“Happy birthday, little girl”
“Hey”
“I can’t believe how fast you’re growing up”
“Really? Feels slow”
“Trust me, it’s fast. What do you think of your life so far?”
“I think it’s pretty good”
“Any complaints?”
“I’d like that whole humidity thing to go away”
“Alright, I’ll work on that”
“So, do I look older?”
“Oh, yeah! You walk into Denny’s before 5:00 and you’ve got yourself a discount”
“Good”
“So you know what I think?”
“What?”
“I think you’re a great, cool kid, and the best friend a girl could have”
“Back at ya”
“And it’s so hard to believe that at exactly this time, many moons ago, I was lying in exactly this same position”
“Oh boy, here we go”
“Only I had a huge fat stomach, and big fat ankles, and I was swearing like a sailor…”
“On leave”
“On leave, right. And there I was…”
“In labor”
“And while some have called it the most meaningful experience of your life, to me it was something more akin to doing the splits on a crate of dynamite”
“I wonder if the Waltons ever did this”
“And I was screaming and swearing, and being surrounded as I was by a hundred prominent doctors, I just assumed there was an actual use for the cup of ice chips they gave me”
“There wasn’t”
“But pelting the nurses sure was fun”
“I love you, mom”
“Shush, I’m getting to the part where he sees your head… So there I was…”
