Well when I said earlier that this was a special week because it did not have a Monday, I was boneheaded enough to overlook the fact that this is a special week because three years ago on this day I got to finally meet the love of my life after nine month waiting for him. I can’t believe he’s 3 years old already.

You know the first time I saw him in the little monitor, you know, when they put Vaseline all over your wife’s belly and then move this weird little wand all over it. Anyway, yeah, he looked like a Mexican jumping bean! He was shaped roughly like a peanut and every now and then he would jump. I guess he had a lot of space in there at the time. This changed rather quickly. By the time the seventh and eighth months rolled around, he could barely twiddle his toes it was so crammed in there.

He didn’t seem to mind tho, cause when it was time to get out, he didn’t wanna! He got stuck and gave the doctor hell and of course, his momma paid the pain bill for that one. But finally we were able to talk him into coming out, mostly by grabbing him by the head and pulling for all it was worth and voila! There he was… ugliest thing I ever saw in my life.

Now don’t look at me like that. If you’ve never seen a baby fresh out of the oven you could not possibly know what I’m talking about. That’s why the nurses grab the little bugger as soon as he pops out and go nuts wiping him down and drying him and putting little booties on them cause if their momma ever saw what they actually looked like when he came out, they wouldn’t want to take him home.

-“Congratulations ma’am you just had a baby boy…”
-“Awww, thank you doctor I’ll just… WHAT THE HELL IS THAT THING?”
-“It’s your baby, ma’am.”
-“The hell it is! Are you sure you didn’t pull out my stomach by mistake? Look in there again, maybe the baby is still hiding in a corner.”

The nurse, who had kindly offered me a chair because she thought I was going to pass out and she knew for a fact the three of them in the room and a forklift could not possibly lift me from the floor, thought I was crying because of the emotion of the moment when all I could think was… Oh my God, she gave birth to a lemur. How am I going to show this to the family?

But then they cleaned him and dried him and… he was still ugly as sin but in a beautiful kind of way and at least he was not covered in slime and it didn’t matter cause I was head over heels for that little wrinkled creature screaming his head off in that weird-looking bassinet. I swear he looked uncomfortable as hell lying on that ugly square thing with a big lamp hanging over him and bunch of wires stuck all over his body.

So yes, while I had been in love with him since he looked like a peanut on espresso, I actually got to see what it was that I was so in love with three years ago, today. He looks a lot better now, by the way. So ummm, oh yeah, all I really wanted to say is,

To my son: Happy Birthday kid! You’re the sweetest, cutest, most adorable pain in the ass a father could ever want and I love you more than all my World of Warcraft Level 80 characters AND their epic mounts.

Hey don’t laugh, I’m saying a lot with that, you insensitive jerks!

Originally Published 09/09/2009