When Your Youngest Son Turns 30

Your own birthday is an annual reminder that you are getting older, but when your youngest son turns 30, there are no doubts. I realize that age is relative and we are only as old as we feel, but I do feel a bit old. I listed my medical problem list the other day and I was a bit shocked. I have got to get healthier, because I am not going to get any younger.

Like my daughter, Ryan was also a December baby. Like many December birthdays, the kids really object to the combination "Birthday/Christmas" gifts, no matter how great they are. Birthdays are sacred in the minds of children, so we really tried never to do this. Kids love birthday parties, but when your birthday falls within a few days of Christmas, when classmates are not in school, it can be very difficult to have a unique birthday party. Although we did not do it every year, having a "half-birthday" six months later - in the summer - a time when you can have an outside party, is a nice compromise.

The one winter birthday party that I remember involves a near-drowning, when his chubby friend, Randy, tried walking across the floating spa cover near the pool. He plunged deeply in the (unheated) water, the plastic spa cover wrapped around him. As we fished out his shivering, blue body, I noted that he was still madly clutching at his bag of birthday goodies. If you are going to drown, you take your candy with you.

On his sixth birthday, Ryan picked a pizza place as the venue, followed by a bowling. It was six little boys and one girl. I can still see them fighting in the back seat, trying to sit next to Christie. None of them really knew why at that age. Christie seemed to be enjoying the puzzling attention. We all set at the pizza place, among a crowd of adults drinking beer and playing pool. We ate our pizza, drank our root beer, and then headed for the bowling alley where Christie outscored all of them. That's one reason they like her. She was just like them, only cleaner. Incidentally, Christie graduated from Stanford a few years ago and is apparently a lawyer.

My son, Ryan, is an RN now in the emergency room. His wife is pregnant with their first child; a boy who will be named Ellis, after an Oakland A's baseball player. This is a nice name, but lends itself terribly to getting the nickname, Elmo – a compilation of Ellis and Moser. I think it is cute and symbolic; my son and his wife are not as enthusiastic. I am the grandfather and age has its privileges. Nicknaming your grandson is one of them.

My grandson will be Jewish as a result of the matriarchal line from this mother. This will mean a ritual circumcision - the bris. Just prior to Ryan's nursing training, he was required to do some medical observation time. While observing a circumcision in my office, he fainted. You can be sure I will have the camera waiting when my grandson is snipped. Of course, as an ER nurse, he is probably used to it by now. Of course, it is different seeing your child in pain than a drunk with a laceration. In my own office, I lose more fathers on the floor during a laceration repair, than moms. Fathers do not like to watch circumcisions - you see them grimace and bend over, feeling each little cut.

We already bought the new baby (for his birthday), an Oakland A's outfit and hat. We have a Oakland A's Mark Ellis bobble-head doll to be included in his Time Capsule. I would love to send him one of those new talking/hugging Elmo dolls, but I don't want to push this nickname too far…too soon. I was a Moe. My son was a Moe; his son will likely be an El-Moe. That is just the way it is. I'm really sorry, but I don't make up the rules.

I will always remember the day my son was born - 30 years ago in a birthing room of a hospital that no longer exists (it is now a residential subdivision). It was a day not unlike today – cold and windy. When the nurse handed him to me, I had no idea that he would someday be a nurse himself.

Happy Birthday, Son.