Happy 19th Birthday, Lauren!

We have a very cheesy tradition every year for Lauren's birthday. We play her this personalized birthday song that I bought on tape when she was three-years old. It became a tradition from that point on. I always blast it from the living room stereo for her. I turn it up so loud that the whole house rocks. After all these years, I still manage to catch her off guard each and every time. That’s usually because I have it in the stereo all ready to go, and all I have to do is discreetly hit the play button when I’m ready. There’s a delay of several seconds, which gives me time to move away from the stereo before the song starts. It was most often played in the mornings when she was getting ready for school. She always acts like she hates it, but she loves it.

The song starts out with rocket and space ship sounds that are very high pitched, then some music, and then you hear "Zoom" start to talk. He’s the outer space guy who has a special message for Lauren and who came down from Mars just to sing her this tune. See, told you it was cheesy but it’s awesome.

When she turned eighteen last year, I wanted to do something different for her and came up with the best birthday scam. First, I had to call one of her friends to get approval that it would indeed be funny and not mortifying. Rachel totally approved and helped carry out the plan. I gave her a copy of the tape and she got permission ahead of time from their teacher in their third period class. It was also a class she shared with several of her friends, including current boyfriend Travis, who was actually ex-boyfriend Travis at that time. Rachel set the boom box up by the teacher’s podium and all the teacher had to do was bend down to press play when they were ready. Rachel even managed to get someone from the video department to tape the entire thing. Only Rachel and the teacher knew what was happening ahead of time. Lauren and the rest of the class just thought there was some student filming various classes for their school broadcast and had no idea of the evil plan!

I wish I knew how to post the video. It was so funny. She turned three shades of red and kept covering her face and asking what was going on. She later said she knew immediately that it was “her song” but she couldn’t figure out why Mrs. May was playing her song or why the camera was zooming in on her. Then Rachel told her about halfway through the song. We sent the video out via email last year but I’m not computer savvy enough to know how to link it or make it available to view here. It was so funny to watch her reaction. As soon as the space ships and music started she looked up, frozen. Then when Zoom started talking her eyes started darting from side to side and then her mouth dropped open and again she froze. It really was priceless to have it on video. Here’s a still shot of her face as they were playing her song.

By the way, I purposely skipped our tradition of playing her song before school last year. Then the day got away from us and I figured it was good enough that she’d heard it at school. At almost midnight she called in a panic saying that we’d not yet played her song. I told her everyone was asleep but she rushed home so I could still play it for her. Even when she was expecting it, I still caught her off guard. I had all of the lights off and as soon as I heard her shut her car door, I hit play and then went and hid in the kitchen. She came into the dark house and had just reached the hall to go looking for me when it started. It actually scared her. Then she broke down into tears. She didn’t want to “grow up”. She wanted to “stay seventeen forever”. I couldn’t help it but I started laughing then hugged her and said I didn’t blame her a bit. I didn’t want her to grow up either.

Happy Birthday, “Nawwen”.

We love you!!!!!