Happy Birthday Betsy!

My beautiful baby girl is officially another year older on the 22nd. I tried to restrain myself from including too many pictures, but there was just too much cuteness to choose from, and so what you see is what you get. After having two terrific sons in my life as a father, it was quite special to welcome a daughter. Her birthday is just a few days short of my own. Because emeralds are the stones associated with the month of May, I couldn't resist buying her a tiny little emerald ring when she was born.

Her brothers welcomed her home with kisses and plenty of admiration.

She was darling from the get-go.

My mother, who unfortunately only got to know her for a short four years, nevertheless doted on Betsy's charm. I love the semi-serious expression on her face as she shares a secret or some special story with Mom here.

She always finished her milk.

And she and her cousin, Sarah–almost the same age, provided lots of opportunities for great pictures.

This is one of my very favorite pictures of Betsy. She is so focused on whatever it is she was watching–sitting quietly and attentively while the rest of us found her more enchanting than whatever else might have been going on.

She has a little bit of an impish smile, and she liked her braids, something I actually attempted from time to time to put up for her.

What were we thinking? Where are the seat belts and child restraints? Betsy loved standing on her head in chairs. I have several photographs of her thus.

Always my Wonder Woman!

The girl was not afraid to climb trees. I always liked this picture of her peeking out of one of our Ginkgo trees, even if it is a little blurry.

Just like her brothers before her, Betsy completed her first RAGBRAI with me when she was ten years old. She is a bit more than that here, as she and her Uncle Tom cruise down an Iowa road.

Then suddenly, she's getting all grown up and dressed up and GOING OUT WITH A BOY! A hard thing for a dad to swallow, I can tell you.

After graduation, she and I spent about a week together with friends in New York seeing the sights. This photo is a little hard to view today, but here she is with one of my best friends, David, in Jersey City looking across to lower Manhattan.

Dad helped me buy Betsy her first car for graduation and to enable her to drive to her student teaching assignments in Lone Tree. Like her mother, father, and brothers before her, she chose to be a Hawkeye at the University of Iowa.

I got this picture of her after the graduation exercises with then President Mary Sue Coleman.

A number of years later, when I worked in Washington for a brief time, Betsy and Rob came to visit me there.

She came back again with this Pete guy in tow.

And eventually they married.

And then one day she starts looking like this.

And again a couple more times, and now I'm rewarded with three terrific grandchildren. Indeed, Betsy is the mother of my very first grandchild, Henry. I know I'm prejudiced, but I believe that Betsy has proven to be an extraordinary mother. And though I haven't seen her working in the classroom, I suspect she is a great teacher too. It shows in her parenting.

A daughter has special ways of making her old dad feel important. She can make me feel better when I'm a little blue. She encourages me, she understand me, and she often has wise and helpful words for me.

Happy Birthday sweetheart!