We’ll Sing a Song That We All Know

Today is Bart’s birthday. It’s his last birthday in his twenties. So, in his honor, twenty nine things I love about Bart. In the non-mushiest way possible.

1. He has learned that I need excessive enthusiasm about basically everything. Thus, at almost every meal, you can hear him saying, “This is the best meal I have ever eaten in my entire life.”
2. He will watch and enjoy movies like “Pride and Prejudice” or “Bleak House” and “Cranford.” You cannot ask for much more.
3. He acts genuinely interested when I give him long detailed summaries of the books I’m reading.
4. He loves kids and can’t wait to have his own, but has never pressured me about having children.
5. Once he makes a decision about doing something, he moves forward quickly.
6. He and I have almost the same tolerance for museums. Thank heavens.
7. When he realized I was slowly dying from the lack of my own cellphone (a cellphone which I insisted I didn’t need because, oh the cost), we went in and I got a cellphone that very night.
8. He kills all the bugs. Even the ones smaller than a pencil eraser which I said I would kill.
9. He has drastically changed his life plans to better meet my personal needs (hello, accounting!)
10. He is always up for an evening walk or bike ride.
11. He is totally sold on subtitles as the true way to watch a movie. Or at least pretends to be.
12. He never minds when I need to be alone or spend the evening reading on the couch.
13. He is one of the hardest workers I know – his dedication to CPA prep would blow your mind.
14. He has almost limitless faith in my abilities. As someone who fears failure, this is a huge blessing for me.
15. He will almost always concede to my insatiable need for frugality/cheapness.
16. He is a nice dresser, but not obsessive about expensive clothes (except for white dress shirts from Brooks Brothers, which he calls the BMW of dress clothing).
17. He gets frustrated at bad driving and heavy traffic (as someone with a bit of a short fuse married to someone with almost limitless patience, it is heartwarming to see him lose his cool over something that rarely bothers me).
18. He enjoys silly things like late-night trips to Wal-mart as much as I do.
19. He loves to travel, and lets me plan almost everything. Huzzah!
20. He has learned that a short-sleeve dress shirt is an oxymoron. Men of the world, take note.
21. He makes it easy to be social – I know that most people will like Bart and that he’ll make any event fun.
22. He has encouraged me to be more active and healthy.
23. He makes me feel like Superwoman. He constantly praises my ability to multi-task and get things done.
24. He lives in fear that I’ll decide to be a vegetarian. I find this incredibly endearing.
25. He loves my family. There is little else he could have done to make me love him so much.
26. He is amazingly generous – he always is suggesting we take some cookies over to friends or write a thank you card or do some small (or large) act of service.
27. He knows when the best thing he can say is, “Would you like to go out to dinner tonight?”
28. He makes almost all of the personal phone calls (I make up for it by making all the phone calls to the credit card company, the airline, and the cell phone providers).
29. He is even better looking at 29 than he was at 25 (we just watched our wedding videos this weekend, so I speak with great authority). Men just age better.

Happy Birthday, Bart! I hope this is your best year ever. Until next year, of course.