It’s hard to believe, given my good looks, but as of today I have completed my sixth decade on Planet Earth. Yesterday I “celebrated” the big 6-0 by heading to the local YMCA to attempt 60×100 yards, and although some spectators might claim to have seen me miss the send off on a couple of the later 100s, there are no official reports supporting this.

Given that I’m clearly starting to lose it (What other evidence does one need to prove that “it” is being lost than thinking 60×100 constitutes a birthday celebration? None, in my book.) I’m passing the baton for today’s birthday post to the two best writers in the family – my incredible daughters who are always right about everything, A and J.
“Hello, loyal readers of Pressing Pause! We are pleased that you read our dad’s blog – it makes him happy, so it makes us happy. But we can’t give him too big of a head (it’s important to stay vigilant about this) so please don’t encourage him too much.

In honor of our dad’s 60th, we’d like to share a few fond memories from over the years. Before we were old enough to really know how lucky we were, his job gave our family the chance to live in China and see pandas, play elaborate hide and seek games, get pneumonia, make friends, and learn tai-chi. Five years later, we got lucky again, and his job took us all to Norway. There, we did very little except go on walks, because it’s an expensive country and if you know our dad then we don’t need to elaborate any further. We’ve also had a blast cheering for our dad at countless races – running races, biking races, swimming races, and, believe it or not, races that combine running, biking, and swimming. His interests really are inspiringly varied!

And he’s been there for some of the most important moments of our life, like when he took our whole family to see Tears of a Camel, a movie that featured an excruciatingly long shot of a camel’s eye and marked the first time both of us fell asleep during a movie. He has also been there cheering us on for some of the other most important moments of our life, like graduations, violin recitals, swim meets, business ventures, cross-country moves and new jobs. We think he’s been the best dad we could have asked for, and for his birthday, we wanted to make sure that everyone else knew it, too.

We can’t believe we get to say that the author of Pressing Pause is our dad, and we’re thrilled to wish him a happy 60th birthday. To sixty more!

Love,A and J

P.S. He doesn’t love boats, just in case that’s a useful piece of information for any of his friends out there that like to prank him.”