Happy Birthday Deej

Can it be that my first born is celebrating his 33rd birthday??!!! It doesn't seem remotely possible! Here he is a grown man with two delightful daughters of his own. He has a wonderful job, a lovely home, and a ton of animals (he always wanted to be a vet). I am so proud of this man. Despite a challenging childhood he has become the kind of man every woman would want to marry.

He is thoughtful, gentle, kind, self sacrificing, a hard worker who still carves out ample family time, a godly man. Oh, I know he has his quirks like everyone, but who would have thought that first moment I saw his wrinkled red face that he would turn out so well despite everything?

I was quite young, and very naive with my first pregnancy. I had these romantic notions that when labor began, we would take a moonlight drive around the lake waiting for the contractions to be ten minutes apart. What was I thinking?? My water broke and those contractions were three minutes apart from the get go. And STRONG!

And he definitely did NOT want to be born. After twelve grueling hours of constant labor, I had finally dilated enough and even though I never felt the urge to push, I pushed when they told me to. Stubborn child insisted on having to be teased out with forceps (the size of tire irons!) and as soon as I heard his first little cry, I was so relieved I cried too.



Now here we are celebrating his adult years. How quickly the time has passed. We are closer now that he is grown and has forgiven me my parental faults. I love chatting with him on the phone. He is wonderful about checking in. Today I call him and offer to sing Happy Birthday. His daughters have beaten me to the punch. AND he had a raspberry lemon cake and presents.

I am glad he is so well taken care of. I send him virtual hugs and kisses, happily remembering little scenes from his childhood that make me smile (I won't embarrass him by talking about the time he cut the phone cord or how cute he was doing his monkey dance or how shy he was in kindergarten or how bouncey and joyous in college . . .)

I will simply wish him a wonderful year filled with good things and happy moments and lots of loving hugs and peace. May this be the best year you have ever enjoyed and may there be many many more. Happy Birthday, sweetheart.