Happy Birthday, Johnny Boy!

Dear Johnny,

Happy Birthday, sweet heart. We love you so much. We just want to let you know that you bring so much joy into our lives. We love being with you. You smile often and bring happy into our hearts. We remember when we first brought you home from the hospital (we stopped by Wingers for dinner with Nana and Jacob on the way - hope that's a birthday tradition for your dad's sake) and we were so excited to just be with you. Now you are one year old. We would take you with us to movies or anything because you were the best behaved baby ever. When you were born, you had the cord wrapped around your neck, but uncle Ryan just took care of it quickly so no one even knew anything was wrong. You climb up the stairs like crazy. It's a game to you to get away from whoever is chasing you. You're great at standing yourself up and you're starting to walk from thing to thing. You have four teeth with a fifth just barely coming in on the top. You like to play pattie cake. You drink raw milk and eat oatmeal and peas and apples and bananas and tonight you had your first bites of spaghetti. Today you fell from the shopping cart to the ground, but you were buckled in your car seat and only got a little scrape on the head. I apologize now for any future brain damage I may have caused. You also bonked your mouth on the fireplace today but didn't hurt your teeth. Today you learned how to say, "no". I'm not quite sure how to respond when you say it. I hope today is not a sign of the times to come. I can't handle watching you get hurt. Please say you'll always wear a helmet and knee pads and elbow pads and a chin strap. Okay, I won't require the chin strap or anything else. I just want you to be safe and know that I love you. We love you.

Happy Birthday, son. You are our handsome baby boy.

Love, Mom & Dad