30+

Today is my husband's birthday. Not so long ago on his 30th birthday, we came home from the hospital with our first son (top that for a great gift!) and our lives changed forever. We'd been married for more than eight years when Ben finally came along, and we found it interesting that people basically consider you to be newly weds until you take that big step into the brave new world of parenthood.

It was just us and Ben for four years, and then in the course of the last three years, our family has grown to five. There's a dramatic change, for you!

I was sitting in the living room earlier this evening watching Larry and the kids bustle around, and for just a moment, I had a crystaline realization that my whole world was in that little room. I tried to take a mental picture because if I've learned anything about kids, it's that everything passes by so quickly and they change in a heartbeat.

So now, for just a minute, Ben is a tall, thin gradeschooler - all knees and elbows - beginning to figure out who he is and how the world works. Alaina is a precocious, dancing three year old who will talk to anybody anywhere about any subject that comes to her active little mind. And Caleb is coming up on a year (already!) with the fastest knees in town and a ferocious curiosity that is balanced with a tender appreciation for his siblings, his Mom and his Daddy.

Oh, his Daddy! All he has to do is walk into the room and that kid grins from ear to ear, does a funny little wiggle of delight and then lunges at him for some attention. Larry is a rock star as far as that boy is concerned. And I have to say, seeing him with our children, watching him be the kind of dad he never had himself, I love him more and more.

Happy birthday, Larry. I love you!