These are the pancake years

Hard to believe but tomorrow's my 34th birthday. I almost just typed 24th birthday, which actually feels more accurate.

It's funny when I think about it ... when I turned 30, I had all kinds of angst about the fact that I was unmarried and not where I thought I'd be at that point in my life (e.g. married with kids). Fast-forward four years and suddenly, I'm married with TWO kids. Talk about catching up fast. Now I have no anxiety about my progress in life ... if anything, I need life to slow down a bit.

In a great book I read recently (Water for Elephants) the main character was reminiscing about his life and had this to say about the early years of his marriage, when his children were young:

Those were the salad days, the halcyon years! The sleepless nights, the wailing babies; the days the interior of the house looked like it had been hit by a hurricane; the times I had five kids, a chimpanzee, and a wife in bed with fever. Even when the fourth glass of milk got spilled in a single night, or the shrill screeching threatened to split my skull, or when I was bailing out some son or other -- or, in one memorable instance, Bobo -- from a minor predicament at the police station, they were good years, grand years.

It made me cry a bit to read that (what doesn't make me cry these days?!), both out of recognition of the great happiness I feel to have this amazing child in my life (and another on the way), even if it is a madhouse some days, and also out of a bit of sadness, to think that this time will be over in a heartbeat and I'll always be looking back on it as maybe the best years of my life.

By the way, for the record, I think I might have the best husband ever. I just told him that I really want pancakes for breakfast tomorrow but then I realized we're out of syrup (don't ask me how I let this happen).

I asked sweetly if he could maybe run out to the local 7-11 and pick up some fake stuff but he said that since it's my birthday, I should have real maple syrup and he left the house at 9:30 pm to go drive to Loblaws.

Can you believe it?? Best. Husband. Ever.