Birthday Update

There's no time like the present (or one's birthday), right? Isn't that what they say?

Okay, maybe they weren't talking about updating all-but-forsaken blogs but I'm down with it. Updating said blog, that is. Because yes, it's been THREE MONTHS. Dagnabit. And it was two months before that. Making my count of entries here in the last FIVE MONTHS a whole whopping two. Measly, measly two. So sad. Admittedly, even my moleskin has been neglected. My work (and sometimes personal) blog is about the only thing that gets any regular love and even that is really semi-regular.

I said "good morning" to the ripe old age of twenty-eight, today.

Well, in reality, I said "good morning" and "thank you" to Cliff as he wished me sweet, sleepy birthday wishes while getting up for his 6am CrossFit class. And then I said "good morning" a little later to a one-day-shy-of-six-month old beautiful baby girl who was happily rolling around in her crib waiting for her sunrise-ish feeding and snuggles with Momma. I had the debate with myself that I usually have every morning "To put her back in the crib for the last stretch of the so-called night sleep or to snuggle up with her in bed?" Then, last minute, I decided to buck tradition and that age-old debate as she nestled up sweetly into my shoulder with her last burping and promptly fell asleep that way. She never sleeps that way anymore so I let her. For a whole ALMOST TWO HOURS. It was blissful. And it gave me time (between a few dozes) to think reflectively on how much I have to be grateful for on my birthday and every day, for that matter.

I feel like every holiday (not that my birthday is by any means a holiday... official or non-official though I've been working on it for years) is becoming sort of like Thanksgiving, and maybe that's just how it's supposed to be. I think about all I'd love to see happen in the next 365 days... all that has happened in the last 365 (or 366, in this year's case) days... and all that's happened in the last twenty-eight years. And the overwhelming feeling is just how very present, through all of it, the Lord's blessings have been.

I thank the Lord everyday for this messy, life-full life and today I thank Him for letting me celebrate another year. And for giving me age-old dreams and making them coming true, meanwhile changing so much about me in the process and making it challenging. If it were easy, I don't think it would mean as much. At twenty-eight, now, I have never been happier... or more stretched. Not that more stretching won't come or even greater fulfillment. It will and I welcome it. I may loathe it in the process, but I know it's making me better... all around. And the thing I'm learning, too, I guess is that my stretching will always look different than someone else's. My joys. My pains. They are all relative because they are how God is choosing to shape ME. Not you. ME. So when it looks easy for someone else, I have to trust God is using what He wants in their life and accept what He's put in mine. And when it looks easy for me, I hope that person looking in from the outside realizes the same thing.

Admittedly, as grateful as I am for turning another year older today, I am thinking even more about the precious life turning 6-months old tomorrow. The life currently snug as a bug in a rug napping in her swing (yup, still napping in her swing in the mornings and with me in bed in the afternoons... judge me all you want) and changing so very much every day. There are two sharp-as-nails teeth just above the horizon of her gums... an ever-increasing number of rolls on her long-and-lean frame... an expanding vocabulary of sounds, whines, yells, cries... and so much more. No sitting up yet, unassisted at least, but she gets around... turning circles, rolling, and sometimes scooching to get to toys she wants, making the old "put her down in one place and she'll stay" trick obsolete. She got a jumperoo at about 4.5 months and let me tell you, THEY ARE ONE OF THE GREATEST INVENTIONS, ever - she looooooves it! Three of her limbs are still in a night swaddle (meaning she's got one arm out), though it seems she's on the brink of managing to get BACK to sleep un-swaddled when she's gotten out at some point in the night. We've cut her daily intake of reflux meds in half and she seems to be doing well with that, though it can change with certain milestones such as solids, sitting up, crawling, so we're not cutting it out yet. 

Today marks the last day of her being exclusively breastfed, since tomorrow morning she'll be getting her first solids in the form of homemade brown rice cereal for her half-birthday breakfast. Sidebar: nursing has been great (even the challenges along the way) and probably one of the things I have ever done in my life that I am most proud of, though it's so commonplace in our day I hardly think about it now - it's my new goal to make it to her first birthday or as long as supply is there or she weans herself. In the last three months she has now easily survived: her first out-of-state road-trip to her namesake state to watch Aunt CeeCee graduate (and see Nona, Uncle Markie, meet Great Grandpa, and more), her first flights to and from Momma's birth-state for Easter to visit MeMa and PopPop and meet all of her aunts, uncles, cousins, great grandparents, and many of her great aunts, great uncles, and second cousins on that side, and her first non-holiday trip to Cleveland to visit with Mimmie and Pappaw and the rest of the crew in town. We're gearing up for her first lake trip this holiday weekend and in just a few weeks we'll be headed to THE BEACH. Yay!

I could go on, but I won't. Mostly because she's up from her nap now and she's ready to eat, get her diaper changed, and I've got my 12pm CrossFit class to make it to... last day of Foundations, woooo!