Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Our 1-Year-Old's Birthday

My brother-in-law noted that not one of his family members who keeps a blog has actually posted to their blogs since November of last year. Well, here's a post just to spite you, thou brother-in-law who has to point out my deficiencies!!

Anyway, so yesterday was our foster baby's first birthday. It came and went without much fanfare, which was rather unusual for us. Typically, birthdays in our house are rather eventful affairs and we always try to make them special for the child. Yes, even for 1-year-olds. This isn't to say that we didn't do the traditional stuff -- we did indeed open presents (mostly on her behalf as she just didn't get it, yet), eat cake, blow out a candle (also on her behalf, of course), and gave her her very own cake to eat all by herself (she wasn't so into that).

Later in the evening, my wife and I pondered the significance of allowing a one-year-old child who won't even hold her own bottle, yet, to get her hands all yucky and gross with shortening-based frosting that she would inevitably get in her hair and her ears and her eyes. Why do we do that to little babies? All we could think of was that it is tradition, and we dismissed the curiosity with the understanding that this is our last baby, so let it be.

The day itself seemed to come and go and my wife and I pondered why it didn't seem to be such a milestone. Perhaps it's because we weren't there for her birth, and didn't suffer through the whole pregnancy and birthing process for her. Perhaps it's because we haven't quite had her for a full year, yet -- that's still 3 weeks away. And perhaps, maybe just a little, it's because she's not yet ours.

I don't really know, but I do know we love her fiercely and our lack of enthusiasm is surely not for a lack of love for her.

Probably it's because we're just so very, very tired -- we have 2 people down with a nasty cold (myself included) and our baby girl is recovering from surgery that she had last weekend to "de-mass" her hemangioma. I think that's it ... I think I need to go take a nap ...

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