One of the reasons I wasn’t exactly chomping at the bit to make this trip to Germany is that today is my daughter Erin’s birthday. I’ve never missed one of the kids’ birthdays and I hope I never have to do it again. Ironically the more birthdays we celebrate with the kids the more I treasure each one, because when I think about it we’ll have three more with Erin’s older brother Michael and four more with Erin before they go off to college and then it’s highly likely we’ll miss lots of their birthdays after that.  Ah well, gotta put food on the table and all that.I’m also feeling particularly nostalgic because the past year has seen Erin truly blossom.  She’s truly becoming a young lady, a fact that was hammered home when she tried on the dress she’s going to be wearing in her aunt’s wedding. Let’s just say I’m going to be fighting off some drunken louts in a few weeks and I won’t be taking prisoners.  The girl’s gonna drop some jaws and if any of them drop the wrong way Daddy’s gonna have to do some peacekeeping.

Of course I’m like every other Dad out there, wanting my little girl to stay just that.  Unfortunately time and biology have conspired against my wishes and she just keeps getting more lady like and less girlish.  At the risk of repeating myself from last year’s birthday post, I have to say again that she’s eventually going to be some lucky guy’s boyfriend, fiance and wife. But be warned fellas, you better be prepared to impress because you’ll have to be better than any man I’ve ever met to take my girl away from her mother and me.
For now we’re going to hold on to Erin as tight as we can and enjoy the soccer games and practices, the family dinners and the silly stories.  We’ll treasure her laugh, watch with wonder as she continues to thrive in school and let her bedazzle us with her smile.  In short we’ll enjoy every moment we can with our young lady because they are becoming too few.

Happy birthday sweetheart.  See you in a couple of days.