The “baby” turned sixteen last Sunday, and while it was a day that John had to work, it was, by request of the birthday girl, a family birthday. Lily and I were both up early so we went for an early breakfast at Tin Shed in what is becoming a new tradition of mom/Lily breakfast on her birthday. We had planned to go paddle around a local lake with Margaret and Alice in tow, but the weather wasn’t the best, so we settled on a movie which ended with Lily accidentally going into the men’s bathroom and her being utterly mortified while the rest of us were entirely entertained (ask me how many times I’ve accidentally done the same thing. A lot. It builds character. Or something.)

I made my every decade attempt to make a cake and it didn’t turn out awful – the cake was delicious and it even looked reasonably ok. Lily was happy and that was all that mattered. Summer birthdays are just hard with so many people coming and going, and sixteen has got to be the most overrated birthday ever invented, but I would say this one was a pretty good one. It did my heart good and I think meant a lot to Lily to have all the sisters together for this day. They weren’t even pretending to get along in the pictures. In fact, as we were driving to the theater at one point I reflexively told them all to stop arguing and they all protested – “we aren’t even arguing” in exasperation. I realized that I’m going to have to stop interpreting every animated conversation as bickering – after sooo many years of nearly constant bickering, it’s going to take some practice but that’s a nice problem to have for sure. Growing up is good.