Happy Birthday Sweet Tils

Our baby girl - our toddler girl - certainly has a thing for dramatic birthdays. One year ago today, at this exact time, I was on my third (endless) hour of pushing and my 24th hour of labor during the great Snowpocalypse of February 1, 2011. It has been oddly warm this year and our blizzard baby hasn't even played in the snow yet, but we woke up on her birthday morning to find that our washing machine had broken in the night and we were in the middle of the great Flood of February 1, 2012.

There are eight million reasons why this kind of home owner nightmare was particularly awful on this particular day. Matilda's first birthday was not so much a special day of going out for birthday lunch with mom and dad (the plan), it was more of a play in the living room while Servicemaster rips the damaged floor and drywall out of the brand new playroom mom and dad just finished for you! And it's one of the busiest weeks of your dad's entire work year! And your grandparents fly into town tonight! And your birthday party is in three days!

But the joy of little ones is that they don't know, or care, and Matilda was no less happy walking behind her new push toy, trying to open child-locked cabinets, and banging tupperware around than she is every other day. She is happy, and healthy, and we are abundantly, overwhelmingly blessed. In the end it's just stuff, and Matilda is a beaming reflection of God's grace to us. (Please don't think I waltzed upstairs from my sopping basement thrilled to have experienced such a neat object lesson. Because I am sort of reminding myself of these things as I write them).

Someone had chocolate for the first time tonight, thanks to Jessica who showed up with a tray of Frostys like a sweet fast food angel sent straight from crisis-aversion heaven.

It was, obviously, a hit. I mean, your first slurp of frozen chocolate deliciousness after a lifetime of organic peas is going to be pretty exciting. And I hope she enjoyed it, because the Chocolate Baby Crack isn't going to be back anytime soon and her menu reverts back to greek yogurt and blueberries in the morning.

She wasn't happy when it was over. I never am either.

Oh, my sweet, sweet girl. It's 10:53pm which means that last year I still had 47 minutes of pushing left and those jerks kept saying you were almost out. You've been independent and willful and delightful from the minute you born and I just couldn't love you any more.

But next year I'll pass on blizzards and floods, thank you very much sweet Tilda Boo!