Happy Birthday Sidonie Ridgway Stern

It’s my daughter’s first birthday today, so my sister and aunt and uncle are visiting us here in Dublin. What a lovely day!

Birthdays are delicious.

Some people don’t make a big deal of birthdays. Others love them. For me, it and Thanksgiving are the two best (and non-secular!) holidays. Thanksgiving gives us space to be thankful and appreciate all the wonderful things in our lives – it also happens to have personal meaning for me, ever since coming home from the hospital after a terrible car accident when I was 17, just in time for Thanksgiving. Birthdays, on the other hand, are like personal Thanksgivings. They are a chance to be thankful for the relationship you have with one special person – it is a day for those you love and who love you to celebrate your life, your being, you. I feel ever so lucky to spend this time with my daughter, to delight in her playing and development with my wife and family.

Happy Birthday my little angel.