To be honest, I had an ambitious idea last January of how I was going to mark the special occasion for my hubby. One thing for certain, it could not just be a simple cake-card-present affair! After all, it is the big 4-0!
Armed with tons of ideas and plenty of time, I thought it might even be possible to whip up some magic and line up 40 smaller celebrations, one per day, for a straight period of 40 days!
How's that for ambition? But I had a sneaky feeling it would be too ambitious and I probably have to scale down closer to the delivery date.
True enough, in the end, we didn't celebrate in 40 ways. But I did my best to make the days before somewhat special.
We started the week with a fabulous lunch at Brasserie Wolf, followed by yummy home-made steaks with red wine reduction, prepared the way he likes, on another evening.
On the actual day, I took him to exquisite dim sum lunch at the luxurious-looking Royal China at the Raffles Hotel after reading raving reviews of its food quality. It certainly didn't disappoint my high expectations.
Next, we popped by the Tiffany's next door to pick up a special and very personal birthday present which E had chosen a fortnight before. 'It' has stayed close to his heart ever since.
This was followed by more presents, cake and cards waiting for him at home.
The first was a beautifully wrapped COLD box of wine-lovers gourmet cheese. The moment E opened the box, Chip who is the other cheese-lover in the family, dashed over to claim his share. It was very quickly devoured by father and son.
The other present is a book on the top archaeological finds of the world, which I was thrilled to discover amidst a dusty pile of books at Borders. It is now sitting on top of the pile of books by our bedside table.
Both boys made daddy an adorable card with their own drawings and writing.
Chip painstakingly stuck shiny gold papers on the numbers and drew little hearts and kisses.
Marcus made the face collage of his dad. So cute! It makes me smile whenever I look at it.
'Daddy is drawing. I (HEART) you. xxx'
'Daddy and I are going on a holiday. Happy birthday! Love and kisses xxx'
To conclude the celebration on a high note, we left the kids at home in the good hands of my mum and headed for seafood dinner at the Greenhouse at Ritz Carlton. Ironically, we were tired by then and didn't quite eat as much seafood as I thought we would.
Nevertheless, it was precious couple time as we reminisced, over glasses of wines, on the memories of the past decade since our chance meeting on his 30th birthday. It is not every day that we could say 'Hey, today is your 40th birthday and also the 10th anniversary of the day we first met!' It did highlight the significance of the day, at least it did to me.
It is always wonderful to make memories. That is what life and living is about. I hope the day was good for E, though he did tell me so and thanked me for the gestures and effort to 'fuss over him and make him feel special'.
I'm glad I did, but in some small ways, I still wished I had stuck to my original idea of 40 small celebrations culminating into a finale. Maybe I would, on his 50th.
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