On this birthday, cake and dayenu

On this birthday:

Dave decorated the apartment with a birthday banner and streamers while I was getting ready for church. I was so focused as a bee-lined through the living room to pack the diaper bag for church that I didn’t notice. After he gave me a gentle hint, I noticed the decorations. Silly me. Nice husband.

I went to church, and baby miraculously took a nap in the carseat during Sunday School (usually morning naps don’t happen on Sundays because everything and everyone at church is far too interesting).

I baked myself a cake. This cake from The Magnolia Bakery Cookbook. The sides were a bit too crispy and the icing a bit too runny and the overall appearance was far from pinnable, but my was it delectable. The texture of the cake is unmatched by any other I’ve tasted in my life, and the icing is just right–sweet but not too sweet. Please do yourself a favor and welcome this cake into your life. Or come over to my house and help me eat the leftovers.

I got to Skype and talk on the phone with family. I also got a voicemail from my Dad that I will probably save forever/as long as my phone lets me.

I opened presents from dear family and friends. One gift from my parents was a neat coffee-table book about the Library of Congress. Dave cleverly used it as wrapping for his present. It was a paper that read:

In order to receive your birthday present, “you must come to the Library of Congress in person and present your valid form of identification at the Reader Registration Station located in the Madison Building, Room LM 140.”

Yes, he got me a Reader Card, which permits me into the Main Reading Room at the Library of Congress. This is the equivalent of the Beast offering Belle his fantastically huge library*:

Which, of course, is every nerd-girl’s dream. Except this is real:

On this birthday:

I’m thinking of dayenu.

Because said baby was taking said nap in church, I got to listen to most of the lesson. We’re studying the Old Testament, and the teacher talked about the concept of dayenu during Passover, a tradition Dave and I were honored to experience recently thanks to a dear friend. The children of Israel pray that if God had only given them one of the many gifts He gave them, “it would have sufficed.” I’ve been thinking of that a lot lately, particularly thanks to this talk, and looking back on my twentysomething years, I feel I can say dayenu. A loving family, an intellectually and spiritually enlarging education, a life full of health and physical comforts, a city and a career and friends that changed me, a sweet son who also changed me. Each of these things would have sufficed.

I’m grateful for what I’ve been blessed with so far and know I need to be so much better at blessing others’ lives. As a starting point, I think I need to find someone to share this cake with.

 

*Dave, by the way, finds the comparison hilarious and a bit unsettling. I insisted he was like the Beast in a good way! Ladies, please back me up on this comparison.