September 11

On September 11th, 2009, Skyler turned two! But of course, she still didn’t grasp the concept of her birthday. We greeted her in the morning with Happy Birthday’s & extra enthusiasm for the day, but to her, it was any ol’ day, headed to Darlene’s for another play day with Riley, Sydney, Ella, and the rest of the kids she asks for when she wakes up. Lately she’s wanted to take along several items with her to daycare, so I found the cute kitty-cat backpack that had been given to her by my friend as a babyshower gift, and thought now is the time for her to put it to use! But on our way out the door, she threw a fit because all her things were inside it and she couldn’t see them.

I dropped her off at daycare and headed to work. Of course, since this day is also a mournful day in our country’s history, I listened to the various radio tributes the rest of my way to work and remembered where I was that day in 2001. That eerie sad feeling came back to me as it does every year. I don’t think that feeling ever fades or gets weaker as the years go by, and I’m grateful for that. It seems some have forgotten the cruel attack on our country and the many deaths of the undeserving.

But since this day on 2007, I’ve had to balance the mourning and remembrance with the celebration of Skyler’s birthday. And for that, I am also grateful. Many friends and acquaintances have commented that “it’s too bad that is Skyler’s birthday” and apologized for how hard that must be for us. But I disagree. Skyler’s birthday signifies hope and life, just as every other birthday, so what better day to celebrate, than a day when hope seems hard to find?

After work & daycare, we celebrated by going to dinner at one of our favorite (oops I mean Skyler’s favorite) restaurants, and then, I don’t know if I should admit this or not, we took Skyler to the toy section of Wal-mart to pick out her present! Is that tacky and unceremonial? We have an excuse: We had planned to have everyone chip in and get her a swingset with slide, because she’s so obsessed with them. That was the plan until last week, when Ronnie’s Granny offered the nice swingset at her house to us, for free! So I hadn’t even thought about other presents for Skyler, and still felt we needed to buy her something. So we decided to let her pick some toys out.

We get to Wal-mart, and what does she go for? A $2 plastic ball. Like she already has at home and at both Grandma’s, and at daycare. Really, child? We try to skip it because she doesn’t need another toy ball, and head for the aisle of age-appropriate toys. She proceeds to have a dramatic breakdown in front of the Dora & Elmo dolls, so we give in and let her have another new $2 ball. Even though that is all she cares about, Ronnie and I go ahead and pick out an educational Leap Frog computer thingy and a Magna Doodle Pro. Oh, and some magnetic letters for the fridge.

We have a party at the park with family this Sunday, so we let her play with the ball but we are wrapping everything else so she can open it then. She doesn’t care anyway, since the only thing she cares about is that cheap ball. Which she brought with her to bed for this afternoon’s nap!