Birthdays are a curious event; they are curious because we wait a full year to celebrate a person's entrance into this world. We were all too eager to celebrate Emma's first birthday, but in truth, I celebrate her birthday every day of the year. I suppose I could be accused of being a Proud Papa, for Emma is a delight and a joy. If there is one thing holding me back it is that God is the author of her life; all I am doing is raising her. I often think of what a gift Emma has been, is, and will hopefully be, and with a humble sincerity thank God for her daily.

The full story of how Emma greeted the world and her first day of firsts will come later, when I get a chance to sleep, collect my thoughts, and stop letting Emma take naps on my chest. This is the Reader's Digest version of the event, but for an even shorter version I have one word to sum it all up: OUCH!

I've never enjoyed working on a birthday. Perhaps its a fault of parents everywhere who make a big deal of a child on his birthday, but for some reason I have always felt like my birthday was supposed to be something special and was supposed to be acknowledged (preferably by not going to work or school). In any event I went to work, and not one person wished me happy birthday (though I don't know how many ever knew in the first place, and I did not draw attention to myself). All was not lost for a good friend decorated our MUSH with a birthday banner, balloons, a pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey poster, and birthday popper things (for those confused souls out there our MUSH is just a text-based virtual world where my fiends and I gather to chat; its very geeky and you probably aren't missing much if you aren't already there).

As I write this I am officially 29 (or as I like to write it “5² + 2²â€ or “--30”). The only difference I can tell between 29 and 28 is 29 is closer to 30 and 30 seems a bit too old for me. As you might notice my birthday falls on a Monday, and given that I still commute to Portland every day I don't have much time today to celebrate the slow decay of a body past its prime. Thus we had a celebration of sorts yesterday involving three of my favourite things, pizza, Frisbee, and games.

Sunday morning started like most other weekend mornings, except we both decided to sleep in and see what time it was when we awoke. Rather than force ourselves to get out of bed in order to sit through what usually amounts to a disappointing sermon we opted to play things by ear, and my ear was listening to the dulcet tones of the choir from The Church of the Inner Spring (I think Holly was attending a sermon at Bedside Baptist, so we couldn't easily compare notes). For my birthday I gave Holly a massage, and I still don't know how that happened, but as payment we played Epic Dungeoneer : Call of the Lichlord and I think she even let me win.