First Birthday

Dear Ian:
Happy 1st birthday. This is a pretty big one. It's a first, after a year of many, many firsts. First tooth, first hiccup, first giggle, first word, first poo, first...well you get the idea. And I am fairly certain that a good many of those firsts, including this one, have been fully captured and duly documented on film or digitized or however it is that memories are stored for later use and abuse. Trust me, your first date is going to be a wowser when your mom, my sister, pulls out the family photo album and starts showing snapshots of kitchen sink baths and naked jaunts around the backyard. Don't worry, she does it all out of love. As far as incriminating pics of your mom in her youth, I am afraid to say that I can't help you out there, bud. None. Zip. Zero. I was never the best at taking or hanging on to photos or other mememtos from the "good old days." Now, stories, on the other hand, those are pretty safely locked away in the old noggin, and someday you and I will have to sit down and have a little chit chat about that. Of course, my stories and your mom's are going to vary by a huge degree, so I will just say that what I tell you is commonly referred to as the truth, your mom's versions are what is known in the writing world as "creative nonfiction" or embellishments. Anyhow, more on that later. A couple other things here, while I am thinking about them, why this? Why a blog? Well, I can't be there as much as I want to, but I think about you every day. Strange, we've really only met once and you snoozed most of that day, and I realized I probably won't get a chance to see you again until you've grown another foot or two or three, but hopefully not seven or eight. Also, since I am your mom's older brother, hence your uncle, there's a bit of responsibility to sort of jump in there and give really, really bad advice from time to time. Added to that, your mom went ahead and made me your godfather which has all kinds of ramifications that I am not even sure I am ready for or what the heck she was thinking. But, godfather implies godson, in this case, and the closest thing that I will probably have to an actual son, so...get ready for it, more really, really bad advice. So, every once in awhile, this is where I will come to tell you about comic books, video games, classic rock, dead poets, pizza and the world as I see it. Sometimes good. Sometimes bad. Sometimes just odd. It was a fast first year and I wish you many, many more to come.