On the Third Day of Christmas

Well I suppose this blessing ( and several that will follow) won't come as any big surprise. My Ashlynn Bearbie... my light and my heart ( or at least half of it she shares it all with her sister now) Yes Ashlynn is a blessing and easily could be counted two or three times when you get right down to it. She taught me the depths that love truly can reach. I was raised in a very loving family. So I thought I knew all there was to know about being a mom... and then I met and married my husband. I found a whole new world of love in the man that I love and married... but then I had my children. THAT was a lesson in love to be sure.
I had been around children before Ashlynn. I had worked at a preschool.. and I had spent the weekends with Codie and Keagan. When my niece Ariah was born I babysat her. I had learned to love being around children. Every parent in the world that I knew would say to me " Just wait until you have your own... It is a whole new world." I used to scoff at that. Because how could I possibly love a child of my own MORE than I loved Codie or Keagan or Ariah. It simply wasn't possible. And then I had my own my little Ashlynn... and I very quickly realized that it has nothing to do with quantity. I didn't love her more that was a silly thought. The difference was the intimacy of how I loved her. The difference was the organic nature of the love. The difference was that this child of my body is a part of me even though she is an entity apart from me. That was what all of those parents had meant. And yes it is different but simply that different.
The process of having Ashlynn taught me that miracles can happen. Ashlynn was pregnancy number five for me. We struggled and struggled to have a baby... and time after time we lost our babies. We sat in chairs at funerals for our children and we wondered if it would ever happen. But Ashlynn taught me that persistence can pay off. Amazement and awe were two words that would describe the moment I first held my daughter... but relief also was mixed in there. After years of trying we had finally succeeded, and victory felt good.
Yes Ashlynn is a blessing in my life for so very very many reasons. This post could go on indefinitely if it weren't for the fact that my little blessing is asking for me to get her a cup of water... and various other lists of things that she wants, which means that she wants my attention. And we fought too damn hard to have the blessing of children in our life to take that blessing for granted so I am going to go play with her... besides she just told me that she needs her diaper changed and if I am not there when she needs that done, she will take it off herself... so very nice to have a two year old in the house. Truly a blessing!