(Due to problems with my computer that cause it to freeze up with increasing frequency, this may not be the post I hope it will be.)
Today is Julie's birthday. She is twenty-six years old, and this is the first year she won't be home with us for her birthday. Imagine that - an adult daughter who wants to spend time with her parents. I don't know how we got so lucky.
I do know Ben and I desperately wanted to have a daughter. We had hoped that Tom would be a girl when I was pregnant with him, although we both sensed from early on that he was a boy. He turned out to be such a delight that when I got pregnant a month before his first birthday, Ben and I agreed that another little boy (just like him) would be fine. I was so confidant that my second child was a girl, however, that we never even chose a boy's name for the baby I was carrying.
She was due two days after our sixth wedding anniversary, although my ob/gyn had told me I would probably deliver late. To be on the safe side, however, Ben and I decided to celebrate our anniversary a few days early, on the sixteenth. We dressed up and drove to Vermilion to have dinner at McGarvey's, a popular lakeside restaurant. I guess I was pretty hugely pregnant, as our server that night seemed amazed - and a little concerned - that I was out and about. We laughed at her concerns, and enjoyed our dinner. When we got home, however, and I bent down to pick up my twenty-month-old Tommy, my water broke. Ben took the sitter home so she could pack some things for an overnight stay, and I went to lie down for a few hours.
Skipping all that messy, painful stuff in between, I was safely delivered of our daughter, Julie Anne, the following morning. I was delighted. So was Ben, although he swore he would never go through that again (!) I missed Tommy too much to stay in the hospital, so we came home after only two days - which was early at that time. Our little family was complete.
Ben and I are so proud of our children, and who could blame us? Happy, happy birthday, my sweet girl. I love you very much.
1 comment:
thanks for the nice post, ma! this is the first birthday i've spent away from home, and i think the first birthday i've spent working, too. school's always out by now, and having been a student for twenty years, that usually means i'm free. even when i worked at kaufmanns those two summers, i took my birthday off. just didn't seem like much point in taking it off this year if i couldn't be home for it! with me and andrew both working like regular people always do, i think we'll have to celebrate it some other time.
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