Ode to my daughter....

I realized today that I spend a lot of time complaining about my lot in life. It can be difficult, but it's not that I don't love my life, it's just that it's a hard transition to make. It's also hard reconciling the life I'm living with the life I always thought I would live. Let me just state briefly that this is NOT the life I thought I would be living. If someone had told me ten years ago that John and I would end up falling in love, getting married, and having children, I would have thought they were CRA-A-A-ZY! I mean...not only did John and I have the hot hates for each other in high school, he was also in love with my best friend! I always sort of thought I'd end up married to Morgan (dodged a bullet there) or would be a teacher and live in a cute little brick garden home near my parents house with a few cats and a couple of pugs--at least until I found the guy for me and got married. Anyway, my point is that life rarely turns out the way you think it's going to, but that doesn't make it a bad thing at all. I do love my life--I'm so blessed to have wonderful, wonderful parents, an amazing husband who does everything in his power to make me happy, and a beautiful, healthy, sweet baby girl. Motherhood is the hardest, scariest, most wonderful, most time consuming, and least selfish thing I think I've ever done in my life. I always thought that I wanted to have 2-4 children, but now that I have Olivia...I don't see a point. God gave me the most incredible blessing (one that I surely don't deserve) that I could ever in my life receive and it seems almost selfish to have another child! Olivia is wonderful and amazing and everything that I could ever want in a child. I love her. I love that she has my mom's big blue eyes, I love that she has one dimple in her cheek (that we can't figure out where it came from because no one in the family has dimples!) I love that when we take her out places, people always comment on how much hair she has. I love how happy she is to see John when he gets home from work and how she smiles so big whenever my parents talk to her on the speakerphone. I love how she laughs so big every time we pretend like we're munching on her belly. I love taking naps with her on the couch in the afternoon and I love how excited she gets to see me when I pick her up after my parents have been babysitting her. I'm so excited for her life--for taking her to the park to play and taking her to the circus. I'm excited for her first day of school and hearing about what she learned about and boys that she gets crushes on. I'm excited to see if she wants to be in band, like John and I were, or drama or choir or cheerleading or dance team or volleyball or yearbook. I'm excited about shopping for prom dresses with her and watching movies and eating popcorn with her on Saturday afternoons (just like I did with my mom) I love my daughter and I don't know what I did to deserve her (I definitely think I'm undeserving of this blessing), but I'm so thankful to God for blessing my life so much and I'll spend the rest of my life thanking Him everyday for her! The End. :-)