April 8, 2012

This is the first time our daughter set foot inside her crib. Her crib in a room of her own.

I’m sure it was a shock to her, arriving at this new, strange place with sounds and smells she didn’t recognize. Big Papa and I were elated to be in our home and sleep in our bed. We’d just spent 26 hours (with all of us sick) traveling from Yerevan (where we awoke at 3:00 AM to no heat and no water), through London, before landing in Seattle (where it took forever to pass first through U.S. Customs and then U.S. Immigration). But for our daughter, this was the beginning of a new chapter.

I try to imagine what it might have been like for her to spend the first year of her life in a room filled with cribs, lined up in rows, literally side-by-side, surrounded by other children, many nannies to care for her, but not one person who was hers and hers alone. No one with enough time to read her a bedtime story, a bottle propped against her chest with which to soothe herself.

April 8, 2014

Baby Bird has been in and out of her crib over a thousand times. She hosts tea parties, sings songs, and occasionally practices acrobatics inside her crib. Every nook and cranny of her room is familiar to her, and she will notice immediately if anything is amiss. The concept of “mine” is firmly set (sometimes maybe a bit too much so). Together we’ve read countless bedtime stories and have shared innumerable meals.

Two years ago she had nothing she could lay claim to and call her own. Two years ago we had an empty crib and room in our hearts.

And now we have each other. Bed. Home. Family.

Take the road less traveled, Beth