‍Open Your Gifts

By Dr. Jesse Ritter

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My children Ryan, Zara and Elon are the greatest gifts I've ever received.

Everyone has different motivations for what they set out to achieve in their life. Who they want to become. What they wish to embody.

There is no greater REASON than a child.

Children come to you a as a blank canvas. Every step of their development is molded a large part by their parent or parents. It is both exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. They look to you for how to behave and treat other people, modeling your every behavior.

They are precious, innocent gifts.

Whenever I'm feeling exhausted from a long day at the office combined with not enough sleep (you never have that feeling do you? :)), I always come back to how blessed and fortunate I am to have 3 incredible gifts to come home to.

At the end of the day I'm tired. Zonked on most days.

I pull up to my home and open up the garage door, pull the car in and shut off the engine.

Most days this is what I experience:

Before I shut the engine off Ryan (6) and/or Zara (4) popping open the garage door, super excited that Daddy's home from work. My wife Saleha, many of the days, will also be there holding little Elon in her arms. Ryan and Zara, as soon as I shut the car off, come running to my car door and are there to excitedly tell me about something that just happened to them or give me a giant loving bear hug.

Zara likes to scream "DADEEEE!" in her sweet little voice as we squeeze each other.

Ryan loves to sneak up on me and act incredibly surprised when I discover he's sneaked up to my door before I've opened it.

Once out of my car, one moment of eye contact with Elon turns his concerned face into an incredible smile usually accompanied by him trying to jump out of Mama's arms and come to me.

I can't help but cry as I write these words. I am so incredibly grateful...

What do I do next?

I OPEN MY GIFTS.

I soak them up. I shower them with love. I ask them how their day was. Hugs and kisses by the thousands. They are mine and I am theirs. Nothing else matters in those first minutes of re-uniting after a day apart.

What a gift being a father is. I get to be a role model and have an incredible impact on how my children turn out. It's an epic responsibility to mold the next generation. It has, and will continue to be, quite possibly the most rewarding experience of my life.

So many of us have gifts in our life that we aren't opening.

For some of us it's a relationship. For others, it's a level of success. For others, it's opportunities that are right in front of us that we haven't said "yes" to because we're scared of change. We're scared of the unknown. We're worried we might fail. We care what others think or fear rejection. We don't think we deserve the level of success or happiness that simply saying "yes" could provide us.

My advice to you, this Father's Day weekend, is to always open your gifts. They are all around you in abundance. You need but open your eyes and they will be there.

Say "yes" to them.

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Quote of the Week
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We received this email a few weeks ago from a patient of Dr. Weller's.

Hi,

My name is Anne.

I am an original patient of Dr. James Weller, who transitioned his patients to Dr. Jesse Ritter of Smile Solutions of Baltimore.

I am "old school" and at first, was leery of the "new fangled" technology used by Dr. Ritter/Smile Solutions.
I had to have a crown placed on April 27th, 2022, and was anxious about the new technology.

I must say, I was anxious about how to even use the streaming services; but, even with my nervousness, and a delay (beyond Dr. Ritter's control), the tooth crown feels great! My whole mouth feels much better.

Thank you, Dr. Ritter, and your assistant, Myleka, for dealing with me in such a calm, pleasant manner.
Your "spicy" patient,

- Anne

Thank you Anne for your kind words!

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In Service,

Dr. Jesse Ritter

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