a year, a blink, a lifetime

My baby is one year old. And at her birthday party in our backyard that we had on August 1st one of the most popular comments guests made to me was, "I can't believe it's been a year already." For them, time flew. Several of our guests had not seen Grace in many months so it seemed that in a blink of an eye she went from scooting along the floor on her tummy to toddling unsteadily across the yard on two feet. In one sense, I concur. Time flew. It's amazing how fast she learns new things these days. Each day she has new words (the latest: "nanda" for banana, "naa-da" for lay down, "na-naa" for night-night) and new tricks like walking, dancing, doing "flips," and "bumping it."



However, in another sense, the day we brought Grace home from the hospital seems like eons ago. Maybe it's because we weren't getting much sleep those days and learning how to parent a newborn was often trying, exhausting, and difficult. One day blended into another and it seemed like it would never get any easier. But, of course, it did. And today, it's hard to imagine that there was any point in my life that I did not know Grace. How can it be that I have not known her forever? What was my life before Grace? I can't help but feel that it was nowhere near as substantive, as important, and as exciting as it is now. Maybe I feel like it's been forever because it has, that somehow my soul was always bound with Grace's and her birth simply made tangible her existense in my heart that had always been present as a quiet love. It sounds corny, but I cannot wrap my head around the idea that Grace ever did not exist. So this is how I make sense of it all.

Happy happy birthday to our little nut. Thank you for filling our lives with so much joy every day. Bump it.