Birthday Brunch

I wrote this post the night of my daughter’s 2nd birthday. I drafted it and never posted it, probably too exhausted to think straight.  This blog has been seriously neglected but I’m surfacing slowly from the world of diapers, spit up and insane gas (baby’s not mine) and it has felt good to write again.  More to come soon…

Today was my baby girl’s second birthday; she had an amazing day that left her exhausted – in a great I-lived-life-to-the-maxest-max today kind of way exhausted.  Instead of any grand fete, we opted to fill her day with her favorite people and favorite activities.  We started it with brunch with her grandparents, great-grandma and uncle.  She even got to sneak some chococalte chip cookies in before her scrambled eggs were ready.  Then we set out for the beach to spend time with her favorite cousins.  It was heaven.

And as much as this day was hers, I realized I needed it as much as she did.  Sometimes in the hustle and bustle of having a new baby and juggling two kiddos with my husband, you kind of lose sight.  Not of anything particular but of everything.  Life gets into this blur, not in a terrible way, but just a blur.  You forget the the big picture.

On the beach today, watching Dessa dig her hands deep into the sand, laughing with friends, swaying with Farrah in the salty breeze, stealing kisses from my husband with the ocean waves crashing in the background, I caught a glimpse of us from the outside looking in.  I saw what other people saw when they glanced over at our little mish moshed piece of beach real estate.  I saw a family reveling in the hectic world built by two little ones.  I felt like a family.  I saw us as a family.

Farrah's 1st Trip to the Beach

I saw us doing the family dance.  Handing baby from mama to papa.  Taking turns chasing our curious toddler.  Bouncing a baby on one shoulder while sharing a laugh with family.  Sneaking a kiss with my husband while a cousin shares a beach blanket with our tot, newborn groggy on my shoulder.  Answering tot questions while waving at papa in the surf.  Sniffing a diapered bum taking a whiff of surf and sunscreen, summer.

With our new little one here and still surfacing from the newborn-ness of it all, it sometimes feels a lot like just getting things done.  I know from Dessa that quickly, almost already, we’ll be out of the newborn haze and into a routine, a pattern, our family rhythm.  We’re getting there slowly, operating on a bit more sleep and less, almost no colic.  I’m grateful for today.  It’s getting filed away with those moments I don’t want to lose, the moments that remind me why.

Happy Birthday, Baby Girl, and thank you for today.