Happy Birthday, Shrike!

To My Wife:

Once again, I am going to risk embarrassing you by saying a bunch of mushy stuff to you in front of all the Interwebs.

But it shouldn't surprise you, because it's nothing that I haven't been telling you over and over for, oh, the last ten years or so.

There are not enough words in the universe to tell you how much I love you, or what you mean to me, or how happy you make me.

There is nothing I love more than being with you, and I hate it when we are apart.

Sometimes I wish the rest of the world would just leave us the hell alone, and let us be together all the time, with our critters and our little Peeper.

(Family members and blog readers excepted, of course. Actually, I guess I'm mostly talking about work.)

And, speaking of Peeper. Wow. Just wow.

I can't even begin to tell you how it feels to be carrying your child, or begin to thank you for making that possible, or to begin to describe how happy it makes me to see you so excited about him/her.

It's hard to believe that this will be our last set of birthdays as a twosome - because next year Peeper will be here with us, to help us celebrate.

(And to help me welcome you to the other side of the proverbial hill.)

We have been through a lot (good and bad) in the ten years that we've been together - and we've been through a lot together in the past year - and we've got one hell of a year ahead of us - and I can't wait to spend it - and all the rest - with you.

Happy birthday, honey, I love you.
Whozat