mon fils a quatre ans
Luke’s 4th birthday is today! He woke this morning to a decorated house and a little birthday cake we picked up from Whole Foods yesterday. It’s a coconut cream cake he inhaled a hunk of in addition to his regular breakfast. He got a few gifts from Grandpa and Nana on Sunday (a construction set he loves and a book) and today unwrapped a Slip ‘n’ Slide for the summer, along with a big storybook and an array of Play-Doh toys. He also received a playground for the backyard that his Granddad and I have to try to assemble this weekend, if it doesn’t rain. More festivities tonight…
I’ve known Luke fully half his life. Diane and I started dating when he was almost 2, and we celebrated his 2-year-old birthday the same day I earned my private pilot’s license. The Lord has placed us together, in His wisdom, and I am and will always be his daddy. He is himself and I am always proud of him, no matter what he does or doesn’t do, achieves or doesn’t achieve. But we’ve been blessed with similar temperaments (either that or he takes after me) and we understand each other a good deal. He is a challenge, a blessing, a gift and a joy.
Diane and I had our first date in who knows how long last night. Luke visits his local grandparents almost every Thursday evening and we have some time then, but since Penelope’s been born haven’t been able to leave the house to go out, and even when we could, before Pen, we were expecting and our thoughts were appropriately preoccupied. So last night Granddad, Grandma, Uncle Josh and Aunt Maralyn came over and babysat Luke and Pen while we went out. It was wonderful to be able to get away for a couple of hours to a nice restaurant then to Barnes & Noble. Diane was lovely and the quality of much of our conversation reminded me of that of our honeymoon.
I checked out the “recreational reading” (read: bargain) section of Barnes & Noble. There are always lots of books about military history or cats or cooking or travel; just a lot of coffee table books. Many of them are books of the sort I used to collect: airplane books. Flipping through an “All the World’s Fighter Aircraft” or a “Classic Supermarine Spitfire” reminded me of how much I enjoyed my collection, how meticulously I would arrange them, and how many hours I spent poring over engine thrust ratings of F-14A versus F-14D models or comparing the maximum Mach numbers of the F-4 and MiG-23, among other things. I really did (and do) enjoy it.