old country house blog

September 11 and Golden Birthdays

My youngest son said to me last week…
“You know Mom. My Birthday is a Holiday now.”
I said that I knew that and that for me….. 
his birthday was always a holiday.

Having been born on the last “Normal” September 11, (2000) 
we used to joke that our most “urgently dramatic child”…
 the one who could go from Zero to 60 and back down to Zero 
in 30 seconds flat, 
… it was ironic that his birthday was Nine-One-One.
Mr Emergency.


Never – Mr. Nine-Eleven. 
That was a title, a way of referring to that day, those numbers
 which emerged from the horror and the rubble of
the worst day in the History of America.

I woke up on September 11, 2001, ready to relive each moment
of this day the year before
ready to buy my baby a cake
and instead spent the day 
shattered and glued to the TV
and forever changed in ways
I never could have imagined.

and it was my Baby’s First Birthday.


Tate (4) and Phoebe(2) meet their baby brother for the first time…
 one year later…
This photo was taken on September 14, 2001

God Bless America 

and God Bless 
My Baby Boy
 Cooper Ellington DeVito
on his Golden Birthday.
11 years old, on the 11th day in the 11th year.


Today we will celebrate and 
Today we will Remember
Today is a Holiday.


Tomorrow we Decorate
and talk about how blooming excited I am
about the Missoni Launch
 at Target
 this week!!!