The gift that keeps on giving…

Happy 5th Birthday, Anna! We love you so much and are so proud of you…

Among other things, this year you stopped sucking your thumb AND you learned how to READ!  Pretty amazing accomplishments before you even reached your 5th year.

Here’s a re-post about the day Anna was born… (I’ve posted it a few times now, but it’s a good one:)

Memoirs – Cry Baby

I remember being in the hospital the night after Anna was born. I was
tired, but of the three involved in the event (not counting nurses and
doctors) I admittedly wasn’t as tired as the other two participants.
Physically it is an impossibility (sorry to break the news, guys). So
instead of sleeping, I just stretched out on the sorry excuse for a
"roll-away" bed (they really don’t want you to stick around) in our
hospital suite and I pondered the last nine months and hours. And then
I began to cry. And cry. And cry.

I remembered one of my favorite accounts from Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina is
when Levin experiences the birth of his child. He is so mixed up with
emotion and doesn’t know if he loves or hates this little alien that
has invaded his existence. He was joyful, loathing, loving, delighted,
and confused. I was right on par (and continue to be as the pregnancy
stretches itself in duration into toddler-hood.)

Births are
stressful. Guys aren’t allowed to make comments like that without
having women hurl blunt objects or hefty appliances at them. "What do
you know about stress?!! You try carrying a bowling ball around your
gut for nine months and then pushing a "_______" out your "_______" You
fill in the blanks; it’s like Mad Libs.

But they are stressful.  Maybe that mental fatigue was what added to my blubbering, but it wasn’t the root cause.

The
root cause was the overwhelming sense of humanity Anna’s birth had
bestowed upon me. I felt very human and weak. I realized that this
beautiful little gift I was given was not going to live or die based on
my best intentions. Her fate and ultimate well-being were in the hands
of something (Someone?) much bigger than myself. This revelation
weighed on me like a mountain dog-piling on a Twinkie. The awareness
that I was not a deity or demigod also woke me up to the fact that I
was not able to save my wife from whatever black plague or bad driver
came across her path. I felt like Captain Ahab all of sudden, harpoon
ready to chuck at the White Whale.

But instead of throwing that
projectile, I just cried. And begged God to keep my small family unit
safe and sound. I knew that He had some big hands on Him, but it was no
easy thing for me to just place these women I loved dearly into that
scarily awe-inspiring palm. It’s a daily endeavor for me (not the
crying, but the handing over of my vulnerabilities) and it’s broadened
in scope with the addition of Sarah (aka Banshee). Makes me wonder if
Superman’s bigger weakness was Kryptonite or Lois? I think we all know
the answer there, don’t we.