Our baby is two

Two years ago, I was hanging out in the hospital, happily drugged and awaiting the same little girl who's snoozing in her crib now. Two years ago, I didn't know who Laura was or what she looked like or what her personality would be. Now, 730 days hence, it seems unimaginable that there was ever one single second that I didn't know her, didn't know what her hair feels like or how it curls under, except for the back right side, which has a mind of its own and flips whichever way it pleases at that given moment. Or that I didn't know what her tiny little finger looks like curled around mine or how her funny little naked body looks running around post-bath.

Also unimaginable is the fact that I worried way, way too much about how having her would disrupt our life, a relatively easy one (even with Big Brother's definitely-not-easy temperament) with only one extra mouth to feed, one little bum to clothe, one person to exert our influence on and hopefully steer in the right direction. I worried about raising a girl and all the potential minefields out there that we'd one day have to pick our clumsy way through. I worried about teaching two kids to get along and, with any luck, actually like each other.

But at 10:57, late in the evening on March 28, my doctor laid her tiny, slippery little self on my chest and I stopped worrying. None of that stuff mattered. It still doesn't. It was, and still is, the most profoundly peaceful moment of my whole life. From her very first breath, I knew her. I knew that everything good and pure and right in the world was distilled in all her 6 pounds and one ounce. I knew that she would change us in the best possible way. And she has. I wasn't "me" and we weren't "we" until she was here.

It is such a privilege to raise her. She's still pure goodness in one little body. When I try to talk about her and what she is to us, words inevitably fail me. They always will. I am, now more than ever, keenly aware of just how fortunate we are to call these babies of ours our own. 

Two years later, I still can't believe our good fortune. She's ours. And we couldn't possibly love her more.

Happy 2nd birthday, Sis! We love you, sweet girl!