Sunday, September 7, 2014

Dannell's birthday

Dannell, it's your birthday again.

Funny how that happens year after year.

When we met, you were like probably twenty.  I was still in my thirties.

But that's all right.  

We're still us, and I love you very much.

You came into motherhood with a degree in early childhood.   I came into the whole endeavor still a kid.   I explained this to John once a while back, "You never had that type of mother.  YOUR mother was a teenaged girl.  We don't have to be alike.  We will never be. She doesn't have to change--and change is unlikely in me as well.  It's okay."

You know what?  I did things in a way I believed in, and you do too. How could I ever not allow you what I felt was my own right?    Even though we're different in some ways, we're exactly alike in others (like our sincere love and good wishes for all these kids surrounding us),  and there is an element of mutual respect that I appreciate very much.  

Plus the little darlings are all so weird, it's fun to have each other to laugh with.

We have t.c. prepared to take the world by storm.  l.c. our wheeler and dreamer, their little brother wearing James' dirty socks on his hands at a birthday party.

We've got Tim who is trying to grow up, bigger than me now, and probably twice your size, baffled side to side by various rowdies, including his intense nephew and his very, very verbally outrageous sister.

But he gets her back.  Yesterday as we left Dan and Alicia's, police sirens were blaring all around us, and Julia asked, "Where are those sirens coming from??"

Tim:  "Probably your butthole."

Okay, really?   James' girlfriend did a double-take and turned back to look at them, incredulous.

(I understand.)

Get in the car.

Dannell?  Thanks for coming to this loud, intense, messy family and being ours.

We love you.   Happy Birthday, Sweetheart.  love, Jay and Val and EVERYBODY




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