14 years ago today...

(Those maternity jeans were my favorite article of clothing I've had before or since.  I wish I would have kept them.)

At 8:10 in the morning I got cut practically in half and a giant baby was removed from my thorax by Dr. Deb and her husband, Dr. Tim, both of whom I admired so much because they were so smart, and married and successful that I started to get nervous and intimidated around them until Mitch told me they were getting a divorce so that brought them down to earth for me, but later I found out he lied.  They didn't get a divorce.  So they are still admirably intimidating and I'm married to a liar.  But I digress.  I had an absolutely stunningly beautiful boy and they wrapped him in a pink blanket to bring him up to the nursery because they were out of blue blankets.  My sister said she almost died when she saw the pink blanket because we were all positive he was a boy.

They eventually found him a blue blanket.  Look at all that hair!  A PERFECT BABY!

He was a wonderful baby.  When he was big enough to crawl, I could put him on a blanket with his toys and say, "stay on the blanket," and he wouldn't leave the borders of the blanket.  No need for a playpen!  He's always been easy and quiet and cautious and funny and sweet.  I thought people that thought child rearing was hard were total weenies.  (Then Karma gave me Kira)

Baby Sam and the best dog in the world, Gizmo.

He broke his leg when he was five.  A spiral fracture of his femur.  Pretty serious stuff.  He was at his grandparent's when it happened.  He was miming running in place like cartoons do and he was wearing toe socks and rubber boots and he slipped and by some freakish chance, he broke his leg.  The grandparents brought him to the local hospital where the idiot staff almost killed him by messing up his electrolytes.  (Ridgeview Medical Center in Waconia, Minnesota.  Never go there, they will kill you!) He had a seizure and we had him brought to Children's Hospital where they fixed him up.  That was when Mitch and I thought maybe parenthood was too much for us to handle emotionally.  We realized then that these kids have such a hold on us that if anything bad ever happened to them we would lose our minds.  Seeing Sam almost die, in pain, and broken almost pushed us over the edge and would have if he didn't recover so quickly.  Turns out children are our kryptonite.

The poor kid had pins in his leg attached to an exterior fixator for the entire summer.  

Always one to see the silver lining, Sam found using a bedpan to be quite convenient and couldn't understand why everyone didn't use them all the time.

He is growing up to be a kind and helpful person.  A parent couldn't ask for a better son, and a sister couldn't ask for a better big brother.

We love you Sam!  Happy Birthday!