Our daughter leaves the terrible twos today and enters in the year of possibilities for even more dramatic growth- physically, emotionally, cognitively, and even spiritually.  As excited as we are that she’s at the doorstep of this phase, we’re always ambivalently sad as we have to let go of that previous year because it’s only proof that her baby days are slowly slipping away.

This means a lot to many parents, mainly because their innocence and stark joy for the simplest things were in those phases.  She’d see a butterfly and be genuinely awed.  She’d hear a tune and be automatically animated.  I know some people don’t outgrow the wonder sometimes, but age definitely sedates it, and makes it harder for us to appreciate only what children can define.

But with age, there’s a promise- a promise of potential, walking alongside w/ hope and excited anticipation and surprise.  That’s what we look forward to w/ every passing year with Emmanuelle, because we’ve learned as novice parents, that we’re continually surprised, even with our expectations.  We are immensely blessed by her life, her laughter, her thoughts, her humor, her sass, and her quiet wonder. 

I can’t really explain the emotion of a mother, as Perze probably couldn’t either, but it goes along something like this deep huge ball that you could feel inside your chest that contains galaxies of fear, hope, pain, joy, etc…triggered by the world affecting your child…and with each trigger, those things are amplified and all you want to do is shape their world as much as you can, because what affects them affects you too. 

But with all the mama drama aside, I want to welcome Emmanuelle to her new year, thanking God for molding her so lovingly and personally.  God be the glory for her life and development.  Last night, before sleeping, we were laughing over the day I went into labor w/ her.  Today, she woke up around 5am saying that Hong Hong (her cousin) is coming over to give her a present.  She’s quite excited that it’s her birthday, proudly admitting that she’s now “three years old.”  And to beautifully start her third year, while her parents were in the midst of sleeping and acknowledging, she sang:

“Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost but now I am found
Was blind, but now, I see.”

                        

HAPPY BIRTHDAY OUR BELOVED EMMANUELLE GRACE.
WE LOVE YOU DEEPLY.  THANK YOU FOR YOUR LOVE.