A Perfect Day

Yesterday was my birthday. It’s weird, because for the first time in my life I couldn’t remember for about a full minute whether I was turning 33 or 34. What does this mean? Am I at a stage in like where birthdays become irrelevant? Or just somewhere in mid-thirties purgatory and I’ll start to care when I get closer to forty. I’m not one of these people who dreads getting older every year. Despite my sometime geriatric like health problems (psoriatic arthritis, lower back and nerve pain due to pressure on my dural sac) I’ve been feeling quite well lately. I still have a nice head of hair, albeit about 45 percent grey (though this has been the case for the past 15 years) and a youthful vigor.

I enjoy getting presents as much as the next guy, but this year there wasn’t really one thing that I really wanted, though a midi keyboard and a new external sound card would be nice (hint hint). Yesterday was my best birthday in years.

When fatherhood became imminent I often thought about all things I would do with my daughter. At the top of the list were guitar sing-a-longs, Friday afternoon dance parties and taking her to the zoo.

We’ve been doing guitar sing-a-longs for months now. She can’t quite sing yet but blurts out interesting sounds, reaches for the guitar and shakes her mini-tambourine. About two weeks ago she starting clapping which is awesome beyond words.

The dance parties are currently assisted affairs where we hold her hands, stand her up and she bounces up and down and screams. Her favorite song is “I’m a Little Dinosaur” by Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers. She goes crazy when she hears it. Definitely my kid.

Ziva and I took her to the zoo for the first time yesterday. We weren’t sure how she was going to react and whether she’d be interested, after all she is barely nine months old. She’s fairly obsessed with our dog Noonie so I figured she might get a kick out of all the animals. And did she ever.

She laughed at the penguins, monkeys, bears and enjoyed the elephants most of all. By the time we got to the biblical reserve she was spent. Though I think it might have been one of the greatest days of her life thus far. For sure it was one of mine.

Tags: biblical zoon, jerusalem zoo