At her party AJ had a dance lesson with her friends. Her theme was unicorns. I enjoyed the fanciful nature of the event and appreciated the distraction of organizing it. AJ and Dani wore unicorn dresses and I bought myself unicorn leggings to match. All the kids had a good time.
AJ has been saying she’s an artist for the past few months. And she has expanded her creativity exponentially since starting school. Many of her presents involve making different crafts (which is great but I am only going to let her open more as they are completed as I get twitchy at the thought of multiple incomplete projects: got too many of my own likely.). I bought her two sketchbooks and a book on how to draw animals.
AJ drew this picture of herself feeling happy on the day of her party.
Anyway, I have kind of a thing about fives and it occurred to me today that we have now been a family with children longer than we have been a family without children. Counting from the year of our wedding, it was Mr Turtle and I from 2010 to 2014 and then a family of three, later four from 2014 to 2019. Four years without kids, five years with kids. Since infertility was such a major issue in our lives I feel like I should acknowledge that. And barring some tragedy, the number of years with kids will continue to accumulate while the years without will never change and will become the tinier part of the ratio. Kinda puts it in perspective.
It’s interesting; the year I started the blog, 2013, feels longer in a way than all the years since AJ was born. And I suppose I could count the early agonizing weeks of the first pregnancy in there. But when I look at AJ now the song lyric goes through my head: “Time started moving on the day we met.” So hold on, hold on the chorus continues. I try. Precious hugs and kisses and conversations.