Thanks for the B-day wishes

Hi all. Just wanted to say thanks to all who called, sent e-mails, e-cards, etc to greet me a Happy 24th birthday yesterday. As I understand from all of the messages I got, our blog is quite the hit with the kids out there so I’m hoping all who greeted me gets this thank you post. The typical greeting was Happy Birthday, Jeremy is so cute! Or Happy Birthday, can’t wait to see Jeremy. Or Happy Birthday, I love Jeremy. Which got me thinking, although it was MY birthday, the greetings really wouldn’t have sounded as good if my son wasn’t mentioned as well. I guess my transformation into a father continues to develop because with all of the phone calls and e-mails, I only really wanted to discuss Jeremy too. Which leads me to post the following slideshow I made after his birth. I think most of the family has already seen this but it's been a while and I know some haven't. I’ve avoided posting it since I think it’s going to be too slow. My suggestion is – 1: If you are on a dialup, don’t bother trying to play it. 2: If you’re on high-speed, hit the play button, go surf the net for 5-10 minutes as it plays out the first time, then go back and replay. That should give it time to load the full video and play uninterrupted through the whole thing. 3: Leave a comment and let me know if it was a pain to watch it, did it slow down loading the rest of the blog?, etc. If so, I’m going to go back and delete it.

This was made while still living in Connecticut. Not to get too sentimental, but I guess it’s no secret that I never really felt comfortable or “at home” while living there (unlike when I first moved to California back in 2000, I felt right at home from day 1). That said, of course, I left CT not preparing to miss it or have any affinity for it whatsoever. Then I watched this again for the first time in a while. I’m surprised at myself at how fond I feel for CT now because JC was born there. We prepared our lives for his arrival in that house. We made our first set of parent-friends in that house. We had a mini-family reunion in that house when he was baptized. We left the hospital on a frigid January morning with JC wrapped in a thick blanket, being handled like a basket of eggs in his infant seat, from two people who had no idea what they were doing (and sometimes still don’t J) in that house. We lived in that house for only 18 months, but my fondest memories to date are there because of one little boy. I’ll remember it forever.

Thanks again for the b-day wishes. Enjoy the slideshow.