10th Birthday

Tomorrow my daughter, my first-born, will turn 10.  It's such a big number...the very first foray into the double-digits.  A decade of Lily.  A decade of being a parent, a mother.  No big party is planned, just a trip up the freeway to Farrell's Ice Cream Parlour for a sundae and a fuss with drums and singing waiters.  That's her choice, that's what she wants most. Easy.

Today, Friday, I'm not thinking about her birthday as much as I'm thinking about this date, March 9, ten years ago.  When I woke up on March 9, I had no idea that 24 hours later, I'd be in the hospital, hours from giving birth.  It was certainly a possibility -- we were within 2 weeks of her due date -- but I had no idea that March 9th would be my last day before I'd enter that portal of motherhood, and never turn back.  (And I sure as hell didn't realize it would be my last morning of sleeping in and lingering in bed for a long, long while.)

Her new room was all ready.  Diapers were bought, clothes and blankets and tiny washcloths were washed in Tide Free and folded neatly in drawers.

 (What's funny is that the blanket folded over the crib is now her much-beloved "blankie" that still must be in bed with her every night before she can fall asleep.) Empty crib, silent house.  Waiting, waiting.  I read poetry books given to me about labor and birth and early motherhood. There were lots of metaphors about dawn breaking, the sun shining on a new world, etc. 

And then, she was here.

And nothing, nothing has ever been the same (and who'd want that, anyway?)...

...and all of us, mom, dad, and Lily, have grown and changed and aged and morphed with the years.

 Happy 10th Birthday to our little family, and to our amazing, shining girl.