Musings Upon Approaching the Eve of a 5th Birthday

We're gearing up for a fifth birthday party here on Saturday. As there are no little girls Lainey's age from church, we've invited people to come who are special to Lainey. These include the surrogate grandparents from church, our favorite babysitter, an 11 year old who loves to play with Lainey at church and her mom, and some other good friends of the family. It would be neat to have several 5 year old girls running around for a couple of hours (if not neat, at least loud and giggly), but how much more of a blessing that Lainey is able to befriend people of all different ages. I'm very grateful for that and think it will be a great benefit to her as she grows up to have the ability to meet and deal with all kinds of different people. I'm especially thankful that these folks love our family enough to be a part of a 5th birthday. We've ordered Lainey an ice cream cake from Dairy Queen and I think she's going to be really excited about it. She picked it out without knowing she was picking it out because mom was slick! I'm excited to see her reaction when I pick it up tomorrow. Time really does go by too quickly. It's hard to believe that this time 5 years ago (on a Thursday night in fact) I was waiting for the phone to ring telling me to come to the hospital because they had a room ready. That call didn't come until Friday morning and she didn't come until Saturday morning, but what a blessing! I look at this beautiful little girl who sits at our table and makes jokes and wonder where that little infant I brought home disappeared to! Time goes too quickly; I just pray that we can treasure each moment with all three of our girls and not take any of it for granted. What a gift from God and an awesome responsibility to be a Mommy!