At our house we typically don't have birthday cakes. Rather, the birthday celebrant chooses the dessert of his/her choice, and often that's cheesecake like this one my eldest made for my September birthday. Today I'm making a chocolate chip cheesecake for my son's 17th birthday.
MY SON TURNS 17 today, a day before my eldest turns 25. It wasn’t planned that way—to have their birthdays one day shy of eight years apart. But it happened and the two have never complained about the closeness of their birthdays.
For those of you who don’t know my family, there’s another daughter in between, my 23-year-old, who is 21 months younger than her older sister.
I know, I know, I’m tossing a lot of numbers out there for someone who prefers words to numbers and sucks at math.
But here are some more figures as long as I’m spewing them out. Even though my boy was born 10 days early, he weighed 10 pounds, 12 ounces, and stretched to 23 ½ inches. Yikes, you’re thinking. Not to worry. Like his sisters before him, he was born by Cesarean section due to the fact that the eldest was frank breech, requiring an emergency, vertical-incision C-section.
She weighed 9 pounds, 7 ounces. Her sister came in at 8 pounds, one ounce.
Yes, I have big babies.
My son was so big, in fact, that the hospital’s newborn diapers didn’t fit him. I also had to return a package of newbie diapers that a friend had given me before my over-sized baby boy was born.
You would never guess looking at my lanky 17-year-old today that he was once a roly-poly baby. He’s tall and lean now, tall and lean.
I’m wondering, if you’re a mom, do you reflect on your child’s birth every year on his/her birthday like I do? I remember that first kiss I planted on my son’s soft, warm head right after his birth. He was then whisked away while the surgeon tidied up after my C-section and followed with hernia surgery.
That first week after my boy’s February 9, 1994, birth is mostly a painful blur as I suffered spinal headaches so severe I couldn’t sit up, let alone care for my newborn. Instead, the obstetrical floor nurses mothered him, coddled him, loved him. They even carried my baby boy into the break room, which would be a definite no-no today. I’ll always be grateful for their care.
I am thinking all of these thoughts today, a day when I’ll hold my teen a little closer, a little tighter—if he’ll allow it—and embrace him with a mother’s birthday hug.
Happy birthday, son. I love you now and forever. (I know you don’t read my blog, but I’m telling you anyway, just in case you read this someday.)
© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Minnesota Prairie Roots 
That cheesecake looks sooo good. Would you kindly share the recipe?
I love the photos you post, especially those of barns and other farm buildings and those of nature (floods). Many of them I use as my desktop background. Thank you!
Mike
Thanks, Mike. I’m glad you enjoy my photos. I have more barn images in my files and will eventually get around to posting those.
I’ll need to get the cheesecake recipe from my daughter and then I’ll pass it along. It was decadent. Cheesecake is my absolute favorite dessert.
I’ll be watching closely for more photos
Mike, here’s the link to that yummy chocolate/peanut butter cheesecake recipe: http://www.food.com/recipe/reeses-chocolate-peanut-butter-cheesecake-280968
Got it, Thanks and keep up the good work!
Mike
Enjoy the chocolate peanut butter cheesecake, Mike. And you can bet I’ll keep writing and taking pictures. Glad you enjoy my work.
I too remember holding Caleb for the first time in the hospital. You gave me this warning,”Make sure you hold his head, Caleb is a new born not a 3 month old”. He sure looked like a 3 month size!! Now Caleb just looks down on his “OLD” aunt while he gives me a hug. So Happy Birthday Caleb and MANY MORE!!!
Did I really tell you that? You must have thought I was crazy. Me, telling you, a mother, how to hold a baby’s head.
These are memories only a mother will have – ones we can always hold close to our heart. The pain of childbirth leaves but that special feeling that comes with holding that newborn close to you and feeling their warmth and innocence is almost overwhelming at the time. Just standing over the crib of a newborn and and seeing how perfect God’s creation can be is a point when time stands still. My youngest turned 28 last summer and now I have grandchildren to remind me how precious life really is. Thanks for jogging my memory on this very cold morning.
Well said, Harriet. A baby is definitely a reminder of God’s love for us and the wonders of His creation.
Yes. Every year with both girls I start talking the minute I went into labor and I tell them everything. I love it. I never want those memories to go away.
I thought I had it rough with 9lbs 5oz.
Poor you. Nurses from all over the hospital came in to just offer me their sympathy (I am small by nature.)
Anyway…. I have been meaning to tell you this:
I read you every single day even if I don’t comment (since I have been busy with my new job) and I think that it is just wonderful that you are getting 10,000 visits a month. I read that and I wanted to come over here and say congrats right away, but 10 people have been hounding me lately and I just can’t find the time to do it all.
And yes, I am worried about flooding everywhere. I feel so bad for all of those poor people. Last night I even had a dream that I was driving and saw the MN River Valley looking like a tidal wave hit.
I have been meaning to say those things and more. You are a great writer. I look forward to life settling down so I can interact more.
Thank you so much, Erika. Good to hear you’re a regular reader of Minnesota Prairie Roots. Writing is my passion and I think that makes all the difference. I HAVE to write. I LOVE to write…