Let’s Be Young

At 1:30 today, our lives drastically changed thanks to an amazing love and gift from two birth parents. Nolin entered this world much in the same way that he lives in it…fast and curious.

It is nearly impossible for me to imagine a life before Nolin. He has brought so much joy (and gray hair), laughter, and awe to my days, that these past 3,285 days seem to have passed in an instant.

I have admittedly been terrible at keeping up with my blog and my attempts to document these major milestones and mini-moments that have made life so rewarding, but last night as the two of us sat in bed talking about being 9 and how to stop him from growing up any more, we read my first two blog posts:

• And So Our Story Begins
• The Arrival

It was two moments captured in time where things were moving fast and incredibly slow at the same time. And I realized (as Nolin sat, fully engaged in my written dialogue (even correcting some of my grammar) of his first two days), how great it was to be able to share that exact moment with him now that he is a little bit older and can understand and appreciate it.

But here we are now…nine years and hundreds of stories later, and I am watching my boy grow up way too fast. So Nolin, I’ll give you nine…but like I said last night, you need to quickly figure out a way to stop growing up, because I am not sure what I will do when you become a teenager.

Thank you, Nolin, for all the memories and moments that you have share with all of us. We love you more than you will ever fully understand and we hope that this trip around the sun is even better than the last.

Happy Birthday!