My 28th Birthday

I woke up yesterday morning at 6:20 a.m. and believe me when I tell you that I slept in. It was far to early for me to roll over and attempt to have a “good morning conversation” with Celia so I decided to get out of bed and move to my living room. With the wife and both kids still sleeping I decided to take a little time to reflect on the beginning of my 28th year. Yesterday was not highlighted by any extravagant alcohol tales but more of everything that I missed out on my birthday one year ago.

To start the day off, Celia and I pushed the kids in our jogging stroller on a 5K run in attempts to raise money for breast cancer. (That half marathon I wrote about a month or so ago is not going to happen. The registration was only open for a few short hours and we did not know when the registration was going to open; consequently we missed the registration and the race is now full.) If you remember when I wrote my blog entitled Run, Run, Run I wrote about the many hills here in Germany and how difficult they are to run up. What I didn’t know was just how much more difficult it was to push both Jadon and Hailey around the 5K course. It was the run from hell, however, I still ran the entire thing in just over 25 minutes pushing roughly 60 lbs. the entire way. That’s right folks; I’m 28 and still got it!

Once the 5K was complete, Celia, the current Volunteer of the Month (I’m not brown-nosing, I swear!), had a cheerleading gig with her 5-8 year old girls. I took that time to feed the kids and put them down for a short nap since we had a birthday party for Cassie, a girl who lives above us, and one who also happens to be one of Jadon’s best friends later in the day.

Her birthday party was a lot of fun for the kids. It was held at a place called Sternenland, which is nothing more than one big play place for kids. It had a big pit of plastic balls to play in, ropes to walk across to slide down huge slides, trampolines, giant inflated rubber mats to jump on, tunnels to crawl through, and even mini go karts. Let me put it this way, I turned 28 years old yesterday and I still have not outgrow a place like Sternenland. For Jadon, it was the best moment of his life. After we went down the first slide he saw a punching bag and began hitting it. He couldn’t contain himself any longer and began laughing while jumping up in down with pure joy. His eyes were as wide as little kids on Christmas morning and the only downfall to the day for him was that we eventually would have to leave. When he got scared of certain things, like the rope bridges and big kids who had no regard for anybody else, he clinched me tight. Once he knew he was safe he had a smile on his face from ear to ear and was ready to play again.

Speaking of bigger kids, I have never been so upset with kids before. Jadon is only two years old and is no match, physically, to kids who are 11 and 12 years old. As he was slowly crawling up a ladder, because he’s two, these kids were recklessly flying by him like a drunk driver on the interstate. Eventually I had enough and blocked the entire bridge which caused a back up of kids that mirrored downtown rush hour traffic. The kids were annoyed but I didn’t care. When Jadon and I were jumping on the trampoline one kid was jumping with the belief that he was the only person on the trampoline and came ever so close to landing on Jadon’s head. I was in over-protective Daddy mode but I could tell that Jadon appreciated it because he always looked to make sure I was near him.

Hailey was still too young to enjoy a place like that so instead she spent the day getting passed around from person to person. My daughter, the diva, absolutely loved the attention. The only way her day could have gotten any better would have been if she could have eaten more. For those of you who do not know, which most likely is the vast majority of you who read this, that girl eats and eats like she was recently released from a hostage camp.

The main event of the evening was after Jadon and Hailey helped me open my presents. We put the kids down for bed so Celia and I could enjoy some time together. I put some steaks on the grill, we opened a bottle of fine German wine, and watched a few episodes of Criminal Minds. While that might not sound like the most exciting evening for everybody it was everything I could have asked for. Yesterday was a great day with the three people I love more than anything in the world. As I said before, last year on my birthday I was not allowed such a relaxing day.

One year ago on my birthday I woke up at JSS UR and conducted dismounted patrols around Sadr City. No Hollywood story took place on that day of an epic shootout or bombs getting dropped, October 3rd was simply just another day. Nobody knew that it was my birthday, nor did I tell anybody that it was my birthday. We were in one of the most difficult places in Iraq at the time and just about a week earlier I had received a full blown, “Welcome to Iraq,” courtesy of the fine citizens of Sadr City. In comparison, as you can see, the way I spent my 28th birthday was infinitely better than my 27th birthday. In fact, I can’t think of a single better thing that could have happened yesterday on my birthday.

Well, other than a Cyclone victory and a Hawkeye defeat, but hey, I always have next year right?



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