Happy birthday this week to my wife! And apparently me!

My daughter Chloe made this birthday cake for Terry a few years ago.

This post first appeared here on September 22, 2023. I bring it back because my wife's birthday is this Wednesday, and because she still considers us to be the same age even if officially she is a year older than me from March through November. Also, I'm now 56. And for the moment, so is she.

Do you have a hard time remembering how old you are?

I ask because I don't. I never have to stop and think, "Wait, am I 52? 53? 54?"

I just know I'm 53.

I notice a lot of people have to give it real thought when asked their age. It may take them a good 5 or 10 seconds before they can confidently offer an answer.

In their defense, if you're in the lower-middle and upper-middle parts of a particular decade, those years and birthdays do tend to run together. By that I mean, for example, when you're in the 52-54 or 56-58 age ranges.

Those particular years are, for practical purposes, all essentially the same.

But you know right away when you're a "milestone" age like 20, 30, 40, 50, etc. And you can usually remember if you've turned the "1" number (21, 31, 41, 51, etc.) in the last 12 months OR if you're in the final year before a milestone (19, 29, 39, 49, etc.)

Other ages, though? Yeah, they go by so quickly they can be difficult to keep track of.

As I said, this is never a problem for me. I can rattle off my current age at a moment's notice even despite my wife's attempts to throw me off.

Terry is about 7 1/2 months older than me. We were born the same year, she in March and me in November. It is her policy, when she turns a certain age, that I am immediately that same age. In her mind, there is no time lag between us.

So for instance, if the calendar suggests that on March 18th (her birthday) she turns 40 years old and I remain 39, Terry sees things differently. To her, we are both instantly 40, birth certificates be damned.

I am so used to hearing this from her that I will admit an occasional fraction-of-a-second hesitation in declaring my age to anyone who asks. But it's so slight you wouldn't notice, and thus I claim no real trouble in remembering how old I am.

For now, that is. Try me again in 30 or 40 years. By that time, it will be sufficient if I know my first name and can come within a decade, plus or minus, of my age.

There comes a time in life when it's all about the little victories.

No more teenagers in the family

For the past 6,883 days, we have had at least one teenager in our family. Tomorrow that streak comes to an end when our youngest, Jack, turns 20.

I say "at least one" because for most of that time, there have been multiple teens among our children. There was one stretch from September 2013 to March 2014 when four of them were teenagers.

Come tonight at midnight, the counter resets permanently to zero.

It's another one of those little life milestones you don't think too much about until they actually happen. As I told someone recently, the combination of having our first grandchild and seeing the family teen years come to an end really brings home how quickly time passes.

Other than a string of car accidents and some other relatively minor crises, I've enjoyed having teenagers. I really have.

I got to see them all graduate high school and go off to college. Four have degrees, with Jack currently working his way through the second semester of his freshman year at Cleveland State University.

I've seen one get married and have a baby, one get engaged, and one build an incredible life with a longtime partner we absolutely love (that last one is Elissa, whose boyfriend Mark has long been a full-fledged member of the family and is one of the best bakers I've ever met).

On the other hand, as the kids have gotten older, I've come to realize that much of my fondness for their teen years stems from how much I didn't know. As they get into their 20s and 30s, they're very free about confessing stuff they did as teenagers that, in retrospect, I'm glad I wasn't aware of.

Ignorance is truly bliss, in this case.

Still, Terry and I can't deny that we've been blessed with five great kids who are turning out to be some pretty great adults. We experienced our share of homecomings, proms, high school sporting events and all the other stuff that comes with having children in the 13-19 age range.

And now we're past it all. Time to move on.

Which is just fine.

(Happy early birthday to the one and only Mr. Jack Tennant!)

A 37-year-old video clip brings back a flood of memories

The video at the top of today's post is a 1-minute snippet of a longer segment recorded on Wednesday, November 2, 1988, my 19th birthday.

The clip was captured by my dad using our trusty old – and decidedly heavy – Curtis Mathis video camera. The quality is exactly what you would expect nearly four decades on, though I'm not sure the lighting and the videographer were exactly top notch to begin with.

(I say that with all due respect to my dad, who made up for whatever he lacked in moviemaking skills with love and enthusiasm.)

No matter, though. What's important is that it captures a moment in time that, while receding further and further into the past, still vividly recalls the optimism of young adulthood.

I was a freshman at John Carroll University, while my then-fiancée Terry (seen in the last few seconds of the video) was working at Lincoln Electric and banking the money we would use to buy our first house 3 1/2 years later.

There's much to savor here, including:

• A striking resemblance between 1988 me and the 2025 version of my son Jack. People have said we look alike, and I see it here.
  
  
• A starring role for my niece Jessica, who was 3 years old at the time and the star of nearly every video my dad shot.
  
  
• Cameos from loved ones long gone (Mom, my sister Judi) and those thankfully still with us (my brother Mark, my sister-in-law Becky, my brother-in-law Jess).
  
  
• Mark with my stuffed Bill the Cat on his head.

Mine is not the first generation to have its life chronicled through home movies, though I think the VCR era did make it easier to record and watch moments like these.

And I'm so grateful for that. A few years ago I went through our VHS tapes and digitized as many as I could. They're full of clips like these I never want to lose.

Time marches on. Technology makes it possible to remember the people and places we encounter along the way in more than just our hearts.

Three things I've learned from my daughter Melanie

Mel and me a few years ago trying desperately to get a New York City subway pass vending machine to cooperate...

My daughter Melanie, our fourth child in birth order and for a time the baby of the family until Jack came along, turned 25 yesterday. I like having a kid who was born in 2000 because it's always easy to remember exactly how old they are.

More importantly, though, I just love Mel. Always makes me laugh, always impresses me, and always has a good story to tell.

Here are three things I've learned from Melanie while watching her grow into adulthood:

(1) Successful people are usually structured people

You don't have to be obsessive about it like me (endless to-do lists, an extreme creature of habit, etc.), but other than a few fly-by-the-seat-of-their-pants geniuses, most people I know who are doing well in life are those whose days are at least somewhat planned out. Mel is someone who needs structure in her life, but beyond that, she has figured out exactly what kind and what degree of structure works best for her. There's a trick to that, and I'm not sure I've yet figured it out. Mel still has a way to go, just as I did at age 25, but she has reinforced this valuable lesson for me time and again.

(2) Be ready to pivot

Mel came out of college with a marketing degree. Her first real professional job was in a marketing role, and it didn't take her long to realize marketing wasn't for her. So now she works for a financial services firm. Finance could be her long-term home, or this could be a role that pays the bills while she figures out what she really wants to do. The point is, she was willing to change direction when it was needed. Some people are so terrified of making this sort of switch that they stay for years in a miserable situation just for the stability. Not my Melanie, and she's better off for it.

(3) Don't discount the greater value of hard work at the gym

Mel takes care of her body. You'll see her at the gym a lot, and when you do, she's not there to socialize. She's there to work, sweat, lift, etc. There are aesthetic benefits to that, of course, but more broadly, it also teaches you lessons of perseverance and motivation that transfer well to other areas of life. We exercise for physical health, sure, but that payoff also extends to everything else we do day to day. Thanks, Mel.

I can drive 55, but can I live it?

By way of context today, kids, you should know that for a time in the 1970s and 80s, the maximum speed limit on our nation's highways was a uniform 55 miles per hour. And it felt every bit as slow as it sounds.

In 1984, a guy named Sammy Hagar released a song called "I Can't Drive 55," supposedly in response to having received a ticket for going 62mph in a 55 zone.

The gist of the song was, "Go ahead and give me a ticket or throw me in jail or whatever you want to do, but I can't stop myself from going faster than 55."

I don't drive as fast now as I once did, which I attribute to getting a little older and hopefully a bit wiser.

Speaking of getting a little older, we arrive at the point of the post, which is this: Tomorrow I turn 55 years old.

This is not an especially momentous occasion for anyone, least of all me. I'm not a huge birthday guy to begin with, though I do enjoy hearing from my kids and other family and friends wishing me well, making fun of my advancing years, and generally touching base in the course of their otherwise busy days.

This just happens to be one of those birthdays that has some significance to it. When the second digit of your age is a '5,' it means you're halfway between age milestones. In my case, I'm five years from having turned 50 and five years away from a number that sounds particularly imposing: 60.

I don't know why I think this way, though. Those who are 60-plus in my immediate family (my sister Debbie, my brother Mark, my sister-in-law Chris) are all energetic and youthful and fun. They look and act nothing like 60 seemed to me when I was a teenager.

There is evidently much truth to the idea of age just being a number.

Still, I remember clearly when my dad turned 55 in 1984. Despite having always had gray/white hair since I was a baby, it was the first time I thought to myself, "Oh man, he's getting OLD. This is a little scary."

I don't feel that way now, though of course none of us feels a certain age is "old" once we ourselves approach it.

You get to a point where "old person" just means, "anybody older than me."

I think I'm going to go with that approach for now.

In the meantime, while I do drive faster than 55, I'm still sticking to the right two lanes along with all the other geezers. You reckless whippersnappers can feel free to blow past us in the finest Sammy Hagar tradition.

Those three months when the kids' ages are easy to remember

Me trying to compute the exact ages of my children

I call August through October "birthday season" in our family, as three of our kids were born in this time frame.

It starts with Jared on August 5th, continues with Melanie on September 21st, and culminates today with the anniversary of Chloe's birth.

In addition to Chloe being a person worth celebrating, I also like getting to October 23rd because it means that, from now until late January, all of the kids' ages are either even or odd and thus easy to remember.

Today, for example, Chloe turns 28. That matches nicely with Elissa (30), Jared (26), Melanie (24) and Jack (18).

Until Jack's birthday arrives on January 27th, I don't need to give much thought when someone asks me how old my children are. As long as I remember Elissa's age – and I always do – I can just step down in two-year increments through Melanie, then subtract another six years for our relatively late-in-life baby Jack.

Once Jack turns 19 in a few months, though, it all goes out the window. It will take me a few extra seconds to get all of the ages in order in my head, at least until we get back around to next year's birthday season.

Your kids reach their 20s and 30s and suddenly their exact ages are not only a little blurry, but in some sense a little less important, too. There's a lot more of a difference between, say a 10- and 12-year-old daughter than there is between a 26- and 28-year-old.

I think the same way about myself. I'll be 55 in 10 days. To me, 55 is pretty much as the same as 51, 52, 53 and 54 were, and probably essentially identical to 56, 57, 58 and 59.

Of course, by the time I get to 60, I'll probably start forgetting the kids' ages entirely, no matter what time of year it is. At that point, family birthday season won't mean much.

But for now? It's a life saver.

(And happy birthday to Dr. Chloe Edmonds!)

Running through neighbors' backyards probably carried less risk in the early 80s than it does now

Mr. Kevin C. Buchheit, the man who served as my Phone-a-Friend when I appeared on "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire" (true story).

Today is my friend Kevin's birthday. I've known Kev as long as I've known our mutual friend Matt, which is to say since about 1974.

Kev has always been one of my best friends. We shared a lot of common interests growing up, and I'm very proud of the work he did for 20 years as a U.S. Border Patrol agent (a job from which he is now officially retired).

Back when we were annoying adolescents, Kevin, Matt, Jason, Todd and others of our band of Harding Drive friends would do something we simply called "The Route." We would traverse the entire length of our street on foot, but not using the sidewalk.

No, we would do this by sneaking through people's backyards, one after another. This would involve hopping fences, pushing through pricker bushes, avoiding dogs, and generally trying to keep a low profile as we trespassed on everyone's property.

The logical question is why exactly we did this. And I have no logical answer.

I have no answer at all, actually, logical or otherwise. It was just something obnoxious that, had the Wickliffe Police ever been notified, probably would have landed us a stern talking-to, if not outright conviction on some low-level misdemeanor.

I believe I completed the entire Route on both sides of the street, though for whatever reason, the west side was easier to navigate than the east (fewer bush-related obstacles and lower fences, as I recall).

As I think back on this, I realize we were fortunate not to have been threatened by an angry neighbor at one point or another. Plenty of them probably owned firearms, and some were likely of the shoot-first, ask-questions-later variety.

But then, the people of Harding Drive tended to be a little more tight-knit in those days, and I'm guessing most would have recognized who we were (even in the darkness of a summer evening) and simply yelled at us, rather than putting a bullet in our backsides.

Nowadays? My sense is that just as many people own guns in 2024 as did 40 years ago, but now they seem to be less trusting and more likely to use them on unidentified intruders.

All of which is to say I'm thankful we survived long enough to celebrate Kevin's 55th birthday today. Lord knows, we pulled plenty of stupid stunts back then that could have kept at least one of us from making it this far.

Happy birthday, Kev.

Another kid birthday, another milestone in the family

Despite being given the correct spelling of "birthday," the AI Blog Post Image Generator came back with this.

A few weeks ago, I mentioned the fact that our oldest daughter Elissa will soon turn 30 (more on that when it actually happens in late March).

Tomorrow we hit another significant age landmark when our youngest, Jack, turns 18.

This is going to be a fun one to celebrate, partly because the "baby" of the family is finally a legal adult, and partly because Terry and I are thankfully in between milestone birthdays of our own. Neither of us is particularly anxious to reach another age that ends in "0" any time soon.

Whether you have one child or four or eight or have reached Duggar territory, your kids' birthdays are as much a big deal to you as a parent as they are to the kids themselves. They're little markers along the journey that say to the world, "Hey look! I kept this one alive another year!"

When your child completes a revolution around the sun, you have two choices:

• You can celebrate with them and be thankful for the blessing they represent in your life.
• Or you can use it as an occasion to fret over your own mortality, the perils of aging, the fleeting years, etc.

I'm forcing myself to choose the first one, but I get the temptation to go the other way.

Happy birthday, Jack!

Family birthdays are a little different once the kids are grown

There was a time when most of the attendees at our family birthday celebrations lived upstairs. Scheduling these parties wasn't especially difficult because the people in our house were, by and large, 12 years old and younger. We had a pretty good handle on when they could all be available.

Now, however, getting a birthday shindig on the calendar is somewhere just north of impossible. Four of the kids have moved out and are living the lives of young adults. All four come with significant others whose presence is greatly appreciated, but who sometimes add to the scheduling confusion.

It used to be that sports practices and school events were the main obstacles. Now we contend with business trips, sheer physical distance between our house and where the kids live, and family events for the aforementioned significant others.

This is what happens when most or all of your kids are in their 20s. I understand they have stuff to do...places to be, people to meet, that sort of thing. That's how it was for me when I was in my 20s (back in the previous century, though we won't get into that).

Once we do manage to find a date that works for everyone except my son who lives in Florida, even the parties themselves have changed. We still have cake and ice cream, we still make jokes and laugh, and we still sit around and watch as the birthday boy/girl opens presents.

What has changed is the dynamic. It's a different feel when the kids are grown up vs. when they were little and wanted to do more than just sit in the living room and talk.

Not better or worse, just different.

When the kids were preteens, they had soft drinks with their birthday cake. Now I walk around taking everyone's order for adult beverages and try my best to fulfill them from our stock in the garage refrigerator.

The talk isn't about school or friends so much as how work is going and why health insurance is so expensive.

So it goes. Things change.

I am, however, going to request that Chloe's upcoming birthday get-together have a Teletubbies theme. Just for old times' sake. 

"Dad, you're an orphan now"

That's my father holding newborn Jared, August 1998.

We share what could be described as a dark sense of humor in my family.

There are many examples of this, but one of the funniest happened last summer on the day my mother passed away.

That sounds terrible, but it's true. When we got word that she was gone, there were the initial tears and hugs and sharing of memories. And then my daughter Chloe informed me that, as of that moment, I was officially an orphan.

I laughed at that. Hard. Something about the use of the old-fashioned word "orphan" juxtaposed with the situation just made it funny.

That, I guess, is how we sometimes deal with painful realities: We turn them into somewhat-less-than-polite jokes.

I bring this up because today would have been my dad's 92nd birthday. I inherited my sense of humor largely from him, and I think he would have found the orphan comment funny.

When someone would ask him whether a certain person had died, he would almost always reply, "Well, I hope so, or else they played a hell of a joke on her when they buried her."

If asked how someone died, he would invariably tilt his head to one side, close his eyes, and say, "Like this."

I'm busting up just thinking about it.

Dad has been gone for nearly 22 years, but his legacy of inappropriate remarks and ill-timed humor lives on in his children and grandchildren.

He would be proud to know that.

Happiest of birthdays to the girl in the flowered shorts

 

I have posted this photo on Facebook a time or two before because it always makes me smile.

Actually, it kind of makes me laugh. It's so very 80s, from our shorts to our hair to my yellow Chevette. It is, in some ways, that decade summarized in one image.

The best part about it is the pretty girl smiling for the camera. Her name is Terry, and she is my wife.

Of course, when this picture was taken, we didn't know that's where things were headed. We just knew we really liked each other and we had a good time together, so...that was enough.

I believe this was taken in the summer of 1986, maybe four months or so after we had begun dating. That was the year we both turned 17.

Now we're a few years older. A lot older than 17, anyway.

And today is another birthday for the incomparable Ms. Terry Tennant. On the list of the best things that have ever happened to me, she is definitely in the top 1.

It is very, very difficult to imagine a life even half as good as the one I have now without her in it.

She deserves a lot more than she'll actually get today, though trust me, the kids and I will make sure she knows how appreciated she is.

There is not another human being like her. God made just the one and decided there was no need to tinker with the formula. Everything He made is good, I know, but I feel like she's extra good. "Good plus," if you will.

Happy birthday, then, to the funniest, kindest, smartest, most beautiful person I know. She puts her heart into everything, and brightens the day of everyone she meets.

There's a real knack to that, you know. And the only person I've ever seen really pull it off is the girl in the flowered 80s shorts.

Today I have a 17-year-old who impresses the heck out of me

As I sat thinking about the fact that today is my daughter Melanie's 17th birthday, I was seriously about to type this sentence: "I wonder what it's like to be a fourth child."

This would be a stupid thing to type, you see, because I AM a fourth child. But really, I'm a different kind of fourth child from Melanie. I'm the baby of my family, the fourth of four, and my siblings were (are) all more than decade older than me.

I was essentially raised an only child.

Melanie, on the other hand, is the fourth of five siblings who are closer in age. She has spent her life living in the kind of chaos that reigns in households as big as ours.

She has learned to adapt, of course, but more than that, she has learned to thrive.

For a long time, Melanie was like the true baby of the family in that she was the youngest girl and, well, she just always seemed like a little kid to me.

Then one day – suddenly, shockingly – she wasn't. She was a young woman. This happened a couple of years ago and I'm still trying to get over it.

But while I stumble, she flourishes. She's an honors student who plays soccer and serves as vice president of her class. She has a boyfriend (whom I like very much) and engages in all of the activities and programs in which smart kids engage.

She's rarely the first to do anything in our house. It's hard, when your the sixth-oldest person in the family, to be truly original. But where she shines, where she's unique, is the way she pulls it all off. She has to work hard to succeed, and she does just that. Even in the things that seem to come easily to her.

And today she's 17, which is one of my favorite ages. You're not an adult, but you're also quickly leaving behind all vestiges of kid-hood. She has a lot to learn, and she has to mature as much as any 17-year-old, but it occurs to me that no matter where life takes her, she's going to be just fine.

That's as much as you can ask for as a parent. Once you know they're going to be fine, you breathe a little sigh of relief. That doesn't mean you won't worry about them. It doesn't mean they won't screw up...sometimes majorly.

But it does mean that, all things considered, you know she's going to be the kind of grown-up of whom you as a dad will be proud.

In a lot of ways, she already is.

Happy birthday, little Melanie.

Happy birthday, Mom!

My mother turns 85 years old today. Every year I announce her age on social media without asking her if it's OK and without fear of retribution, because Mom is further away from getting a Facebook account than your typical Amish farmer is.

Mom could handle a computer just fine if she wanted to. I know this because she's smart. She either doesn't admit or doesn't know how smart she is, but that's because she's Mom and self-deprecation is what Mom does.

I remember when Mom was the single smartest human being I knew (and she still ranks right up there, though she has admittedly been surpassed by my wife, who over nearly 25 years of marriage I've come to find out knows at least a little bit about virtually everything...and I don't mean that sarcastically).

From birth until the age of 5 or so – and really quite a ways beyond that – my mom was my world. She was the person I was with most or all of every day. I don't know if it's because I was the baby of the family or whether I just had social issues or a little bit of both, but I was especially dependent on my mom for a long time. My only problem with starting kindergarten is that it took me away from Mom for hours at a time.

After awhile, of course, it was fine. By necessity, you learn eventually to untie yourself from mother's apron strings because, otherwise, a 47-year-old man living at home and hanging around his mom all day would be a little bit strange, wouldn't it? Or maybe "demented" is the word.

Anyway, no matter how old you get, your mom is still your mom and she deserves your time and respect. My respect she has. Lately what I haven't given her is my time.

I could give you the excuse that I work long hours, that I have a lot going on, that I'm not home most of the time, blah blah blah blah. But Mom lives all of 7 minutes away in the house where I grew up, and where she has lived for 54 years since the latter days of the Kennedy Administration.

Getting there for a 15-minute visit, or calling her most days of the week, isn't and shouldn't be that difficult. But sometimes I treat it like it is.

So note to self: More phone and face time with Mom. Do it.

In any event, happy birthday to Mom. I owe way, way more to her than I could possibly realize, and I hope she's around many more years for me to let everyone know exactly how old she is.

My daughter is 23, and there's almost nothing interesting about that age

The following post ran on this blog on March 23, 2016. I bring it back to honor the fact that my oldest child, Elissa, turns 23 today. Go ahead and, uh, celebrate, Lis! You've earned it!

At what point do your birthdays suddenly become a lot less exciting?

I think it's when you turn 23. And I'll tell you why:

Every birthday you have from 1 to 20 is exciting because you're a kid, and kids get excited about their birthdays for various reasons (even 20-year-old kids). That's a given.

Then you turn 21 and that's cool because ADULTHOOD. Self-explanatory.

Twenty-two is also pretty good, especially for college kids, because it's generally the age when you graduate with your bachelor's degree. Life is about to begin in earnest and you can feel it.

And then you turn 23 and...well, nothing. You're either in grad school or out working. And 23 is just a really, really nondescript age. There's nothing vaguely interesting or special about it. It's even a prime number, for gosh sakes.

Twenty-three just kind of sits there. And I think for many people, it's the first nearly meaningless birthday they experience.

All of which is to mention that my daughter Elissa turns 22 tomorrow, and she's on track to graduate from college sometime this year, so there's that. It is perhaps her last exciting birthday, and I don't even know if she's excited about it because I don't see her very much. I'll have to ask her.

Every Elissa birthday makes me reflect on the passage of time because she's our oldest and therefore is always the first among our kids to turn a given age. I suppose the next time her birthday will really, really affect me will be when she turns 30 because...well, by then, there will be no denying the fact that we her parents are old. You can't have a 30-year-old and be a true young'un.

So until then, I'm going to hold on for dear life to her 20-something birthdays. Even the boring ones.

At what point do your birthdays suddenly become a lot less exciting?

I think it's when you turn 23. And I'll tell you why:

Every birthday you have from 1 to 20 is exciting because you're a kid, and kids get excited about their birthdays for various reasons (even 20-year-old kids). That's a given.

Then you turn 21 and that's cool because ADULTHOOD. Self-explanatory.

Twenty-two is also pretty good, especially for college kids, because it's generally the age when you graduate with your bachelor's degree. Life is about to begin in earnest and you can feel it.

And then you turn 23 and...well, nothing. You're either in grad school or out working. And 23 is just a really, really nondescript age. There's nothing vaguely interesting or special about it. It's even a prime number, for gosh sakes.

Twenty-three just kind of sits there. And I think for many people, it's the first nearly meaningless birthday they experience.

All of which is to mention that my daughter Elissa turns 22 tomorrow, and she's on track to graduate from college sometime this year, so there's that. It is perhaps her last exciting birthday, and I don't even know if she's excited about it because I don't see her very much. I'll have to ask her.

Every Elissa birthday makes me reflect on the passage of time because she's our oldest and therefore is always the first among our kids to turn a given age. I suppose the next time her birthday will really, really affect me will be when she turns 30 because...well, by then, there will be no denying the fact that we her parents are old. You can't have a 30-year-old and be a true young'un.

So until then, I'm going to hold on for dear life to her 20-something birthdays. Even the boring ones.

My wife turns...a new age today

We don't need to get into the specific number, do we? Of course not.

Actually, Terry is pretty chill about the whole age thing and probably wouldn't mind if I told you that she turns XX years old today. But I'm not going to take even the small chance of getting into trouble by filling in those X's with an actual age.

Although it should be said, she looks awesome for that age. She has always looked awesome. This, you see, is what attracted me to her when I was 16. It's not like I was looking at her back in high school and thinking, "I'll bet that girl will be an excellent mother to my children."

No, I was thinking, "She's hot. I'm going after that." For that is the full extent of the 16-year-old male's thought process.

Now of course I've come to appreciate the full range of her attributes, not just her beauty. But I ain't gonna lie: It's not a bad thing that she never lost the hotness.

And so another year passes by and we have entered Birthday Season in my family. It starts with my mother-in-law a couple of weeks ago and stretches through April. For whatever reason, we have a lot of late-winter/early-spring birthdays among the Tennants and associated clans. (Insert your joke here that there's something about the summer that just put our parents and grandparents into a certain mood...)

Anyway, happy birthday to my wonderful wife, though no amount of attention and presents can account for everything she does for me and the kids. She is selfless, strong, honest and resourceful. She is the most admirable person I know. And somehow I hit the Pick 6 in the Life Lottery and ended up married to her. Talk about dumb luck.

Oh, and she's hot, too. Did I mention that?

I'm 46 years old today and not even I care

Well, I mean I care. Forty-six is an age signifying the undeniable fact that you're beginning the second half of your fifth decade of life. Another year or two and you will no longer be a mid-forties person. You'll be a late-forties person.

That's all significant.

But you reach a point in life when your birthday is mostly just an interesting time for reflection and taking stock and all of that. You're not looking for any presents, unless someone wants to give you three hours of uninterrupted time in which you're free to do anything you want, including watching a football or hockey game without having to worry about a sink full of dishes, a bathroom shower that needs cleaning, or any of the thousand other things that occupy your mind at most hours of the day.

Or at least that's what I want.

But really, other than maybe a few homemade cards from the kids and a Starbucks coffee that someone is nice enough to pick up for me, I'm good. Save the presents for Christmas, which in my case is always 53 days after my birthday.

I honestly don't mind getting older. I really don't. It's going to get more and more difficult as time goes on, I realize, but for now there's little difference for me being 46 from what it was like being 45 or 44 or any other year in my 40s.

I'm not the only one, right? It's not a "Bah! Humbug!" attitude toward birthdays as much as wondering why we, in American culture, put such an emphasis on them. Other than the aforementioned caffienated beverage and a slew of very nice well-wishes on my Facebook wall, I'm not seeing the need to celebrate here.

I continue my inevitable march toward Cranky Old Manhood regardless of what the calendar says.

The best thing you can do for me is to get out of my way. (AND GET OFF MY LAWN, YOU PUNK KIDS!)

Do you have a Chloe in your life?

(NOTE: I wrote this weeks ago, as I usually do, and only now – minutes before it gets posted – do I realize that it may not paint the most flattering picture of Chloe. Which wasn't my intention at all. She's really quite lovely. Honestly. I just wanted to say that before you read it.)


My daughter Chloe has always been a little different. If you're a parent of multiple kids, you probably have one somewhat like her: Does her own thing, follows her own path, dances to the beat of a different drummer. You know what I mean.

Chloe was, for example, the only one of our five children who came out of the womb on her own. My wife had to be induced for the other four. But not for Chloe. Chloe burst into the world of her own volition exactly 19 years ago today (on a full moon, naturally), and has been making me laugh, cry and gape in wonderment ever since.

She is somewhat of an overachiever, as was evidenced by her busy high school schedule and full-to-bursting college applications: Salutatorian of her class, student body president, MVP of her soccer team, captain of Academic Challenge, etc.

The thing I learned early on about parenting Chloe was that I shouldn't get in her way. Not because I wanted to give her the room to develop and spread her wings or any of that, but simply because otherwise she would run me over. I learned this in the interest of self-preservation, more than anything else.

Seriously, though, if you have a Chloe in your life, you should also get out of his/her way, because Chloes do best when gently guided but largely left to their own devices. They're independent, strong-willed, purposeful people, and while your advice is appreciated, they thrive when allowed to make their own mistakes (of which there will be surprisingly few, trust me).

All of this is to wish my little college freshman biomedical engineering major daughter a very happy 19th birthday. She is #2 in birth order in our family but #1 in all of our hearts, partly because we admire her and mostly because we fear her.

(This is true, by the way. Chloe had such a temper when she was a baby that my mom and sister were scared to death to babysit her. They saw her as a beautiful yet temperamental demon spawn who could and would explode at any moment...and they were right.)

Happy birthday, little Chloe. And please don't hurt me.