Happy Birthday to my first born.

Six years ago today, at 2:20 pm I popped out a 10lb 2oz. baby boy. I'm struggling to put into words how lucky we are to have him. I think these have been the fastest 6 years of my life. It was about this time 6 years ago that I was getting settled at the hospital, feeling contractions about 4 minutes apart. About 1:30, after much crying and swearing, I finally got the epidural, and at 2:20 I was highly drugged and saying hello to our baby. It wasn't until 2 days later that we would begin to call him Owen. In the time since then, he has taught us so much about life and how to be good parents. Owen has proven to be a sensitive boy with a love for all living things big and small. At the moment we are housing two cats (Boo and Delilah), a fish (Finn), a toad (Hoppy), a Luna Moth chrysalis, and three Painted Lady butterfly chrysalis'. We had butterflies last summer and he was always sad when we had to let them go, but he still understood the importance of letting them go. It helps too that they seem to keep coming back to visit us throughout the summer. This morning, we had to feed his toad. The toad eats live crickets, but I'm happy to say that Owen and I have both gotten over our squeamishness and are touching the crickets now. Well, this morning, the cricket that Owen pulled out of the bag was dead. To my surprise, Owen started crying. He was really really sad about the cricket because he said, "crickets are good!" So we brought it outside and buried it under the flowering almond bush. Then he saved a huge worm from under my car and put that in the garden too. A few weeks ago we were watching Life on the Discovery Channel and it was the part where the Komodo Dragons are stalking and then eating a Water Buffalo. He was sad about that too. It just makes me realize what a kind and caring boy I have. We definitely don't have the room or time to devote to a dog or any other bigger pet right now, but I'm happy to welcome bugs, reptiles, amphibians and fish into my house. Just keep out the rodents and snakes.

Owen enjoying two Spiderman cakes during the family party.

Excited to dig into his Bakugan cake at the friends party.

What good is a birthday if you can't have cake for breakfast?