This week I posted a mushy, sentimental meditation on my son's 30th birthday.  Kind of embarassing, really.  But I couldn't help it.  He's a wonderful son (as is his big brother) and I was feeling very lucky -- even blesssed, with the gift of him.

Then I wondered how others think about the anniversaries of the birth of their kids.  So I went hunting.  Of course, the first person I came to was Mir Kamin - of Woulda Coulda Shoulda, who wrote not only of her own birthday ear piercing - but also that of her daughter's. And, as usual, it's a wonderful story.  For Jennifer J - the fifth birthday of her daughter Grace evoked a wonderful, loving letter.  Liza Barry-Kessler writers a letter to each of her children not only on their birthdays, but every month.

Julie Oakley, on her son's 18th birthday, remembers small moments in his life and offers us a portrait.   And from far-off (at least for me) Australia, Carolyn of My Sydney Paris Life sends birthday wishes to her newly 24-year-old son in Washington, DC.

Amazingly it doesn't matter if a child is crossing into school-age, or double digits; two, twenty or far far older, we all know the truth.  That strong and independent and productive as they may be, they're still, somewhere in our hearts, our babies.  We celebrate each birthday filled with memories of moments known, perhaps, only to the two of us, of these miraculous souls, their small hands slipping so easily into ours, their tears at Les Miserables, their uninhibited dancing around the living room, and later, the political arguments and travel adventures.  

And we know -- all of us know -- the wash of feelings that comes along with those memories.  We can't tell the kids, of course; can't confine them in it, pull them in too close.  So here, in this community of strong, gifted women, we tell one another instead.  And hope that our children - our birthday miracles - are smart enough to figure it out all by themselves.