That's right everyone, today is my birthday! It gives me great pleasure to announce that I am just-as-close to 20 as I am to 50 today. My philosophy on birthdays is simple, and it is, BRING 'EM ON! I love birthdays, and not just my own. All birthdays should be celebrated with laughter, stories, memories and the honorees' favorite dessert.
Laughter and the telling of a good story was as big a part of my family growing up as oxygen is in most other families. If you couldn't tell a good story, you better be a good listener. Of course, with so many stories flying around the room at any given time, it was often hard to get a word in edgewise.
I remember a few months after I moved from Nebraska to Dallas I was talking on the phone with my mom. I have no idea what we were laughing about, but out of nowhere she says, "you know what, you are really funny." Mind you, we hadn't just met. I was 22 at the time. It was just that my poor mother's attention had always been divided primarily to my dad-joke-telling father and my court jester sister, Shelley. It was as if my mother and I had never spoken before. I am sure it's hard for most of you to believe that I would be the shy one compared to my other family members, but it is true!
Speaking of story telling and Steph-ebration, I can't let the day go by without re-telling one of the best stories from my actual birthday. After my parents took me home from the hospital, the nurses called the house from the maternity ward and said that they needed to bring me back right away for some additional tests. Apparently, the hospital staff had overlooked giving me the standard test done at the time for Down's Syndrome. To really get the full effect of this story, you need to know that my mom has always prepared for the worst because she believes that she won't be disappointed but rather happy when things turn out okay. I joke with my parents that my dad's glass is always overflowing rather than half-full and my mom's glass is empty, just fell on the tile floor and smashed into 1,000,867 pieces, and her vacuum is broken.
Back to the hospital story.
Of course, my mom believed the nurses already knew something was wrong, but they were simply trying to let her down easy. So on the way back to the hospital, my mom very seriously said to my dad, "Jim, I don't care if something is wrong with her, I want to keep her." The tests turned out to all fall in the normal range and all was well. My parents love to laugh with each other and me as they think back to May 1974 and the drive back up to the hospital with their new baby.
So I close confirming the thoughts that you all have in your mind right now, yes, my parents have given me a tremendous amount of material for my blog. Stay tuned for those delicious walks down memory lane. In the meantime, Happy Steph-ebration!
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