Happy Family Day!!

*disappointed sigh*

So I had really planned to do today up big.  It’s THE. BIG. DAY.  I was going to have a post written looking back on the past year (which I do have partially written), and I was going to have several of my favorite pictures from the past year (other than the ones on the sidebar) highlighted.  And then I was going to have some recent pictures to show.

Alas, I have been so incredibly swamped and overwhelmed the entire past two weeks, that I haven’t even had time to read!  That’s HUGE for me if you recall #6 on my “Tag!” post.  If I can get 6 hours of sleep a night, I’m on the “above” side of average.  Ugh!  (Not Gigi related, btw.  Someday I’ll share.)

Speaking of the little rascal though, if I had to sum her up in two words, they would be AWESOME and RECKLESS.  She’s just plain awesome.  And so darn, stinkin’ smart.  She’s already learning how to count, and she’s starting to self potty train.  She’s only one and a half!  When did all THAT happen?  Next thing I know, she’ll be solving quadratic equations at 5, and expecting to go to the prom at 7.  As for the reckless part, I swear that girl is going to give us both heart attacks before we’re 40.  Jim climbed up on the roof to blow out the gutters.  Guess who had no problem following!  (I was there- never fear that we neglect her.)  She climbed right up the ladder (look ma, no hands!) and was making a go for the roof before I rained on her parade.  Then Wednesday night she pulled another, “Hey, watch this!” stunt doing a backwards somersault over the ottoman that landed her right on the top of her head, crunching her neck (marble flooring) which constituted a run to urgent care with instructions to wake her every 4 hours to make sure she’s still responsive.  Good grief!!  (She’s fine other than a big knot on her head.)

She’s just so darn cute though.

Ok, anyway, back to THE DAY.  Today is our magical family day.  July 25th.  The day we arrived home and started our life as a family of 3.  To me, this day is more real and has more significance than all the other days.  As I was putting Gigi to bed last night, I was thinking, “Right now at this very moment, we were on a series of 3 flights that took us half way around the world.  A series of flights that took 26 hours from the time we left the apartment in Almaty to the time we walked in our own front.”  We AP’s joke about how the flight home is similar to the labor pain of giving birth.   Sitting here a year later, the thought makes me laugh at just how much so at least in theory.  Here’s why:

- For the first six hours I tried the natural route and we were miserable.  It was a hellish flight.

- I then broke down and used the drugs (Baby Benadryl) and it became so much easier.

- At the end of the ordeal, I emotionally made the ultimatum, “I am NEVER flying with a baby ever again!”

- At the end of all that anguish, we arrived home with a beautiful baby.

- And lastly, having her here made it all worth it, and as the memories fade, I’ve declared that I’m ready to do it again!

I’ll get to the real post sometime in the near future and finish my thoughts.  I just couldn’t let the most important day go unmentioned so for now I’ll just steal one of my lines from the post-to-be, “Happy Family Day to Us!!”