1 Up

And there you have it.  A baby becomes a little girl.  Rosaline turned 1 yesterday.  The big 1.0.  It's crazy.  Two years ago she wasn't a part of the plan.  One year ago she became the new plan and today. ... well, today we realized that our planning sucks and that whoever is running this circus is much better at this kind of stuff.  I always thought I was awesome.  Sounds bad when you say it out loud but that's what I thought.  Me, alone. ... I could do what ever I wanted.  Not like, stay up till midnight eating chocolate covered waffles and watching rated R movies.  But like what ever direction I wanted to go I could conquer the world and become master of my own domain.  Then I met Gina.  That's when I realized how truly wobbly I really was.  I wasn't conquering the world I was providing the tread for it's foot to walk on.  Suddenly I was emboldened.  Here was this stunningly beautiful, brilliantly minded and compassionately unequalled woman who found something in me to love.  If that didn't give me the confidence and a support to start kicking ass and taking names then nothing could.  And I thought, at the time, my god we are truly awesome.  And then Zoe came.  I thought how perfect the world was.  How lucky we were in that moment.  How fortunate.  And then we lost her.  She was gone.  The moment was tarnished.  What happened is not what you might expect.  It should have been a crushing blow.  At the very least it should have knocked me from my pedestal again. ... but it didn't.  It hurt. ... worse than anything I could ever begin to explain through written word. ... but it didn't knock me down.  That support, that brace, that strength. ... she held me up.  And I pulled her up.  And in that moment I knew how truly awesome we were.  A few months later we found out about the twins.  Briefly I thought how maybe we weren't quite awesome enough to handle this. ... but I got over that.  And then I held them.  I realized in the at moment, clutching a newborn in each arm, how much we had really been missing.  Gina gave me all the confidence in the world, but motivation wasn't what I thought it was.  I had swagger, but I had nothing to drive it forward.  In that instant I realized I needed to be more; not for me, not for Gina. ... but for these two little creatures who suddenly depended so much on me.  And in the years that followed. ... you got it. ... I realized how awesome we were as a family.  Some year and change after that, the little pee stick showed two lines.  I cried a little.  I did.  I had obtained awesome and I didn't know how this would effect my awesome.  And then we thought we lost her too.  I flashed to Zoe.  Her loss made me appreciate the twins so much, and now, to think I lost another one (prepared for or not). ... I didn't know how I'd cope.  But there was my support.  There was my strength.  She held me up and I pulled her up once again.  And, surprise!  She wasn't lost.  She was there.  A brilliant little flash of blobbiness on a dark computer monitor.  And I realized, once again, how awesome we were.  Of course, we also realized how little space we had.  So much awesome we had no place to put it all.  So my in-laws, with out hesitation, opened their home to us all.  And I realized, then, just how awesome they were. How truly awesome they are.  That amazing woman holding me up. ... she brought reinforcements along with her that I never really noticed were there.  And they held us up.  And then she was born.  All by herself.  One lonely little baby that seemed so odd.  I felt like I had so much time to just sit and stare at her in that nursery because there wasn't a screaming banshee copy in the cradle next door.  Just her.  Big eyes staring at me.  Little finger clutching mine.  She didn't cry much.  She didn't fuss.  She just looked at me.  And there. ... right there. ... I realized how unawesome I was.  How alone, I'm insignificant.  How on my own two feet I'm just an average nobody.  But somehow, by some act of mercy, fortune or randomness these components, these gifts fell in to my lap.  They brought me strength.  They brought me courage.  They brought me passion and desire and tenacity.  They made an ordinary man extraordinary.  They made me - this simpleton - awesome.  Happy Birthday my sweet Rosaline.  May you some day know the joy I have watching every second of your life unfold before my humbled eyes.