So…it comes to this. Sixteen years ago today (well, overnight last night, anyway), after spending the previous few weeks in and out of the hospital thanks to pregnancy induced complications (already causing grief before even breathing independently…hrmmm), I watched a really, really tiny human get squeezed out of my wife. It was weird, gross, scary, and utterly fascinating.

Fascinating enough that we’ve managed to keep her alive for sixteen whole years.

And during that time, on average, she’s managed to continually impress, amaze, occasionally infuriate, but in general, inspire feelings of pride and admiration; despite our best efforts, she’s turned into a generally pleasant, talented, intelligent, opinionated, well (if not entirely non-vulgar) spoken young adult, who tends to win over most of the other responsible adults with her maturity and poise, which shows, if nothing else, she knows when to deploy said maturity and poise to greatest effect, which, I suppose, is a lesson in itself.

As such, I don’t worry about having to support her financially well into middle age*, because she’ll be able to handle herself, and while she, like any human being, makes the occasional bad choice, I trust that she won’t make most of the really bad ones, which, in some ways of looking at things, is one of the best things a parent can say about the experience of raising a child.

Anyway, I look forward to many more years of sharing old-person music, barely understood teenage slang, shouting up the stairs, witnessing amazing accomplishments and wisdom beyond anything I managed at a similar age, and generally being proud of my kid.

happy birthday!

Oh – traditionally, on kids birthdays, i try to post an image of a number of animals (usually kittens) equal to the number of years we’re concerned with, but an image search for sixteen cats got weird and confusing very quickly. It did, however, turn up this song, which I’d never heard, but is, nonetheless, a pretty cool find.

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* – given our experiences over the last six months or so, though, I may end up driving her places forever…