Four

For months Elliott said he wanted to spend his birthday at the beach. I would have settled for a birthday in the bus, but even that doesn’t seem to happen for us. Luckily he let the beach idea go a while back because I didn’t have the heart to break it to him that generally speaking, those of us with birthdays in December do not get to spend them at the beach. Unless we go to Australia.

It might be warm enough for the beach down in the Yucatan, but around here winter is much colder than I expected. I’m not alone. It’s common to see tourists shivering in thin jackets because they thought Mexico was always warm, even in December. But here it’s in the 30s at night. By the middle of the afternoon it’s typically 75, but the combination of long shadows and concrete construction often conspires to leave you shivering in the sunshine. Not beach weather by any stretch of the imagination. Still, it beats last year by a long shot.

One day Elliott and I will spend a birthday in the bus, but this year, like last, we were homeless for our birthday. This year, like last, we spent our birthday in a friend’s house. This time though we had it to ourselves. We were fortunate they offered it to us while they went back to the states for December because otherwise I’m not sure what we’d have done. Our Airbnb rental ended and our longer term place wasn’t ready when we were told it was going to be ready. The latter wasn’t surprising, but for some reason we were naive enough to think it would be different for us. When our friends said hey, you can stay in our place, we jumped at the opportunity. Who says no to a place up on a hill overlooking the city? Life is rough on the fun side of the wall.

This year I got to play Santa Claus — which we have never done because we don’t like lying to our kids. To their credit, thus far, our kids, despite knowing Santa is not real, have never told any other kids that he didn’t exist. That I know of anyway. This year I made a quick trip up to Denver just before our birthday, and, while officially a work trip, it became a way to haul a load of birthday and Christmas gifts back down to Mexico, which left me feeling a bit like Santa.

Before Christmas though, two birthdays. We did our balloon ritual but in the vastness of a house it somehow loses something compared to the bus. This time though the girls helped me inflate balloons and pile them on top of Elliott in the morning.

It wouldn’t be a birthday in Mexico without a pinata. This one was somewhat easier to come by than the pinata we somehow managed to come up with in the UP, but no less appreciated.

Happy birthday little man and one day, I promise, we’ll spend our birthday at a nice, warm, tropical beach.