maura katherine - one year

sugar and spice and everything nice... happy first birthday to our "baby", "sweet girl", "sister", and lil' boo", a little bit late. i feel that i need to pinch myself often when i look at you. my daughter. my own little girl. the love i feel for you runs deeper than i ever thought possible. when we found out you were a girl i couldn't believe it. for days and days i had this feeling inside of just being so excited and giddy about the idea of a little girl. everything made me heart smile, from the silliness of hair bows, dresses, tutus and a Barbie dreamhouse to the notion of you and i being best friends and banning together against your dad and brothers.

you are adorable, sweet, tough and always smiling. you have been an easy-going and charming baby since the day you were born. you have managed to chew the tires off of every hot wheels car you can find, you love to dig in the dirt with your brothers, dig in cabinets and drawers, and you have an impressive vocabulary for a 13 month old. cup, da-da, ma-ma, uh-oh, sit, thank you, please, bye-bye and several other phrases which we haven't quite figured out yet. you can screech on a much higher decibel level than i think your dad has ever heard before and you give hugs, kisses and love to hand us trash off the floor to throw away. you have already had a black eye, fallen off the porch and fished in the toilet many times. when we can't find you we can go right to your brothers' room and see you digging in their nightstand drawer full of "treasures." keirnan loves you fiercely and loyally calling you only "baby." HIS baby. seamus is finding you more interesting in the last few weeks as he can impart his worldly almost-5 year- old knowledge on you about how to write with chalk instead of eat it and how to build legos. and they both love to make you laugh and have you wrestle with them on the floor.

you have added a whole new dimension to our lives and our family. i thank god every day for sending you to me, for keeping you safe during all the complications of my pregnancy and delivery and for making you such a sweet little lovable, squeezable, intoxicating bundle of love. we love you so much, baby. happy belated birthday.

KSH, Age 3

You are three. You are beautiful. You are mine. You have added joy and excitement and love and laughter to our lives. You were meant to be here, meant to be in our family, meant to be Booper. Somehow 2 years have gone by since I last posted about your first birthday. You have learned to talk in full paragraphs, you keep pace with Seamus, you are in your "big boy bed," you wear Silly Bandz, you ride a bike, you are almost using the potty full time, you can now say Seamus, instead of Shay-nus or Shay-nan. You like to dance and swing outside and watch Scooby on the fee-vee. You are also stubborn and strong and tough. You have learned a lot in three years from your brother. And you idolize him. He is your best friend. I hope that is always the case. You swim in sunglasses instead of goggles becasue the sun hurts your gorgeous blue eyes. You are charming, comical and intense. You can suck your thumb while doing almost anything, including riding your bike, swinging and sitting on the potty.

You are almost completly able to get yourself dressed and your new-found pride in doing things for yourself makes me want to squeeze you and never let go. You love to ask me to "talk about it" in the car when you want to know more about something. You tell me I am boo-tiful and that you love me so much. You warm my heart.

In two short years you, like all of us, have adjusted to life with 3 young children in 3 1/2 short years. You are in the middle of a big brother and a little sister. You love your baby sister with a passion that is fierce and tender at the same time. You kiss her, call her boo-tiful, think all her dresses are "pin-cess" dresses and love to make her laugh. You are her protector. You have never been jealous of her-- only loving and kind and gentle. Your heart is so big, Little K. Your energy and love for life is the same.

It can't be normal for a mom to be sad on every birthday, is it? Every milestone you have accomplished is huge, but now it is all lumped together as we celebrate via Batman Style on Saturday. I feel wistful and teary-eyed as I reflect on your little life so far and how much you have changed and how fast it has gone. I want to freeze you right now and hold you forever. I love you with every fiber in my being. I love you for being completely different than Seamus in every way imagineable. I love you for being like me in many ways. I love you for trying so hard to be my helper and "take care of yourself." I love you for digging your heels in when you just don't want to do something. I love you for having such good manners, espcially when we ask you to do something and you reply "no thank you." I love you.

Happy Birthday Kiernan Stevens Hardin. Happy Birthday K Boop. Happy Birthday Sweet Booper. Thank you, God, for blessing me with this amazing, charming, precious, tender, hard-headed, beautiful little soul.

Hatched

We made it till about now before Seamus figured out that a new baby is going to arrive in September. 3 1/2 months is still an awfully long time for him to wait, but he seems to be okay with waiting for now.

I would be remiss if I did not at least jot down somewhere Seamus' comments from last night about the arrival of our new baby. We were chatting after his bath, and his favorite topic these days is "his baby" and how he/she is going to arrive. He speaks in paragraphs, and uses a lot of hand movements, so it does not really do it justice to type it on here. It went something like this...

S: I can't wait for my baby to come. My baby is going to hatch out of your belly. And when the baby hatches I will take good care of the baby. I am a good big brother. And your belly will be all broken when it hatches.

Me: No, my belly won't be all broken. I will be fine. Are you excited about the new baby?

S: I am really excited for our baby to hatch. And then your belly won't be so big anymore. I really want a baby sister, because I already have a brother. Can I watch Curious George now?