Birthdays, the Facebook Way

June 28, 2016 Michelle Cuthrell

I’m just going to come out with it — today is my birthday.

I LOVE birthdays. I rejoice in birthdays. I’m not a 29-and-holder … I’m a proud 34-year-old woman today who is SO thankful to be five years wiser (notice the comparative form here —because it’s going to take about 500 more birthdays and 1.3 million more mistakes before this dense girl is going to gain any kind of REAL wisdom), more experienced and more able to choose joy throughout life’s trials than I was at 29. Bring it on, old age. I’ve got blonde highlights, photo filters and oversized sunglasses to hide the evidence of your damage. Not even your dark circles and white roots can keep me down today.

I LOVE celebrating a new year. A new adventure. A fresh start.

But if I’m just keepin’ it real, I’m not quite sure how I do that on Facebook.

After 15 months off Facebook, I’m kind of a social media moron. And so, for the last two months since I rejoined the 21st century, I’ve tried to watch closely and observe how “real people” celebrate birthdays in the virtual world. Because I would hate for my return to social media to be marred by the mistakes of an amateur.

This is what I learned.

One Week of Adventures in the Life of a Flat Figure

June 23, 2016 Michelle Cuthrell

2D DJ (who has survived seven days in a home with three boys who snicker when they pronounce his name “Tooty DJ”) is one week old today!

And seven days into his life as a laminated, foam-backed flat figure, his arm is ¾ of the way ripped from its foam socket, his “skin” has already “fallen off his skeleton” (thank you for that urgent announcement that brought you tearing through our kitchen this week, Superhero 2 — we love your compassion that translates even to inanimate objects created at Staples) and we have already busted out the Kraggle, our cure-all for all things Lego and life. (A few minor injuries are no match for our PA, who re-adheres skin and reattaches arms — even flat ones — like a champ. :))

Family Fridays ... Without a Family

June 17, 2016 Michelle Cuthrell

In my husband's field of work, weekends together sometimes feel like a luxury.

Once you count trainings and business trips and frequent national and international travels, those few precious weekends per month or per year you do get to spend together off the clock become very special, and early on in our marriage, we realized we needed to make them count.

So from the time we moved to our first duty station as husband and wife, we designated Friday nights as “Family Friday.”

As a newlywed couple living in the frigid temperatures of Fairbanks, Alaska, Family Fridays included Pizza Hut deliveries and late-night Smallville snuggle marathons together on the pull-out couch of our post home. (This was, of course, before children and all their bouncing, bull horn glory entered the life picture at 5 a.m. on Saturday mornings.)

As our family grew, those Fridays evolved into game nights, puzzle nights, neighborhood runs and firepit roasts. (And, for the sake of all early morning critters that rose before the sun, we ended those nights by 7:30 p.m. Keepin’ it real — in those early child-rearing years, the only spit we swapped was that which drooled from our mouths after we fell asleep on each other at 7:45 on the couch.)

Now that our children are all old enough to prepare their OWN breakfasts on Saturday mornings, the late-night Friday movie has returned — and so has the pizza. (So have the make-out sessions — thank God for sleeping children!) Only now, to accommodate the dietary restrictions of Superhero 3, we make our own from naan and veggies each Friday, and we break our own dinner-table-only meal rules to whip out the TV trays and enjoy a family movie at the end of what is sometimes a pretty exhausting week.

Tonight, 2D DJ joined us for the first Friday night that his 3D counterpart was supposed to enjoy. And for awhile, it was all fun and games.

Introducing 2D DJ

June 16, 2016 Michelle Cuthrell

When Super-Spouse departed for a long business trip, the boys and I needed a way to stay connected — to keep this precious man involved in all our family activities and give us a reason to laugh when our time apart didn’t seem very funny.

That’s when we ordered a Flat Daddy.

For nine months, Flat Daddy traveled with us to baseball games and Mexican restaurants and field trips and pumpkin patches. He wore Easter hats to Sunday service and hot pink aprons to summer barbecues. For ¾ of a year, Flat Daddy was never without a stylish outfit, a brood of doting boys, a hilarious photo op or a really great story.

His perfectly plastered smile and incredibly cooperative attitude got us through many difficult days, and he, in all his flat glory, allowed our children to rewrite THEIR separation story — and turn it into one that included JOY.

And that’s why, in the face of DJ’s temporary “extension” in China, the boys and I made THIS:

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