HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ERIN!

Today we celebrate 22 years of Erin!  (Whoot!)  For each day of those 22 years she has brought us joy.  (Whoot!  Whoot!)

That is not to say that she did not give us grief from the very beginning.  She was due to be born the day before, which tickled Kitty greatly; my wife thought it would be cool to have a grandchild born on 2-2-02.  Stubborn Erin decided otherwise.  Erin also had a heightened sense of drama from the beginning -- it was a difficult birth and we almost lost her but she came through pink and noisy and healthy and beautiful, ready to take on the world.

Beautiful is a cliched word to use, but it is true. Erin is amazingly stunning.  (Point of fact:  all my daughters and granddaughters are magnificently beautiful in their very different ways -- something I am sure came from Kitty's genes.)  But her outward beauty is amplified by her inward beauty.  Her eyes and her smile will beguile you, even as her compassionate and kind soul shines through.

Erin is whip smart.  She had completed her first year of college by the time she graduated high school.  Alas, she's not as smart as she thinks she should be; she actually had to struggle through a few (very few) classes in college.  And the roar of shock and dismay she gave when she actually got a B in elementary school could be heard throughout all of Maryland.  ("A B!  They gave me a B!")  Along with her smarts comes a fierce determination.  When she decides to something, it's a given; Erin will plug away and plug away until she has mastered it.  We've seen it on the soccer field, we've seen it in the Color Guard, we've seen it in her meticulous artwork.

Erin loves animals and books and Trey.   Currently, she has two hedgehogs (Pine Cone and Potato), and one phlegm-inducing allegen (Duncan Dog).  Technically, Willow the ancient cat has been hers for some eoghteen years, but Willow has been relegated to Mark's room where the other animals won't disturb her (Mark's snakes are quiet roommates for Willow).  Erin takes her responsibility for caring for her animals seriously; they know they are loved.  Books?  Erin reads more books than anyone else in the family, save me, and in our family that's saying a lot.  And Trey?  He's been around for a number of years and is not going away any time soon -- he knows he's got a good thing with Erin and he is devoted to her, as are we all.

She is basically a quiet girl woman, not quite an introvert but perhaps introvert-adjacent.  She stands back and watches things.  But her laugh -- oh, her laugh -- is a pure delight.  And she laughs a lot.  Her sense of humor is spot on.

Talented, smart, kind, compassionate, lovely...it's sometimes hard to find all those things in a single person.  We lucked out with Erin.

Did I mention?  I love her more than words can express.

Happy birthday, sweet one.