November 20th, 2005:

November 20th, 2006:

November 20th, 2007:

I have no idea how she’s already two whole years old. I sit here typing now and know that this time two years ago, I was probably dozing in my hospital bed because I was too excited to sleep what with the new little person in the bassinet beside me. Or maybe I was sitting up and nursing her while cramming some of my leftover snack into my mouth (I eat a lot anyway – early days of breastfeeding makes me pretty much eat anything that isn’t bolted down). Maybe I was talking on the phone to George who was back at home trying to convince Hayley to go to sleep. I don’t remember. Sometimes I wish that I had been filmed at every second of my stay so I could remember what I was doing at any given moment during those first two days after giving birth. Well. Maybe not EVERY second.

I never could have looked at that little face two years ago, the one that was so new, and imagined who she would grow into. I didn’t know she would grow to have a funny sense of humor, that she would love to draw for an incredible amount of time, that she would be such a dancing fiend, that she would have such a high-pitched giggle, that she would hug me and pat my shoulders if I pretended to cry, that she would love her sister tremendously, that she would start slow on the talking but explode with vocabulary shortly before age two, that she would give me a few grey hairs by walking at NINE months, that she would make herself such a solid part of our family that we couldn’t imagine life before her.

Mostly I didn’t know that the cliche was true. Whenever someone is pregnant with their second child, it seems common to worry, “how will I love two children as much as I love one? How will I divide my love?” And parents of two or more will tell you that with each child, your love doesn’t divide, it multiplies.

I thought it was kind of corny but I came to find it’s true. Some things divide. Your time divides. Your attention divides. Your priorities may divide. But the love really doesn’t multiply. The heart isn’t a pie with each additional person taking one more slice. It’s more like the way the Grinch’s heart grows bigger – the first kid makes it grow bigger so you can love the person you’re with plus your new child, and then with the second it grows bigger again so that you can love that new addition just as much too.

Happy birthday Breanna, I love you!

(There’s a full birthday set on Flickr right here and you can read about my super-fast just under four hour labor was in her birth story.)