The Joy of This

My sweet girl, Zoe.

Sweet Zoe –

On Sunday, you turned a year old.  I can hardly handle this.  Last Friday night, after you and Daddy went to bed, I opened up my laptop and looked at all your pictures from the past year, and then… I cried.  I mean just plain ol’ cried.  Like a baby.  Then I cried some more.

Earlier that night, at dinner, when your Dad asked me why this (your first B-day) was so hard for me all I could say was, “I don’t know. I mean, I don’t know,  well, maybe it’s because, ah, I just don’t know.  I don’t know, okay!”

That night, I looked through your birth photos and all your photos from this last year; I was amazed by how much has happened in the last 12 months.  As I reflected on it all, my heart just ached inside me. I couldn’t make sense of it- why is this difficult?  My best guess is that it’s because your birth was the most amazing experience of my life and now I’m further away from that moment. Nothing, and I do mean nothing, compares to bliss I experienced the first time I held you in my arms.  After ten hours of un-medicated labor,  there you were, my first-place-prize.   Now that you are a year old, this means that amazing, life altering day when God gave you to me is further in the past.   For some emotional reason, this is a little hard for me.

The passing of time seems so much faster with you in my life.  I recognize how quickly it goes, because there you are — my child, my ticking clock.  You are here reminding me to savor the moment, because tomorrow you’ll be different, and a few weeks from now you’ll be taller, you’ll have more words, and will be more steady on your toes, and will grow out of those blue shoes that I just love on you.  So here’s a little letter to tell you all about you this first year. Continue reading →

Zoe, ten days old, sleeping on Peter's chest.

I’ll never forget the night we came home, just a few hours after I birthed Zoe.   I couldn’t sleep.  I mean, would you?  I was high on the best adrenaline rush I have ever experienced.  Natural birth makes you feel as though you can swim the Atlantic then race across the world twice and after that go out and celebrate.  It was a little after three in the morning when we arrived at our house.  I managed to finally fall asleep by four, but woke up at six.  I leaned over to look at Zoe.  She was perfectly still, swaddled so tightly in her yellow blanket,  her only movement was the tiny rise and fall of  her breathing. My sleeping cherub.  Still fresh with the scent of heaven in her hair.  I couldn’t resist.  I had to have her in my arms. I reached into the bassinet and cradled her next to me. Continue reading →