by Amy Langdon

When we were kids, a birthday was the highlight of our year.  We expected a party (even if that only meant your grandparents came over), presents (new Cabbage Patch Kid, please) and a dessert shaped like a heart (perhaps this was just me as I was born on Valentine's Day and I got endless things shaped like hearts).

But now I'm in my late 20s, I feel like I fight the urge to turn back into that 6-year-old demanding presents.  While the majority of this battle goes on in my head, my family knows where my true feelings lie.  My parents offered to buy me a plane ticket for my birthday which is so generous and awesome.  But when I told my little sister Sarah about their offer her response was "But don't you like opening things on your birthday?"  She knows me well.  When it comes birthday time, I'm the kid who doesn't mind if they're opening a old frying pan as long as it is wrapped.

My mom made a comment the other day that my generation is way more obsessed with their birthdays than hers.  She says her colleagues my age always have an elaborate trip, party or night on the town planned for their birthdays.  But when she was my age, she had three kids.  I've only got me...and me wants a party, or at least some acknowledgement that I am the star of the world.  Is that too much to ask one day a year?