Counting My Blessings...

I spent the majority of last week feeling absolutely miserable. I was feeling sorry for myself and I was probably miserable to everyone around me. I must have had a lot of people praying for me, because I woke up Saturday morning with a totally different outlook, and that outlook remains: I am insanely blessed. A lot of people say that, and a lot of people believe it. I am one who embraces it. This being Mother's Day, I am going to count two of my most treasured blessings:

Devyn Ainsley

Devyn was born at 12:47 pm on a Thursday. She was this gorgeous, tiny (5 lbs,11oz) little thing that brought out the most incredible feeling in me. I remember the night she was born and our family had all left to go to dinner and it was just she and I in the hospital room. I remember clearly thinking "I haven't seen your feet yet"...so I unwrapped her and I couldn't get over how she was still all curled up and she looked just like a little lady bug. I think I started calling her that right then...my little lady bug. I looked at her and felt in that moment that my heart honestly was looking back at me.

Before I knew it, she was 2 years old and I was dropping her off for her first day of preschool. She cried, and cried...and cried some more. I knew it would be good for her, and honestly I needed a break, but on my way out of the building, I peeked in the window of her room and made sure she was doing ok. She was pretty happy at that point, but her curly little head was still happily clinging to her teacher, Shabana. She came to love her school, and her teachers, as she loved the Boating Lake at Regent Park in London. Looking back on it now, I would love the opportunity to spend one more day with 2 year old Devyn...

And now she's seven years old. SEVEN! How did that happen? Honestly, it was like I blinked...on her birthday last year, I was perhaps the saddest I have ever been. I picked her up out of her bed and laid her in bed with Mike and I and I just held her all night, hoping to hold on to her for just a little while longer...

She's amazing. She is what made me a mother. She is my entertainer...the singer of our family, the one who's always dancing, and jumping around and doing cannonballs in her bathtub (when there's not water in it) and she puts a smile on my heart everyday. She loves her kitty cat, Nummy, the color purple, and dresses. She would honestly wear a dress everyday if I let her! I look at her and realize how much she has taught me; to love the moment, whatever the moment is...to tell the people you love them how much you do, every day...to sing no matter the circumstance and to embrace life completely. I thank God every day for her...

Aiden Bryanston

Aiden, unlike his sister, was planned. If she was the most wonderful, shocking surprise, he was the miracle. After he was born, on a Monday morning at 10:13 am Greenwich Mean Time in London, I read in my medical report that he never should have survived the pregnancy. Apparently, his heartbeat was very low and our doctor wrote"...pregnancy not expected to survive. Baby has low, weak heartbeat and heartbeat is expected to weaken..." Well. It did not weaken. He survived and was born this gorgeous, tiny (5 lbs, 10 oz) little boy who slept beautifully and ate like a champ. He had a very bad issue with Reflux for the first year of his life and I recall one day where I changed shirts SEVEN times. He gave his first smile to his big sister as she was watching Cinderella and they've been best friends ever since. He had one tooth in his head for six months before he got another. He wouldn't eat baby food for anyone but me (and I secretly loved that...)and started giving kisses and hugs at 9 months.

He has opened up a whole 'nother world for me. I knew how to "do" girls--I know what little girls like to do, what they like to play with, how they operate, because I am one! I was terrified to learn we were having a boy. Terrified. I knew nothing about boys. Now, four years later, I can "aarrrghh" with the best of the pirates that are out there, I can get Jack Sparrow up a zipline on his pirate ship in a nanosecond, and I can hold my own with MarioKart.

Aiden has taught me to lighten up. To just laugh for no reason, and to love reading. I always enjoyed reading, but he has reawakened that in me because of his love for it. He's incredibly talented and humorous, and makes me laugh every time I turn around. Beyond that, he's taught me to play. To take time out, every day and just play. We have played more rounds of Scooby Doo and the Haunted Mansion and the Magic Kingdom game than I can count, and I wouldn't have it any other way. He is generous and concerned for everyone and I thank God for him every day.

I am so grateful that the Lord trusted me and Mike enough to loan these two sweet babies to us. I am reminded regularly that they are not mine...that it's our job, Mike's and mine, to raise them as God would have us. I'm just like every other mom who loses her temper at times, and questions what in the world I'm doing. But I keep praying and every once in a while I get a glimpse that I'm doing something right. And the rights are Devyn and Aiden. They are what I'm (currently) doing right.