This is it. The official sign that the rest of the year is going to zoom by. I can’t tell you what happened to the first 21 days of this month. They seemed to fly away while I was sleeping.

Last weekend was Birthday Weekend. Because The Hub’s birthday is a day before mine, we usually combine them and celebrate. For days. We opted out of going out and leaving Max with a babysitter (he’s got issues there these days) and instead ate and drank ourselves into comas. Twice.

The celebration continues all week long for me. I’m a fan of the prolonged birthday celebration. Went shopping with one friend Monday and took off work completely (something I’m still recovering from, work-wise). Then yesterday I got to hang out with another friend who was taking a mental health day. And this Sunday, I’m having brunch with all my girlfriends. Yay me.

We went to Max’s school carnival. And we’re doing soccer every week. There just doesn’t seem to be any time to do the fun things like the Boo Parade or Halloween at SeaWorld. Where does the time go?

I know the rest of the year will be the same flurry of activity. I’m looking forward to it, and not, at the same time.

PS After talking about it for years, I am dressing up as Wonder Woman at my Halloween party. GO me. No, no pics will be posted!!

Photo: Flickr user somebox. Creative Commons 2.0.

Are your kids like you in ways that are eerie? Max is definitely his own person but sometimes I’m amazed at how like me he is.

He’s a rule follower. So am I. The few times in my youth that I rebelled (I mean, um, that one time that I got caught, Mom), I was so overwhelmed with guilt. He’s so afraid of doing anything that goes against the norm. Still, I’m pretty liberal these days, so that drives me crazy.

He likes a street fair as much as me. The hub would rather poke his eyes with a branding iron than walk down a street filled with thousands of sweaty people, hucksters selling solar paneling and water purifiers, the waft of waffle cones, street tacos and polish sausage dogs filling the air. We two? We like spinning the wheels and winning prizes. Eating our way down the street. Coming home with bellyaches.

He’s a worrywart like me, and I fear that he picked that up from watching me. He constantly worries that we’ll be late, probably because for years I urged him to move in the morning, or else “we’ll be late!” Now he checks his watch every two minutes. Drives me crazy #2.

We both would rather curl up with a good book or draw than be active. Though he’s great at soccer, and I only more recently discovered my inner athlete.

So when I see something I recognize in myself, I marvel at it. But I also marvel at the ways he’s made these characteristics, for better or worse, his own.

My main beef with exercise most of my life has been the fact that you are required to sweat so much. That’s why I fell in love with yoga: the sweat factor is pretty low. And yes, I think Bikram yoga (hot yoga) is akin to torture in a third world country. And no, I’ve never done it and never will.

But I’m getting over my phobia of sweating, gradually. I started working out with the hub, who sweats bullets – no literally – his sweat drops are that big. Anyway I now take sweat to mean the exercise is working. And that feels good.

But that cooldown shower? I look forward to it more than anything.