Indiana Jack is Back!

Over on Facebook, there's a bunch of photos of a certain intrepid archaeologist who made an appearance in our yard following a long absence.

Click here to check them out.

Welcome back, Indy. It's been too long.

Happy Birthday, sweetheart.

So even though most of the updating these days goes on over on Facebook, I'd be extremely remiss to not post something on this, the occasion of Jack's 4th birthday.

To think back to when Genevieve and I loaded up a Budget rental truck and her Beetle with all our stuff and set off for California is to think of a time when we never expected, for lots of reasons, some of them medical, to have a little guy like Jack running around less than a year later. Here we are now, five years on, and life is better because he is here with us.

I will always remember the unforgettable moment when Jack was born. Right up until that second, regardless of whatever I thought or how earnestly I believed otherwise, I was at the center of my little universe. When he appeared the sensation was one I can only describe as every point of reference I ever had for anything suddenly shifting and dizzyingly centering on this tiny little baby drawing his first breath.

I don't need to repeat the details of the first few days of Jack being here -- the joys, the worries, all the common stuff first-time parents experience -- because it's all well-documented, almost minute-by -minute, right here. All I can say is, I never imagined myself being a Daddy and yet here I am, assembling and reassembling Transformers for a little person who is immensely clever, witty and self-possessed for a 4-year old, for whom I have nothing but a kind of loving feeling I never knew I was capable of before he arrived. Not that I don't love my wife, my mom, and so on, but parents know what I am talking about. It's like suddenly a little switch turns on and you have the ability to have a new and really intense emotion. It's rather something to come across this in your forties, to find that there's a whole set of feelings waiting for you. It's like popping your head up through a drop-ceiling tile and finding, instead of a ceiling, an entire beautiful universe up there. And it's been up there the entire time, waiting for you to come and see it, and you didn't even know.

Now, at nights, when I stop by to check on Jack and I look at this sweet, silly, smart little boy sleeping so peacefully, I find that if anything, these feelings are richer, deeper, becoming more burnished and resonant with the passage of time. Jack, I never expected you, and how you've made me a better person. Your mommy and I love you so, so much, sweetie. Happy Birthday.

Lots more birthday photos here and here.