We celebrated Kate’s 11th birthday a few days ago.  Wait…what?! It seems like only yesterday we brought home our wailing bundle of joy from the hospital on that suffocating, excruciatingly hot day at Fort Benning, Georgia.  The day only became hotter for my husband, who had to securely wrestle a car seat into our aging Dodge Dynasty.  After assembling a crib, a swing,  and a pack-n-play, you’d think installing an infant car seat would be a snap.  Negative, ghost rider; ask any new parent.  We apparently were unaware that six arms and an engineering degree would be required in order to effectively position the aforementioned 5-point harness child safety/restraining contraption.

When she turned a year old, Brian and I were ecstatic that we were able to keep a baby alive for an entire year!  We never dropped her, forgot and left her in a car, or mysteriously locked ourselves out of her room or the apartment with her sleeping peacefully on the other side of said locked door.  Wait, that did happen once…no, twice.  Anyway, because Brian was deployed for months at a time, I kept in the forefront of my mind any and all weird possibilities of separation, illness, fire, etc., and how I would quickly and efficiently solve any emergency should it arise.  I figured if I worried about something enough, I could somehow prevent it from happening! (more…)