Son's of Birthdays and other thoughts

I think I have said this before, but a long time ago I wanted to have my children far apart enough so that one of them would be in school before the other came along. It was a new choice in the 1960's... it was called "birth control" and it came in a little cylinder that dropped out one pill at a time and let you call the shots on just when, or even if, you wanted a child.  I would bet that brings back a lot of memories for some of you out there.

I thought mine was pink but it has been fifty years since I was popping these little miracle pills so "pink" may just be a figment of my imagination.
Well, I took them, off and on, for years and had the good fortune of deciding when we wanted a child to join us in our married life. We had our first son in 1968 and, five years later, we decided to have a second child.  We planned it this way. It was great. The only thing we forgot was that five years has many months in it and we ended up, out of all the months we could have chosen, having our boys only three days apart in May. Yep...it was just an oversight. We didn't "cover all the bases" as they say now, so we forever after, have had two birthdays within three days in the month of May.
When they were young we would have separate birthday parties and celebrate each wonderful child in his own favorite way. But now....
It's " If you want  Chimichangas and home made potato salad ... and cherry pie. BE HERE on the weekend."
Well they still come and they arrived this weekend for a family birthday bash.
Of course, my beautiful daughter in law and the Beans came too.They all arrived Saturday.
We set the table.

We kept it simple and down home.
After dinner we had cake... and cherry pie... and yes, ice cream too. 
But Robbin and I had to make a big deal with the cake.

We stopped adding candles at some point and lit them. The heat was intense.
Ha! these boys are making their parents look OLD.
Are they really forty and forty five? Where did the years go?
Raising children is a huge effort if you try to do it right. There is always criticism and advise that makes you feel like you're not doing a good job but in the whole scheme of things, looking back, I will have to say that these "boys" of ours are good, kind, moral and responsible men that have made us proud. They are very different and yet I see them together, see them laughing with each other, and I know that they are good friends that will always look out for one another. This makes us very happy.


p.s. I thought I was really young when I had these two... only twelve or thirteen years old... tops.  Somewhere over the years I think I made a mistake... because if I had my older son when I was 23 years old (and that's the way it looks right now.) that would mean that I'm sixty eight and well.... I'm thinkin' that's not right. I will have to do the math and reconfigure.
 I don't feel sixty eight. Someone told me that 60 is the new 70 and that 50 is the new 60 and that you're only as old as you feel. Well, I feel confused. I think that 68 is 68 and we should just leave it at that. Life is confusing enough without all this rationalization about age.
What do you think?
I will try not to cry about this. Ha!

Tomorrow..... What the Beans did while they were here.