On the Eve of a New Decade, A Look Back

Who are those young people?

The kids pegged Scott right away.

They all thought they were the baby featured.

Nobody knew who the girl was!!!

Well, that's Scott and me and the day we became parents, so that's Baby Kaden, who will turn nine in a few days. Thinking back over this first decade of the new millenium, I can hardly believe how our lives have been transformed. That selfish girl who thought the world revolved around her, had five kids and moved cross country four times. That tennis/golf obsessed boy who waited tables, graduated from medical school, deployed to the middle east, and became a board certified dermatologist. There hasn't been much "me" time, no golf or tennis time, and we can count the number of dates we've had on one hand. But... what a decade it has been!

Kaden turned our world inside out and then, only a year later, our family was complete when we welcomed Chloe. We went home to visit family the next year (from Andrews AFB, MD) and brought home a stowaway, Sam, who would be born during a rather nasty blizzard our first winter in Spokane (Fairchild AFB, WA). Our family felt huge, but somehow our hearts had grown accordingly, and so our family was complete. Until something got in the water and it seemed everyone we knew at church and our neighbors all got pregnant and we experienced the worst three weeks of our lives while Abby was saved and then recovered in the NICU. Our little blonde, dimpled beauty completed our rather larger than anticipated family. It wasn't even a month into our move to San Antonio (Lackland AFB, TX) and Scott's dermatology residency that we discovered just how mistaken we were. And so, Jack became the exclamation point to our family picture and we would never venture outside of the house without hearing someone comment on the size of our family again, but at least we were done. This last summer, we moved back to the DC area, living just up the parkway from Mount Vernon in Alexandria, VA. Scott is the staff dermatologist at Andrews AFB and once again, I find myself in the all too familiar predicament of growing another little miracle. I won't tempt fate by declaring this is our last...

It's been a decade of sleepless nights, of giggles and first steps, of babies who seem to grow up overnight. I might have started out as a mother counting the days until the kids went to preschool and then kindergarten, but somehow I found my greatest joy in educating them at home. I've made so many mistakes, dropped the ball so many times, and really failed to protect my little ones (Sam falling out the second story window stands out to me), but God has His hand on them. He fills the gaps I've neglected. He heals the hearts I've carelessly wounded. He has bound our family with an inexpressible love that is anything but invisible. I have such hope for the new year, for the new decade. I don't expect much of it will be easy. I don't expect I'll get anymore sleep. But I've got a feeling I'm going to stand amazed in another ten years at how the loves of my life have changed and at how they've changed me.

God's blessing on you in the year to come.