MARK MY WORD: BIRTHDAYS CAN BE SWEET WITH ICING ON THE CAKE

Someone once quipped that birthdays are nice to have, but too many of them will kill a person.

Birthdays are as inevitable as death and taxes, and a lot more fun -- at least, when you're a kid.

Children and adults don't view birthdays the same way. When you're young, you look forward to birthdays. With all those presents, it's practically like a second Christmas.

But when you get older, you tend to view your birthday more like a ticking time bomb. Like the odometer on a car, the numbers keep rolling over. You know it's happening, but you don't want to be reminded about it.

Someone once quipped that birthdays are nice to have, but too many of them will kill a person.

I've been thinking a lot about birthdays since my age meter reached 44 earlier this month.

When you're existence covers more than four decades, you have plenty to think about. More importantly, you still can remember a whole lot of things, except picking up milk at the store or running other "honey do" errands.

My oldest daughter, Becca, is only five. But she already knows a lot about birthdays.

She told her mom the other day that it was more fun for kids to have birthdays. "Adults don't get to go to Chuck E. Cheese," she observed.

In her world, it's hard to imagine how you can enjoy a birthday without a hug from that cheese head of a mouse.

But I kept a stiff upper lip and plowed ahead, making it through my birthday without a single mouse hug.

I was hoping to make it through the day with as little fanfare as possible. But Joni saw to it that virtually everyone in the news room knew I had turned a year older.

At one point, she flashed hand signs to a colleague who was trying to guess my age.

Actually, I already had celebrated my birthday a day earlier, courtesy of my darling wife. Joni took me to a movie. Of course, it was the "Titanic."

"Are you trying to tell me something?" I asked. "I'm getting ready to turn 44 and you take me to see a movie about a sinking ship."

Joni assured me that my life was in no way approaching that of a sinking ship. With that life preserver safely fastened, I sat back and watched the movie without once thinking about being old.

The night of my birthday, my family and friends celebrated with a birthday cake that had plenty of icing and was topped with rubber figures of Taz wearing a birthday hat and Bugs Bunny holding a birthday cake.

Becca had picked out the cake, figuring that you can't go wrong with Taz at your party.

I must confess, I liked the cake. So did daughter Bailey, who particularly liked eating the icing with her fingers.

She had managed to dig into the cake with her fingers even before dinner. For her, the cake was something to explore in the same way that a miner digs for gold.

I've concluded that you're never too old to have cartoon characters at your birthday party.

Actually, it was more than a birthday party. Holiday happenings and childhood ailments had kept us from exchanging Christmas presents with our friends' children.

Becca and Bailey got to open presents as did our friends' four children. All of the children got to help me blow out the two number candles that signaled my new age.

Becca later judged it the best birthday party that a dad could ever have. I had to agree that it was a fun party. But then, it's hard to argue with any party that has plenty of icing on the cake and enough pizza to feed an army.

It also helps to have a lot of kids around who seem oblivious to the fact that you are growing older. For them, a birthday is just a darn good reason for a party.

It's tough to argue with that on a full stomach. I just hope that there's plenty of icing on the cake next year too. Sometimes, life can be sweet.

~Mark Bliss is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.