surreal.

Surreal.  That's the best word to describe how I feel today.  Why, do you ask?  

Our family on David's birth-day, November 9, 1993.

Well... eighteen years ago today, our son David was born!  Although I can certainly vouch for the fact that eighteen years' worth of events have happened (and Matt, David & I *do* look a wee bit older now than in these photos), it still in a strange way feels like it could have just been last week.  

Wow.

Matt & David at home a couple days after his birth.  :)

I know it's just another one of those milestones in a parent's life that goes along with your child's first tooth, first words, first steps, starting school, riding a bike, driving a car, and then all the others that he still has coming... but it just seems so momentous the first time you see one of your kids going through these things!

Wow, pretty much any sentiments I have today make me sound old, so I'm just going to refrain from any more of that!  :) 

I remember this so well.  We were at a Campus Crusade for Christ meeting, and I was feeling wistful thoughts because I was soon to go back to work full-time after my maternity leave.

Anyway, from a mom's perspective, I just have to say that eighteen years ago, I felt like superwoman after giving birth for the first time.  And I was so in awe of this little person who had grown inside me for nine months.  I was totally smitten with him, with motherhood in general, and I knew I wanted to do it again.  Eighteen years later, I still feel the same.  :)

David & me on the deck at our Marquette house last month. :)

Except now I have eighteen years of history with David, have seen him grow & mature physically, emotionally & spiritually.  He kind of wears his heart on his sleeve, so if something's bothering him, I hear all about it.  I love to hear him processing through things that are on his mind.... social things, political things, and theological things.  He is very smart, a very nice young man, and I know God has great things in store for him.  Matt & I are so proud of him!

So here's the obligatory link to David's birth story, because as potentially embarrassing as it might be to him, I still am a birth story addict and a former Bradley natural childbirth teacher, and that's the sort of thing we think about on birthdays, you know.  :)