I had a birthday party.

I feel like a little kid. I had a birthday party, people. A SURPRISE birthday party. On my actual birthday. With friends and candles and a cake with a pony on it and pizza and BIRTHDAY cards. And even a couple of presents. I keep getting all teary-eyed whenever I think about it. Then I get over feeling teary-eyed and feel like jumping up and down.

Anyone out there who has a birthday really close to Christmas knows it's not really the most fun time of the year to celebrate a birthday. I mean, there are a lot of things in life that are a whole lot worse, but...it's just kinda not that fun. Most people forget your birthday entirely (or at least, they did before Facebook). It's rare to get a birthday card from a friend because everyone's so wrapped up with Christmas cards. Presents are usually lumped in as "Christmas and birthday" (which is only cool if it's a really neat present), and forget about having a birthday party; everyone's either out of town or busy with the holidays. So yesterday was really, really awesome for me. I do wish more people could have been there (apparently the whole thing was last minute and the word didn't really get out to everyone), but with the Christmas Carol cast factored in, it felt like a LOT of people. And they all said surprise! And sang me happy birthday!

(Suddenly I'm taken back to a video of myself as a four-year-old child, opening a cheap plastic doll from a random old lady who was the mom of one of my mom's friends. I looked at the package and exclaimed gleefully, "Oh, it's just what I always wanted!". Apparently I take a lot of pleasure in the simple things.)

I have a really awesome husband who managed to keep a secret from me. And I have a really awesome best friend who somehow manages to do just the right thing sometimes.

Connecticut

I have been selfishly trying not to think about Connecticut since Friday. I can't let myself be affected by this, not when there are children who come running up to throw their arms around my legs when I walk into a room with shouts of, "Miss Mandy! Miss Mandy, can I play with your hair? Miss Mandy, will you swing me around? Miss Mandy, come look at my airplane that I built!"

I don't have time to be affected by this. I don't want to be affected by this.

But I am. We all are. Especially those of us who are educators. I kept overhearing snippets of conversation at work, hearing the teachers talk to each other about what they would do if someone barged in on us with a gun. I didn't comment. I tried not to listen. But those thoughts are in my head, too; they've been in my head since Friday. I think to myself, "If I were in the three-year-old room, those windows are easy to open; I'd get them all out the window, tell them to head for the side of the building, because surely they'd have a better chance out there than cornered in their classroom." And then, "What if I were in the infant room? I can only carry two babies at a time; do I put them all in the closet and shield them? Do I stick them into the evacuation crib, treat it like a fire drill, get them out onto the playground and hope whatever maniac is after them doesn't follow?"

The reality is, there is no way to plan for such a thing happening. Such a thing shouldn't be happening. And it's easy to pretend for a little while that it hasn't happened; it's easy to go to holiday parties, enjoying egg nog  and laughter and gift exchanges, but the fact remains that this has happened. There are children that will never see the Christmas presents bought for them; there are teachers who died trying to protect those children. It happened. And it will happen again if something doesn't change. Something has to change.

In the meantime, we all keep going about our lives as best we can, hoping it isn't our town next time. Hoping it isn't us. And I'll keep looking at the smiling faces and bright eyes of all the children in my life, wishing my arms could somehow be big enough to hold them all at once.