Happy Birthday Peter

Peter's birthday today. I have to get used to calling him Peter now. He's prefered it for about a year, but dad's a little slow to catch on.

I liked P.J. It was cute, and it reminded me of his middle name, which is the one I got to pick. Josiah. After the good king in the bible. Even before I was married, I wanted to name one of my children Josiah. Keith Green also had a son named Josiah, another factor in my decision, as I was way into listening to his music at the time. When it came to naming our first son, Molly really liked the name Peter. Sounded good to me too, but I wanted to get Josiah in there somewhere. So Peter became Peter Josiah. It seemed to have a ring to it, and even the pajama allusion from the nickname seemed to be harmless.

This is a biased dad talking, but nothing was so cute as hearing little three-year-old P.J., ahem Peter, say his name. "I'm P.J."

But alas, everything changes. Kids grow up. They earn the right to call themselves what they want, within reason of course.

Anyway, he's 9 today. Halfway to that critical age of 18. Can we really be halfway there already? It will be a hard day for me when he packs up to go to college. But we're not there yet, thank God.

Happy birthday ... Peter!