Here sleeps a girl with a head full of magical dreams, a heart full of wonder, and hands that will shape the world.  -Author Unknown

WARNING:  SAP ALERT!!!  You know those TV shows and movies where the teary-eyed parent goes into flashback mode.  I trust you’re familiar with that slow fade producers use to signal that we’re going back in time.  And heaven help us if they actually use the wavy picture trick!  Well, I’ll fess up.  For the last week or so I’ve been camped out in that dreamland because my baby girl just had a birthday!  (Dissolving…now.)

I’ll begin the tale with the fact that I didn’t really want a second child.  Every step of the process with our firstborn was difficult from pregnancy to post-pregnancy.  Blessed as we were with one child, I sort of thought we should leave well enough alone.  One baby is good.  But as it typically goes, my plan was not His plan.  When we found out that I was pregnant with our little girl, we could hardly wait to share the good news!

We started calling people on a drive out to beautiful Colorado.  Smiling and happy we passed the miles jabbering along telling everyone we knew.  The pregnancy was off to a great start!  I had such a wonderful doctor who was an angel throughout the process.  She eased my fears, reminding me that every pregnancy is different.  She was right, every pregnancy is different.  While our son was born in record heat for the San Francisco Bay Area…our darling girl was born during record cold in Kansas!

Everything was iced over the night she was born.  My folks had fortunately arrived early–ahead of the date I was to be induced (which was the following Monday.)  We all passed the time laughing, cooking and eating (my Mom is a great cook!) and of course, playing with my son.  We were so busy hanging out that at one point we didn’t even realize that somebody’s car had slid off the road into our yard and ultimately onto our mailbox.  (To our credit, we all thought we heard “something,” although none of us bothered to check.)  Still, the tire marks and the downed mailbox post told the story.  To top off that evening, Steve and I decided to brave the bitter temps and go to Wal-Mart and just walk around, supposedly that’s great for a pregnant woman who wants to speed along the process.  While it never worked for our son, that night I awoke Steve to say that it was time! (I say that I awoke Steve because I did not go to bed that night.  Our little girl had given me the worst insomnia I have ever known and I had grown accustomed to watching late-night infomercials while the rest of the world slept.)

Off we went into the still of an icy night.  Everything progressed smoothly.  I was told that she would probably be born in the late morning or early afternoon.  I passed the time in a horrible hospital gown (whose idea were those things anyway?) watching Bible documentaries (Steve was with me remember) on the History Channel.  When he managed to doze off (I still had insomnia), I couldn’t even change the channel.  Tethered to an IV, I had little mobility and the remote was conveniently still in Steve’s possession.  Oh well.  I gained a great deal of Bible knowledge that night!

Soon it was time.  Nurses scurried around us.  Steve and I were ready.  I fixed my gaze on the giraffe painting across the room.  Only one thing was missing–my doctor!  As wonderful as she was, we were on her time schedule now and I was told not to push until she arrived!  Yikes!  So we waited.  Finally, during the noon hour (and probably the doctor’s lunch break) our baby girl arrived.  It was the easiest delivery ever…what a blessing!  As our little girl tells the story, she “couldn’t wait to get out of there.”

We had no visitors on the first day of our little baby girl’s life.  The weather didn’t permit travel that day.  The hospital was quiet.  We talked on the phone with my folks who were caring for our son, and many other well-wishers who called that day.  Steve had some business to tend to and I was on my own for a while.  Nurses would bring our little girl in and I would look at her in amazement.  She was beautiful.  Big cheeks, a tiny amount of downy hair, and such a small bundle of a body.  Thinking about that day still brings tears to my eyes.

Throughout this week I have relived that day a thousand times as well as countless other “baby girl” memories.  I remember that her nursery was pink and purple with butterflies and bunnies.  I recall that she had her days and nights mixed up.  I remember the colic and the switch to soymilk.  I can’t forget when she fell down the steps or how quickly she learned to walk, practically skipping crawling all together.  I remember how she didn’t even own a doll until she turned one.    I remember her first Oreo, her first lollipop and when she learned to talk… “oh, wow, oh, wow.”  My mind goes back to the holidays we’ve celebrated and, of course, her birthdays:  the Elmo one, the Barbie princess one, the Mermaid one, the cookie baker one, the High School Musical one, the let’s eat at McDonald’s one, the Pop-Princess one and now–this one.

Back to reality and the producer brings everything back into focus.  Each birthday is a blessing and nothing is promised.  My baby girl (who is no longer really a baby) has turned seven.  As I write this it is bitter cold outside, and as far as I know, our mailbox is intact (no ice.)  I still spend way too much time walking around Wal-Mart and my insomnia is merely a thing of the past.  My daughter, who once had her days and nights mixed up, wakes up with the sun and soundly sleeps through the night in a bedroom that is still pink and purple filled with butterflies and bunnies.

Happy, happy birthday, darling Casey.  You are so very LOVED.

Every good and perfect gift is from above… James 1:17