happy birthday, dan

These are from a long time ago.  You were an extremely beautiful baby, and also good natured.

You hardly ever cried, and it's funny but your efforts to not cry would kind of break my heart.

The little lip. 

Me? Gone.

One night I was sitting in our bed feeding you in the middle of the night, and woke up to a big crash and felt a moment of panic.  How could I have dropped you!

Good LOR-ed.

Nope. I'd fallen asleep and dropped the bottle.  A big glass bottle on an oak floor makes one heck of a racket, but it didn't even break.

And you were fine, asleep in the crook of my lap.

Another night I woke up with the bottle in my hand and no you.   Again in a panic, I searched the sheets and blankets for you, shook your father by the shoulder, "Oh dear God, where is Dan??"

I'd put you back into your basket, covers up to the chin, sleeping.

I was only 18 then, just a kid. Dad was 20. We were idiots.

But I was impressed at that point to know, that even in my sleep, I took good care of you.

You went on to be a cute kid. You never had that awkward stage most kids get.

And here you are now, in a picture Alicia took last night.

Beautiful.

And here's a thing about you--if I irritate you, which at times I must, you never let on.  You are consistently so completely nice to me that I don't even know what to say about it.

(I know you save all the sass for Alicia.)

You share your kids in a completely generous way.

You laugh when laughter is indicated, and also say, "Aww," in the right places when things go wrong.

I might have been an eighteen year old girl when we met, but neither of us is eighteen anymore, and I, and Dad, and all the rest are nothing but lucky having you.

In this entire world, there is not one single person I love more than you.

Happy Birthday, Dan. 

love forever and ever, Mom and Dad and Everybody