I was just thinking how it seems like 24 hours ago that I became a father for the first time. It was actually 21 years and 24 hours ago that event occurred.

But as the cliche goes, it still seems like yesterday.

It would have been just about now on the evening of November 17th that I had returned from the cafeteria at Hartford Hospital, where we had been since early that day. It all began when a visit by Denyse to the OB/GYN first thing in the morning led to her calling me to tell me that “we were having a baby”.

Given that I was planning to work a later shift that day, I was still asleep and thus it took me more than a moment to realize that this wasn’t just my wife being cute and telling me the obvious state of her condition, (as she had many times before) but rather that we were having a baby, as in today.

Her pregnancy had been difficult enough, with morning sickness that never went away to the point that I didn’t really need to set an alarm each morning, because I had gotten used to waking up to the distinct sound of my wife being rather sick.

On this day, the doctor had not been happy that her blood pressure had shot through the roof and there was some concern, so it was going to be necessary to induce labor. So they sent her over to Hartford Hosptial, while I scrambled out of bed and headed downtown in short order.

The inducing of labor went for about 12 hours with little progress and a lot of tension. A nurse finally talked me into leaving my wife to go get something to eat in the hospital cafeteria. By then, there weren’t many choices left on the menu, so I picked one of the daily specials still left and wolfed that down before heading back to the delivery floor.

It was shortly thereafter that Denyse’s blood pressure began to spike, followed by the decision by her doctor that our first child would have to enter the world by means of an emergency cesarean section. Things began to move pretty quickly, and Denyse was being wheeled into an operating room at the same time that I was being tossed a set of scrubs to put on and told that someone would come get me.

It was maybe ten minutes that seemed like an eternity, but eventually a nurse came and took me into the room where things were already moving with the kind of deliberate speed that let you know that things were serious. Within a matter of minutes two things were perfectly clear–the first was that we were going to soon have an arrival of a new addition to our young family.

And the second was that I probably should have skipped the cafeteria special of two chili dogs.

It wouldn’t be the last time that Kaitlin Maura Varner would cause me a little heartburn–but on this, the occasion of her 21st birthday, I have nothing but admiration for everything my daughter has accomplished–and the grand potential of her life to come. Now a college senior, she is aggressively pursuing entrance into graduate school to continue her education.

But perhaps my favorite thing that Katy has done for me in all her years, is the same thing she did for me shortly after she was born.

Which of course was to make me laugh out loud. She’s done it thousands of times since, and pretty much every time it’s still the greatest feeling….ever.

So, Happy Birthday. Katy. Now you can start enjoying being carded, until they stop doing it to you–when of course you’ll really want them to make you prove your age.