Laura Drewry: Wish Lists

It’s my birthday next week and when my Oldest Darling asked me what I would like, I told him the truth: I would like Chinese food for dinner. But not just that. I'd like someone else to order it, someone else to either pick it up or answer the door when it arrives, someone else to set the table and I'd really like someone else to clean up afterwards.  

If you’re a parent, I bet you can relate, can’t you? We don’t need gifts, we don’t need big bouquets of flowers and we don’t need expensive dinners out. All we need is for someone else to take care of the cooking and cleaning for one day. :)

When I was a kid, though, my wish list was a little longer - and a whole lot stranger. We didn’t have many “extras” growing up, but Mom and Dad worked hard to make sure my three sisters and I never went without, and you can bet your boots that when one our birthdays came around, our folks knocked themselves out to give us the one thing we really wanted. I don’t honestly remember most of those things I “just had to have” back then, but I do remember a few because they were so weird.

One year it was my own jug of Hawaiian Punch because the girl down the street always had it in her fridge and I though she was one of the most exotic creatures in the world, so clearly that had to mean that I, too, would become exotic if I drank this entire jug full of high fructose corn syrup and sodium hexametaphosphate. Shockingly, I think the only thing I became was sick to my stomach, but that's a whole different story. Another year I just had to have my own bottle of maraschino cherries. I know, it makes me shudder to think of it now, too, but I'd been introduced to the wonder of the Shirley Temple, and what was a Shirley Temple without a cherry? And yes, if you're wondering, I ate every one of them.

Despite how it might seem up to this point, not everything was about food. :) One of my all-time favourite gifts was my Holly Hobby doll because it added to my belief that I must be related to the Ingalls family in my Little House books; I mean, I did, after all, share the same first name with the girl in the books and that had to mean something, right? 

I still have her, too, stored safely away in my trunk with Mrs. Beasley. 

I'd love to hear about some of your weird or wonderful birthdays. Do you have specific traditions, do have you have the same cake every year, or do you pretty much ignore the day all together? :) This year I'm extending my birthday fun an extra day because my new book, CATCH AND RELEASE (Book 3 in my Fishing for Trouble series) comes out on the 28th and I'm throwing an online party to celebrate, so I hope you'll join me. I have an amazing line up of guest authors who'll be there and I have it on good authority that there'll be prizes and giveaways, so come on over and be part of the fun!

   OFF THE HOOK                                         LURED IN                                           CATCH & 
                                                                                                                                       RELEASE
          (Book 1)                                                   (Book 2)                                               (Book 3)