Today our beautiful Nora is three years old. Usually as my kids grow from baby to big kid I grieve the swift passing of childhood, but after our experience of losing Lucy and fighting for Nora and Callum I feel differently as my kids grow. I savor it all like never before and the baby days gone by are celebrated because they WERE. Nora isn’t just a longing or a dream. She is our beautiful reality and we are loving every minute, every day, every year and every milestone we get with her.

Nora is shifting from toddler to preschooler and is growing in so many ways. She is completely potty trained, has stopped using her pacifier, she sleeps in her big girl bed every night and she can get herself dressed, but she still drinks her milk from a bottle, heated up to breast milk temperature 🙈 All of her other drinks are given in a normal cup or sippy cup. Nora is still the most maternal child I’ve ever encountered. Her favorite toys are baby dolls and her birthday party is going to be a baby doll birthday party, of course. Her favorite baby to take care of is her baby Callum. Every morning when she wakes up she immediately asks, “Where’s Callum?” and he is the first person she wants to see. She tries to feed him, change him, boss him, teach him, protect him and play with him every day. It heals my soul to watch their friendship blossom.

Just as the grief for a missing child resurfaces multiple times a day, so the gratitude for my Nora bubbles to the surface again and again and I drink in her life and her light. Not only do I rejoice at knowing all the little details of her unique personality, but I also relish the fact that I get to raise a girl, my daughter. I get to buy dresses and baby dolls and I get to sign Nora up for ballet lessons this fall. I get to throw a little girl birthday party with pink, sparkly decorations and rainbows and baby dolls. I get to do all the things I dreamed about doing with my daughter and there is still a whole future of possibilities I look forward too. I can’t wait to read my favorite childhood books with her soon…Anne of Green Gables, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Little Women, Junie B Jones, and so many more. I just love being Nora’s Mommy and I cannot express how she has enriched our lives over the past three years. We love her so much. Happy birthday beautiful girl 💜