six

It's her birthday. She's six today.

Six years ago she was born in the middle of a summer night after we'd spent the day at the beach.

Jay ran upstairs to get Heidi and Kirsten, who were home from college for the summer. They came downstairs to say hi to Julia.


In the morning, when Tim woke up, we wondered what he'd think about this. He was not even two yet, and we weren't sure what he even understood about the new baby.

He climbed over the foot board of our bed and saw Julia. He dove in the middle, wrapped his arms around her, and welcomed her like an old friend, "A bee-bee! Mine bee-bee!" He was serious too, wouldn't give her back, beamed, "Mine bee-bee, Joo-yah!"

He never even seemed jealous, just really happy to have her.



She's the tenth child, mine bee-bee too. She's like the cherry on top of a big, giant sundae of family.



some of us on the 4th of July, 2004

She was born shortly after our 25th wedding anniversary.

As we watched her and her dad swimming last summer, I told a friend I'm so glad I didn't know ahead of time about Julia, how many decades our family would span, because I really don't think I could have waited twenty-five years for this one. I couldn't have stood it.



Yesterday at the lake, her dad took Sam for a walk first thing in the morning. Julia and I were the only ones awake and she climbed into bed on her dad's pillow, and showed me the Hershey bar she'd brought from the fridge.

I don't want chocolate that early, but I ate a few bites--bites so sweet they hurt my mouth--and held Julia in the crook of my arm, her blonde hair everywhere, a breeze blowing the curtains over the bed. Lucky me.

Tonight everybody's coming for supper--Julia's asked for tortellini, and I have a cake to bake.

Okay, we say this all the time because it's the truth: The whole family is better with you in it.

Thank you for being my girl. love, Mom