Happy Birthday Eric

Today my husband turns 31!  How sweet it is to get to share my life with my very BFF!  I remember when we first met, I remember when we had our first date, our first kiss, the first time I said I love you, our first REAL fight. . . . I'll save those stories for another day, today I celebrate the life of a very special man.

I remember with absolute clarity how we spent his 30th birthday.  We went in for a routine ultrasound, and had our world flipped upside down.  Just a year before Eric had taken me to Vegas for my 30th and we had such a fabulous time with our friends living it up like rockstars if only for the weekend.  I was so sad that Eric had to have his milestone while rocked with such tragic news, and some very hard decisions.  And that day, and everyday since then he maintains that he received the best present of his life, the chance to save his sons.

Eric, I thought about how I could tell you, really tell you how much you mean to me and the truth is, I don't know.  The magnitude of my love, and the thankfulness that I feel for being a part of your life and for all the big and especially all of the little things you continually do I don't think could ever fully be expressed.  All I can say is I love you, and thank you.

A Few of the Big and Little things that make you, you:-)

1.  (Big)You work hard, really hard.  Hard enough that I don't have to, and I can stay at home with our son. 
This is probably your best and most generous gift to me.

2.  (Little)  You make a MEAN blueberry pancake, even without one of those crazy new electric griddles, you know the kind you can make a thousand pancakes at once and the temperature is always the same. . . . we should get one:-)

3.  (Big)  You are the patient half to my instant gratification half.  You are the reasonable side to my irrational side.  The planner to my spontenaity.  And we balance each other. 

4.  (Little)  You can have entire conversations with movie quotes.  Some lines are just always super funny, and I love how we can crack each other up, and annoy each other all at the same time.  "awwwww, what's in the box, what's in the box?"

5.  (Little)  Your laugh.  Especially when you find something really funny that takes you by suprise.  It is rare to get that high pitched laugh and it is my favorite.  I try all the time to illicit that sound.

6.  (Big)  Balancing the family budget.  This is a nearly impossible task because of my above mentioned instant gratification problem, and the fact that you really can't say no to me.  I have looked at this color coded, extremely complex excel spreadsheet and it makes my eyes glaze over.  If it were up to me we would live in a cardboard box under a bridge somewhere.

7.  (Big)  All the things you did for me when I was on bedrest.  Helping me up the step ladder into bed and then surrounding me with pillows so I wouldn't move on my own.  Shaving my legs so I wouldn't have to go into labor looking crazy.  Cooking, cleaning, worrying, working, foot rubs, back rubs, taking my braids out . . . . this list could go on forever. . . sleeping on a 5 foot cot at the foot of my hospital stretcher in a room that had to be kept at 50 degrees because the anti contraction drugs made me burn from the inside out. 

8.  (Big)  Your faith.  It seems that most people, once they reach the age that Sunday school is over feel like they have completed their education.  You have continued to grow more faithful and express a great interest in learning even more about your faith.  I never want to stop learning, and I am grateful to get to share that with you.  When Owen and I were housebound you went to mass every Sunday for the whole house. . . . . even if you hadn't shaved the whole weekend:-)

9.  (Little)  You are a guy's guy.  I love that you have real guy friends, and that you rough house and tease, and drink beer, and eat garbage, and watch football, and play fantasy football.  (This doesn't mean I think FF is cool by the way, it is still LAME)

10.  (Big)  All of our memories together.  I am so glad to have had our college experience together and to have so many friends in common.  Remember our Ensanada cruise, the bus ride through Italy, my nephew puking on himself, greenbeans for dinner everynight and then throwing my spoon over the balcony in protest?  Remember the cross party, and the bonfire party, club 302 and basketball parties?  Remember Ty and Old English, me and Steel Reserve, Collin's, Malohney's, The Museum Club, Porky's, Granny's Closet?  Remember Nick singing at Preston's wedding, the urinal at Chris's wedding, the shopping cart at our wedding, the cigars at Nick's wedding, you and Kevin dancing at Mark and Tara's wedding?  Remember throwing my crutch down the hill, fighting on St. Patrick's Day, running in the desert?  Remember driving to Mexico, or Tucson, or Phoenix.  Remember our first apartment, our Hillcrest apartment, going to Vegas with Bobby and the walkie talkies?  Remember any Salt River trip, but especially our first, and hopefully not so much of our last?

11.  (Little)  The little post-it notes you leave me every morning.

12.  (Little)  The way you always kiss me goodbye and goodnight.  Sometimes when I am being bratty I try to withhold this from you, but you never let me, and I love that.

13.  (Little)  Your taste in music. . . . maybe because it is nearly the same as mine . . . . except for O.A.R.  I just don't get it!  I'm sorry Nate., maybe if I saw the saxaphone player in person, ha.

14.  (Little)  You can always get a burp out of Owen when I can't.

15.  (Big)  You always let me hold the boys if only one got to be held, because you said you wouldn't even get to hold them if I had stayed pregnant so I should get to hold them the most since I missed out on my third trimester.  You always went to see them on your lunch break when I had to work. 

16.  (Little)  You let me decorate with pink.  Whenever we go to some of our friends houses and it is super masculine I always feel so grateful that you really don't care about the decor.  I want pink sheets and towels. . . . fine by you.  Thank you:-)  It's a 1 to you, but a 10 to me.

I'm trying, but it is still so hard to articulate how special I think you are.  I love you now and always.  Happy Birthday.