday. But given the interesting timing of this one, I was dreading the very thing that makes them such a treat every other year. The attention! Blech, attention is the last thing I want right now. Trust me, I get plenty.
I can't go to church, a restaurant, or the grocery store without being outrageously conspicuous and drawing comments from family, friends, and strangers alike... mostly pity.
Lots of comments like "You look done." Sometimes comments like "Twins?" Always well meant of course, always in the spirit of conversation, but always received with a strained smile...(that I think is probably starting to look more like a creepy grimace as it wears thinner.)
But pity is the worst. Finally finding my calm with the fact that I will always be pregnant with Oliver, I would love the world to accept this blatant fact as I do and let me sidle along in peace... unnoticed except for perhaps a small shiver, as my epic shadow blocks the sun in passing. 
But the goodness of my family and friends made it a surprisingly lovely day.
German pancakes were served in bed, homemade cards, peonies, lilacs, perfume, and chocolate pie*,  my parents, Kent, and Greta rallied around me, and it was so lovely and calm.
But perhaps my favorite part was watching Kent come in the door with The World's Largest Red Balloon.
I laughed at its absurd size until my face hurt.
Finally something in our house that is rounder than me.

*My MOM's chocolate pie. So homemade, so decadent, so just like I had when I was child. That pie. Perhaps I had pie for breakfast and dinner today.