Boy, am I getting old

Today is Leah's 26th birthday. It seems like yesterday that I was watching "Magnum PI," and the missing Lamaze instructions miraculously appeared on the floor as I stayed home from a San Diego indoor soccer tournament that I insisted Randy and our friend Bruce attend, because I was tired of them hovering over me. I had 11 days to go and assured them that I wasn't about to have our baby that early, especially after eating the huge plate of chili spaghetti I had consumed at dinner time before they left me for the game. I don't know if it was the excitement of Magnum PI or that huge plate of chili, and I guess we'll never know, because I had just enough time to read those breathing instructions at the end of the show and the next thing I knew, I was going into labor. I called my friend Jan, the nurse from across the street, and off we started back across the street to her car, when I remembered we were to notify our next door neighbors; so we threw rocks at their upstairs window as I had promised, and that's the picture Randy and Bruce saw as they slowly drove up the street. Randy rolled down the window and asked what was going on. To this day, I wonder what in the world he thought I was doing with a suitcase in my hand and a boom box, (so I could play classical music during labor) and talking to the neighbors as they hung out the upstairs windows. In fact, I just remembered him saying, "Aren't you taking this a little too far?" [See, I've always been this way.]

The boys were in shock, so Jan drove me to the hospital and they joined me after they pulled themselves together. Three hours later, we had our precious Leah Donae McCann, born the day before St. Patrick's Day. With my maiden name being Murphy, we figured her birthdate sufficed for the Irish connection, so we gave her the Americanized version of the French word "to give" for her middle name. Now here she is in Singapore, and here is her blog for today, taken from all different philosophies and adopted as her own:

TUESDAY, MARCH 16, 2010

26 things I've learned in 26 years

Promptness shows respect.

You can’t avoid offending people from time to time. When you don’t mean it, apologize. When you do mean it, accept the consequences.

The most valuable thing to have is a good reputation, and it’s neither hard nor expensive to acquire one: Be fair. Be honest. Be trustworthy. Be generous. Respect others.

In everyday life, most “talent” is simply hard work in disguise.

Most folk remedies are a joke.

Laundry day is much easier when all your socks are the same and you don’t have to sort them.

Goals that you keep to yourself are just dreams. If you’re determined to achieve something, tell people about it and ask them to help you stick with it.

All the stuff you have lying around that you’ll never want, need, wear or look at again? It just makes it harder to find what you do want, need or intend to wear. File it, donate it, or throw it.

Nobody is perfect. They all have their skeletons in the closet.

You control your attitude or it controls you.

High quality is worth any quantity, in possessions, friends and experiences.

Worrying solves nothing.

It is a hundred times more difficult to burn calories than to refrain from consuming them in the first place.

A good outfit can change your attitude in seconds.

Yelling always makes things worse.

Getting truly organized can vastly improve anyone’s life.

Everyone likes somebody who gets to the point quickly.

Everybody always thinks they are right.

An education is merely self-discipline.

It is a lot easier to react than it is to think about it first.

Children are remarkably honest creatures until we teach them not to be.

Credentials on the wall do not make you a decent human being.

Learning to forgive takes practice.

We don't have to change friends if we understand that friends change.

I'm a McCann. I like Ice Cream.

Maturity has more to do with what types of experiences you've had and what you've learned from them and less to do with how many birthdays you've celebrated.

Hope you all have a happy her birthday!
Love,
Debbie