The Surprise

As my own birthday approaches, I am reminded of my 33rd birthday when Alicia was 3 and Kristen was 6. I had gone back to school and loved researching for my various classes--especially history and english. Never doing all that well in geography, I wanted to look up where various countries, cities and rivers were that I was reading about and wholly fascinated by. This is well before the advent of easy internet. If you wanted to find maps of different countries, you had to go to the library--or own an atlas. Which was what I really wanted for my birthday. Ric (dad) took the girls shopping with the express direction not to tell me what they got me. I was excited to see Kristen and Alicia coming up the walkway and I opened the front door wide--ready for my greeting kisses and hugs. Alicia could barely contain her little self and she was trying not to ruin the surprise of my gift...."It's not a book and it's not blue", she blurted out. I had to pretend I didn't know what she meant, even though Kristen was highly perturbed by this statement! Yes--I got my atlas and it is one of my most treasured possessions, always a reminder of my 2 little girls and their great love for me and I for them.