Celebration

We just finished celebrating Sophie's first birthday with all of the exuberance I had imagined we would as I watched Sophie’s isolette a year ago and planned the future celebration in my head. Back then I was treading a fine line between trying to be positive and not wanting to hope for too much. Thinking about this big celebration with my beautiful, happy, healthy baby girl having the time of her life crawling and squirming all over the place didn’t really seem possible back then. We are truly in a better place that I ever could have imagined. I can say I am so much wiser, so much more grateful than ever before, that I see things with a deeper richness than I ever could have before I came so close to losing so much. But then, I am also changed in that I have lost the ability to blindly expect things to be ok. The realization that the harmony of life is so precarious, that at any moment things can change so dramatically, that is always with me now. I am acutely aware of so many others who haven't had the good fortune we have had, who are facing much bigger challenges with so much more grace than I ever could have gathered.

So I would say now our family motto is “CELEBRATE!”   Celebrate every day and every moment.  Laugh often and give lots of hugs.

Happy Birthday Sophie.