Happy Birthday Danny!

Cute boy at the beach! Look at those curls! Look at those kissy cheeks!

Danny loved G.I. Joe stuff. The rifle he's holding was made by my father and shot rubber bands.

Wow, my baby boy is 24. How did that happen? It was just a minute ago that he was 4. Or 12. Or 17. But 24?
It's a well known saying that you save the best for last. Danny was the sweetest little boy. I look at pictures of him and wish I could jump back into time for just a few moments and hug and squeeze him and tickle his ribs till he screams "stop!" But he'd always let me tickle him for a little bit before he'd use the magic stop word. Stop was law. My kids were taught that they had ultimate power when we were playing and if you said stop, it was over. I remember one day when Danny was a teenager, strong and wirey. I was writing in my journal (which nearly never happened) and he came in the bedroom. We somehow ended up in a tickling-fest. Normally, I could pin his arms under my bent legs, but he'd become so strong that I was going to lose from then on. Still though, he let me have a few brief moments before he flipped over and got away. In the process, the page I'd been writing on got totally crushed. I treasure that crushed page now.
I can't hear the song Danny Boy without getting very emotional, usually to the point of tears, because I have a Danny Boy. I love my Danny Boy. I always will, and he's the best Danny Boy there ever was. Happy Birthday my son.