So today I’m 47. Yesterday I was a spritely 46. Today I’m only three years away from 50, my back aches and I slept funny on my neck so now it hurts to turn my head.

What will I do today to celebrate, other than put a heating pad on my neck? Gosh, let’s see the list of fun things lined up for me:

we started the morning with a round of breakfast-and-lunchbox making; followed by walking the 5th grader to school and listening to the relentless monologue about Maple Story, a computer game from hell played only by mildly compulsive pre-adolescent boys (I realize this may be a redundant phrase and that all pre-adolescent boys may be mildly compulsive, true).

The mid-morning will be full of dishes and laundry, with occasional swipes at bathtub scurf.

Cleaning will be interrupted by a yoga class where hopefully my creaking 47 year old bones won’t collapse in a heap. Yesterday was yoga teacher Lululemonista’s birthday. She has a streak of green in her hair, blue toenails, and matching aztec skulls tattooed on the back of each thigh. I think probably her birthday was a lot more interesting than mine.

After yoga, perhaps a shower and a little “I almost have lice” follow-up inspection. Most of last week was spent dealing with Caleb’s announcement about his unwelcome almost-critters. We never found any live bugs (does your head itch yet?) but there were days and days of head goop, fine-tooth combing, and shampooing.  Here’s what I’ve learned from my time on the frontlines of the nit wars:

A) after your child is told he almost has lice, every single itch will be accompanied by a panicked “holy shit is that lice,” even if what itches is the bottom of your foot. An errant hair tickling my neck sends me running to the mirror with a finetooth comb in my hand, wondering if the little fuckers are back.

B) during head combing, one can have long conversations with your child, as I did with Caleb, who wanted to know what it means to be Christian. And Muslim. And Jewish. And what are we? And did I know that his friend L. probably is a Christian because his dad is a Christian but his mom isn’t much of anything.  Where these questions come from, I have no idea, but I think someone needs to invent a “comparative world religions” app for the iPad so I can stop pretending to know the answers.

C) someone could make a killing with a trained baboon nit picking service. If they can train dogs to sniff bedbugs, why not monkeys to do something they already do naturally? I’m telling you, there’s a market out there.

Wait. I have to go scratch my head.

Now back to my birthday. After yoga, a shower, and a nit check, it’s off to Caleb’s swimming class, then home again to make some kind of white food dinner for the boys.

Husband and I are going for dinner, which will be nice, and if it doesn’t snow, I’ll get to wear my new shoes, which I found courtesy of adhocmom and iwanttobeher.  Would that I had new jeans, too, but alas, alack, weladay, those are not yet found. They’re out there, like the grail, I’m sure, but the nits got in the way of my shopping.

When I turned 45, the country celebrated me by inaugurating Obama, which almost atoned for that two birthdays of Bush-watching, but you know? When you get to this stage of the birthday game, these intervening years between the decade and half-decade just aren’t that big a deal.

We’ll have a little champagne with dinner (note to self: it will be much easier to be 47 if champagne is consumed on a regular basis) and toast to the fact that our kids are happy and healthy and nit-free; we’ll talk about the book projects we’re working on; we’ll daydream about the year to come.

So yeah, there are yahoos in congress running around with big gavels and small penises brains; and no, I don’t have new jeans with which to face my upcoming teaching semester; and yeah, my neck hurts and if I really wear those four-inch heels tonight, my back will hurt tomorrow; but you know what?

Mostly, life is pretty good.