Yesterday was my birthday.

The kids were off school which I thought was a drawback but it ended up being positive because I didn’t have to get out of bed first thing. I can’t call it sleeping in, because I was joined by a rambunctious 5-year-old and a kitten in “attack mode” at 7 a.m. But at least I didn’t have to get up.

When arguing started at breakfast — I immediately put a halt to it by explaining that all I wanted for my birthday was no arguing. Amazingly, it worked — for awhile anyway.

After breakfast, I went for a run around the neighborhood and even the weather cooperated. Who expects a warm and balmy birthday in the middle of January?

For lunch, I pawned two kids off at friend’s houses and left two home alone so I could escape to a restaurant with my sister. I felt no guilt. It was my birthday after all. How can I help the fact that it coincided with Martin Luther King Jr.’s?

After dinner, I jumped up from the table to take my oldest to swim practice — leaving my husband with the dirty dishes and the other three. There’s nothing more blissful than sitting poolside with a good book. I could almost pretend I was in balmy Florida.

I rounded out the day by opening a half dozen gifts my 9-year-old daughter wrapped for me. I got a beaded necklace and bracelet, a shell and two pieces of sea glass she found at the beach last summer, a color by numbers and a mirror she decorated at Vacation Bible School when she was 5.

It was truly a day fit for a queen.