I’m posting this right under the wire before H’s first birthday expires; it has been a long and bittersweet day. We both took the day off to hang out with H. Adam and I were up at 1:11 this morning to stare at her awesome sleeping self in her crib and reminisce about her arrival last year. That was such a great moment we shared, laughing about her stubborn refusal to come into this world. We’ve had a truly rough week here in the Reeve house, and this morning was tied up with some of that drama. So I needed those moments throughout the day when we would just look at her, and look at each other, and giggle like idiots that she’s been ours for an entire year. We still look at her sometimes and think, “Where are your parents, and when are they coming to get y–oh, right.”

I mean, THIS. This creature who opens presents and concentrates intensely on tearing up the tissue paper into the tiniest little pieces possible. This amazing, dainty, opinionated, thoughtful, hilarious, mischievous, brilliant, good-natured little person whose personality is as big as an ocean without being able to say a word. She is EVERYTHING, and when I look back at pictures of her arrival I see that we had no idea how good things were about to get. How sleep-deprived, disorganized, noisy, stressed, altered, and GOOD things were about to get.

What were we doing before she got here? How has she not been here for all eternity? Who WERE those people in old photos of Adam and me, those bright-eyed, well-rested, centers of their own universe? How did we ever just leave the house and go places without a car full of supplies? How were we ever whole?

Well, we weren’t, really. We just didn’t know it yet.