My official age, as far as the kids are concerned, is “old as the hills“. I established this some time ago and am sticking with it.

Yesterday, N (the three year old) was home sick. It wasn’t anything serious – just a little stomach upset – but enough to keep him home from school.

As I was eating lunch with him and his momma, she told me a pretty funny story. It seems that the subject of her upcoming birthday had come up the previous night with the kids, and C had asked her if she was older than me or not. She is, and she had told him so.

“Wow!” He had said. “You must be even older than the hills! That’s old!”

Pretty funny, huh? Well, I thought so. As I was laughing, N chimed in “No! No! I said that! I said you were older than the hills!”

His momma stopped laughing and looked at him, “You said that?”

“Uh-huh. Older than the hills. MUCH older!”

He was grinning from ear to ear. Momma put on her serious face and shook her finger at him. “Then you’re the one who’s in trouble, and not your brother?”

The grin faded. “Uh, um… No. Actually, it was him. Yeah. He said that. Not me. Him. Not, uh, me…”

Momma couldn’t hold it in any more. She burst out laughing and he collapsed into the giggles.

Happy birthday, momma! I don’t think you’re older than the hills! Well, not much anyway…