Happy Birthday

My wonderful son was born 28 years ago today on the same day my dad was born. I will never forget the way he snuggled into my shoulder the first time I held him. I look at him and marvel at the fine young man he has become. He is kind and smart and no parents could ever want more from a child than he has given us.

My sweet "little boy" (not only is he not a boy anymore, he is over 6 ft tall) will always be my baby boy. It seems like only yesterday he was banished to a summer of book reports to make up for the English home works he missed all year. It seems like last week when he sat at the kitchen table trying to get away with using all 20 spelling words in a sentence: "bad, good, evil, ....." are my spelling words." or trying to split the list with his friend, so each would only have to come up with 10. It seems like last month when my little second grader discovered copy and paste and tried to use this to write his misspelled words 10 times each and how he charmed his teacher into believing this was a great way to do homework. (Computers were new then and his teacher did not know about copy and paste.) It seems like last year when he told his first grade teacher that zero wasn't the smallest number and then listed the negative integers for her.

I miss dancing around the kitchen with him, teaching him his multiplication tables. I miss his running under my legs as I cooked dinner. I don't miss our marathon Spanish sessions, helping him memorize what seemed like endless vocabulary words. I miss the warmth of his little body curling up to me in bed but I don't miss those terrible asthma attacks and ear aches that put him there.

My son, the little boy who had trouble reading, who had trouble getting correct answers down on exams and who always danced to his own beat is a terrific, responsible computer engineer today. I miss him living at home and solving all my tech problems. I miss his humor and his never ending helpfulness. I miss his taking care of the cats when we go away. When I see him and when I talk about him, my heart is full of pride and love. My little boy is a wonderful man.

Happy birthday baby boy--you will always be that to me. Happy birthday dad. I know giving you this boy was the greatest birthday gift you ever got.