The Baby Boy's Birthday!!!

How does a person express in words how much they love another?  21 years ago today Joe and I began our little family.  A perfect little baby boy.  A gift from God.  And so began a kind of love we never knew existed.
 The delivery went so fast I still had curls in my freshly hot-rolled hair and still had perfectly intact makeup and within hours Joe was sitting in our hospital room in Dallas with Evan wrapped in a blanket watching the Cowboys play football.

I couldn't be more proud of our son.  He is very kind-hearted and sweet.  And I am very proud of the person he has become.  Joe and I sat last night talking about different memories we had of him as a little boy.  He was always a very good to observe people and pay attention to detail.  When he was five he came into our room one morning with two cups of coffee filled to the brim with fresh, hot coffee.  We were surprised, of course, because we had not made any coffee.  So we asked him how he got it.  He smiled and said "I made it!" and I said "well, how did you know how to do that?" and he said "I watched you."
We were fully expecting to take a sip of the coffee he made and have to pretend that it was good.  And I was a little nervous that he'd stand there and watch us making sure we drank all of it.  But one sip and Joe and I looked at each other in amazement.  By golly, that coffee was GREAT.   That's about the time that Evan really started doing things for himself.   And it seemed he could do just about anything.

We went upstairs one morning when he was about 3 or 4 and he was sitting up on the counter in the play room and had a Power Rangers movie in the little tv/vcr combo and had paused the movie on a close up of the red Power Ranger.  He had his little paper and crayons drawing a picture of him.  He was always determined.
He had a artistic, creative streak.  I have stepped on more legos than you could even count.  He always had a creation going.  Each year I'd have to buy a lego set that had a higher level of difficulty because he could build it within 30 minutes.  Those sets are expensive too!  I bought that kid sets that should have been way over his ability for his age thinking it would keep him busy for an afternoon.  He'd call for us to come look within a short while.  He was an official "Legomaniac" and got Lego magazines from the Lego fan club.  I was always certain he would be an engineer or an architect when he was a kid.

He always had the ability to see things differently from the rest of us.  Very abstract.  His fourth grade teacher caught me one day when I was up at the school and told me she wanted to show me something.  She was explaining as we were walking down the hall that she had a new student in class and she needed to find a desk for a left-handed person.  She took me to this storage room that was floor-to-ceiling with student desks.  She said she had tried and tried to find a left handed desk (where the little space they sit is to the right leaving a larger space to the left for them to have their papers, etc..).  Finally, she asked Evan to come with her and within a few seconds he said "right there!" pointing to one in the middle of the stack.  It was amazing.  I stood there trying to figure out how he could do that and looked back over at her and she just smiled.  He definitely has a gifted mind.  Brilliant.

Soccer has always been his sport.  And those that watched him play knew that this sweet, quiet kid turned into a BEAST on the soccer field.  There were a couple of years that I had a difficult time watching him play because I knew he would get yellow carded every single game.  He'd take some kid twice his size out.  If they were both going for the ball the big kid would always expect the smaller kid to yield to him, but not Evan.  No fear.  He would get yelled at by other parents, other coaches.  He'd just grin as he walked back towards our side.  Who was this kid???  Even some of the parents on our team said that he needed to be controlled.  But then there were others who said "why would you want to take that fire out of him? I love his aggressiveness!"  He'll get more polished.  And he did.  He loved that sport!

When the movie Failure To Launch came out Joe and I just laughed. We honestly wouldn't care if he ever left our house.  He is a pleasure.  But it will be coming to an end soon.  He'll be heading back to OU.  And I'm sure going to miss him.
He's been going to a local college here after a less-than-stellar Freshman year at OU.  He really wanted to improve that GPA.  He's also been working at Lowe's and in the summer has still worked at Serenity Point Marina when he could just because he loved working there.  He's been on the honor roll here and has really become a team member at his job.  Everyone I run into tells me what a great kid he is.
I guess now that he's 21 we're going to have to quit calling him kid.

Tonight we're going to one of our favorite places to celebrate! And he told my friend Steph yesterday that the first thing he's going to do today is update his driver's license! haha.

Talking to Joe before a boarding session

Oh, Lord! Help me!!!