Worth the wait

My brother has a way of making his opinion sound more like fact. So, when he called the night my labor pains were getting close to ten minutes apart and said, "You need to get to the hospital. You won't have any problems, you have wide hips," I believed him.

Armed with that promising thought, my husband and I anxiously headed to the hospital for the arrival of our first baby. For the first time, wide hips sounded like a good idea. 

We checked into the hospital around 9:00 on a Friday night. I figured I'd be holding my new baby by midnight. But, hours passed.  I labored and labored. We waited and waited. By morning the doctor said, this baby's not budging and I was rolled into the operating room for a c-section. How could this happen? I had wide hips.

Little did I know that this waiting game was a sign of things to come. We would spend years waiting for our daughter. Time after time, my husband and I paced back and forth while our son sat quietly as we waited for our daughter to come down stairs to go somewhere. Anywhere. Every time.

She simply doesn't like to hurry. And while it may be one of her most frustrating habits, it is also one of her most wonderful qualities.

You can't accuse her of not taking time to stop and smell the roses. She stops. Smells them. Admires them. Compares them to other flowers and then takes pictures of them. She takes time to appreciate things most people don't even notice... a bunny under a tree, a squirrel eating a nut, a little girl with a cute haircut, a duck bobbing along in the water, a group of toddlers walking in a line holding onto a rope. I know. I have the pictures to prove it.

When she lived in New York City, she texted pictures of the Empire State Building to me every few days as if she were seeing it for the first time. She took her lunch to Central Park and sat on her favorite rock to enjoy a sunny day. She walked 22 blocks to and from work everyday to take in the city even in the pouring rain.

She looks up as she walks so she doesn't miss a thing. She notices the most ordinary things and helps you to see them as extraordinary. She embodies the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Life is a journey, not a destination."

Today she celebrates her 24th birthday. No doubt she will take her time to delight in everything that comes her way... a cupcake with a candle in it, a birthday card with a funny message, a child she sees joyously swinging on the playground, a cute dog hanging its head out of a car window, an inch worm. And no doubt, her radiant smile and unmistakable laugh will show all who cross her path that she is happy, appreciative and worth waiting for.

Happy Birthday to my wonderful, pokey little daughter! Thank you for helping me see everything from Paris to bunnies through your eyes.

Hold on! Look at this cute, little bunny!