Today is my birthday; I am 40. I could wax eloquent about all the things I expected to do before I was 40 or all the things I hope to do now that I am 40, but instead I will tell you about my day, because you will NEVER BELIEVE THIS.

My birthday went like this: get up, get dressed (in an actual DRESS even because I was going to have lunch with my husband and then go to the Apple store to replace my iBook’s power cord and perhaps also stop at J. Crew because IT IS MY BIRTHDAY), get kids up, get kids dressed, take kids to school. Come home, eat cereal, read New York Times, get ready to talk with magazine editor about writing for magazine. Call editor, leave message, think about starting to clean up house.

And then the school calls because Henry has an ear infection and has cried the ENTIRE WAY through Mass. Woo!

I spent the rest of the day with a kid who alternately felt FINE and wanted to tell me IN GREAT DETAIL about an episode of SpongeBob he watched TWO WEEKS AGO when Charlie was forbidden to move and was watching TV for twelve consecutive hours each day and then felt HORRIBLE and cried and sobbed and wailed and moaned and clung to me with all his strength and power and 63 pounds of heft.

All this was all before lunch, which clearly I was NOT going to spend in a grown-up restaurant with my husband. Instead we took Henry (who was feeling pretty good at that particular moment) to HIS favorite restaurant, a local sandwich place that I have decided I am OVER. And we had a lovely lunch even though I am OVER Gourmet Deli. Sorry.

After lunch, Henry spent what seemed like a hundred hours but was probably only one sobbing and crying and insisting that I FIX HIS EAR RIGHT NOW. And then he was fine again and we picked Charlie up and they talked about their days and then we got to the doctor and he sobbed in the waiting room and then we went into the examining room and he was polite and cooperative and then we left to drive through at the pharmacy and he sobbed and sobbed and sobbed and insisted that the people in front of us FINISH ALREADY AND GET OUT OF THE WAY because his EAR HURT WHY DIDN’T ANYONE CARE THAT HIS EAR HURT AND WHY WEREN’T WE GETTING THE MEDICINE AND HIS EAR HURT DID I HEAR HIM ABOUT HIS EAR WHY AREN’T WE GOING HOME YET OWOWOWOW ITHURTSITHURTSITHURTS MAKEITSTOPNOW!!!

I’m guessing that I must have passed out about then because I have no idea what was next.

So far, being 40 feels just like being 39 and 30 and 25, except for the part about the screaming kid, which I would never have seen coming a decade ago (or really even yesterday because who knew he had an ear infection?!? not me, clearly). Apparently 40 is the new 30, whatever that means, although I think really it just means that a whole group of us is getting old and trying desperately to turn old into cool which just seems kind of lame to me.

And that is what I have learned at 40: trying to be cool is lame. Goodnight, ladies and gentlemen! Apparently my work here is done.