Our Girl’s 2nd Birthday with her Forever Family

As mentioned in the last blog, our little girl turned nine last week.  A bit of information I found interesting this year, her second year with us, was Nora’s diatribe of her birthdays before she came to our family.  As I was whipping up white and pink Fun-Da-Middles (cupcakes with pink pudding in the center), Nora stood next to me and explained for the twenty-seventh time that she never had a birthday party in Colombia.  She never got a birthday gift before.  She never had a cake, nor candles, nor a celebration.  They did sing Feliz Cumpleanos, but that was all.  The day of her birth was not a special day in her homeland and she needed to explain that …. again.  I obviously needed to know this…. again.

I listened and reassured her, “Don’t worry, it will be like THIS for the rest of your life!”  I’m not certain if she was making sure THIS was going to continue, or just reaffirming that she liked THIS and didn’t want to go back to that?  Maybe it is therapeutic for her to talk out her history?  She knows that we have heard the story before, but every detail needed to be explained …. again.  Maybe she is still in awe that we love her so much, that she matters in this house, that her life is to be celebrated with JOY and lots of friends and little pink waxy candles and family.

What is commonplace to us North American suburbanites is NOT normal in most of the world.  Often, we forget.  When we are wrapped up in the here and now of two-story blow-up jumpies, and petting zoos that come to our house, and $700 parties at an indoor playland, sometimes I feel we forget we are celebrating THIS SPECIAL CHILD  just for being who they are!  Their life is a blessing!  We are blessed to have each of these children!  And celebrating is a beautiful part of life!