Happy Birthday Quinn

Thirty-one years ago today a leprechaun found a newborn baby under a cabbage leaf. Not knowing how to care for a newborn, he brought the baby to us and said that we could keep him on two conditions: We must give him an Irish name (hence Quinn Patrick) and we must eat corned beef and cabbage every March. We quickly became crazy about both the baby and the corned beef and cabbage.

Perhaps there was something in those cabbage leaves he first sucked on, but Quinn's CQ (creativity quotient) has been off the chart since the very beginning. His grandparents once gave him a book entitled, What to do with a Squirt of Glue, and Paper, Paint, and Scissors too. Throw in some string, a few coat hangers and some popsicle sticks and Quinn was a happy boy. Always working on a project. If I were a really skilled writer I would write a book about Quinn. One chapter would be entitled "How to Save Your Energy."

One night after he had gone to bed Quinn thought of something he wanted out of his backpack, which was sitting on the floor a few feet from his bed. In order to reach it he would have to get out of bed, and that could use a lot of energy, so Quinn's little brain began to devise a plan whereby he could reach that backpack without having to get out of bed. "Hummm. First of all I need some kind of hook that I could grab the handle with. Let me just get a couple of coat hangers out of the closet. Oh, and I'll have to run down to the garage and get some wire cutters. Hey, this is working really great, but it's not long enough to reach the backpack. If I run down to the laundry room and get the yard stick maybe I can attach the hook to it to make it long enough. Yeah, I think this will work. I just need to get some masking tape from the basement. Perfect! Now just let me get back in bed here. Yes, I got it. What a great idea! Think of all the energy I saved by not having to get out of bed to reach my backpack!"

Have I mentioned before that somewhere along the way this little boy's IQ caught up with his CQ. Now he's just finishing up a Phd in Biochemistry and heading to Harvard for a post doc. Happy Birthday, Quinn. Love you to pieces! Thank goodness that leprechaun found you!