I might as well be a man

My grandpa found out his real name when he was in his 50s. He saw his birth certificate and it had a different first name. Apparently everyone, even his parents, disagreed with his given name and refused to call him by it! I mention this bit of my family history to put my small lapse in context. My error lasted less than a year and was very minor as it needed only a few phone calls to correct rather than legal documents.

In honor of Jake’s birthday I will admit that I was confused to his actual birth date for almost a year. I thought he was born two days later than he was. Seriously! I know he will need some heavy duty counseling to recover from that; but I figure that I’ll give him enough reason for counseling anyway, so an extra year or so shouldn’t make much of a difference.

It wasn’t until I mentioned birthday plans to a neighbor and mentioned what I thought was Jake’s birthday that I found out I was wrong about the date. My neighbor remembered his birth date as being two days earlier. I went and looked it up. She was right. It was a little embarrassing to have to change his birthday at the doctor’s office. No, not kidding, I had it wrong everywhere. Thankfully someone outside the family was paying attention.

We all know that I don’t remember anyone’s birthday. My twelve year-old mentioned to me yesterday that we needed to something special for her father for his birthday because I forgot it last year and he didn’t even get a cake. Perhaps a friend could . . . .