Stephen is 26

Our three kids were all born in the second week of December. I guess theoretically they are not kids anymore. Especially Stephen who is now 26.

Last year I came up with the idea that a great birthday gift would be to devote an entire blog post to each of the kids on their special day. Of course last year my blog was only read by seven or eight people (including close family members) but now the blog gets fed to my Facebook page so the readership is often in double figures, which makes this gift twice as good.

Stephen is now in the second year of graduate school at NYU where he is a PhD candidate in Chemistry. He teaches undergraduate chemistry and last year he won a teaching award. He’s now living in Queens with his girlfriend Anne. He hasn’t been home much in the last year so I don’t have any new embarrassing stories to report.

Stephen's sisters are both in Art Schools studying high fashion. Stephen has also always been very fashion-minded. Here he is in one of his favorite plaid ensembles.

He has always had remarkable powers of concentration (see picture above), but he's not just another science nerd. He's a science nerd who can build interesting useless devices, such as this Rube Goldberg contraption, which he assembled in his bedroom one winter.

Happy Birthday Stephen!