Happy Birthday Em

Dear Emmy,

For your first birthday I thought I would take the time to tell you about the day you were born. First you have to understand that your mother is a HUGE NY Giants fan. On Sunday, 1/13/08 (a full 8 days before Jill’s scheduled c-section) the Giants were playing the Dallas Cowboys in the playoffs. It was a big game as Dallas was favored to win and the two teams are bitter rivals. Well, your mother got VERY excited during the game as the Giants were making play after play and eventually ended up winning. She got so excited that she started jumping, yelling and dancing like a lunatic (Abby was hysterical laughing at her). Later that night at about midnight, Jill woke me up and said “something is going on” so we called her doctor. He said to try and go back to sleep as he could tell she wasn’t in active labor. We went back to sleep and about 4AM on the 14th Jill’s water broke, no doubt from jumping around during the football game. So after we got our neighbor Kim to come babysit for Abby, we took off for the hospital and called our families on the way. You must have been in a hurry to meet us because once we arrived at the hospital the nurse had to give Jill some medicine to slow down the contractions so our Dr. could arrive. He finally arrived and off we went into the OR. Now we didn’t find out ahead of time if you were a boy or girl so this was the big moment of surprise for us. If you were a boy we were going to name you Ryan although we joked we should name you Eli after Eli Manning who was the starting QB of the Giants. But we knew if you were a girl we would name you Emerson (we’ll tell you why in a future blog entry). The procedure went as planned and you were born shortly after 7AM at Rex Hospital. The Dr. told us you were a girl and we were obviously thrilled. I counted all your little fingers and toes and was surprised at your full head of hair. You were crying pretty hard but the staff said that was normal and good for your lungs and breathing. All the family showed up while Jill was in labor and was anxiously awaiting your arrival.

The rest is history, you were born and the Giants won the Super Bowl that year in dramatic fashion. It really is hard to think of life before you were born. You make us laugh and amaze us at how smart and inquisitive you are. You point at every light you see and say “dahhahh?” almost like you are asking us “HEY, do you see that too!?” You are also a quick little thing. If we don’t shut the baby gate behind us, you’re halfway up the steps before we know it. You hardly ever cry and NO ONE and I mean NO ONE can make you laugh like Abby can. She loves you so much and is a wonderful, caring big sister to you. You have a great smile that you display often – especially when I start chasing you. When I finally catch you, you start giggling and screaming and it’s the best part of my day.

Here is to many more years of hearing you laugh. Happy Birthday.

Love,
Dad