Oliver Turns 12

Oliver Duncan Lowell Rukavina turned 12 years old yesterday. We celebrated with breakfast the day before with uncle, aunt and cousins, and then, last night at supper, with a sushi supper with friends new and old.

One of the things about Oliver is that he doesn’t do anything halfway: he either does it, or he doesn’t do it, and the transitions between one state and other more “blamo” than “gentle evolution.”

This has been true of many things — sitting up, crawling, walking, Googling — and it was true of being born too. Oliver, after two days of unconscious teetering on the edge of life, just, one morning, turned on as a healthy, full-formed, fully present little kid:

That was, by coincidence, the day he got his name, meaning the nurses could stop calling him “Baby Male Miller.”

Raising Oliver with Catherine is a tremendous joy; I can’t imagine my life without either of them. Happy Birthday, Oliver.