Waiting for Our New Love

We are sitting happily on Valentine's morning having a lazy start to our day. I am enjoying my coffee and Annika is reading to me. Its freezing out and I am not anxious to start our day, so we cuddle and relax. She is reading "Love Lola" a Valentine's storybook given to her by Collin, a boy at school. It is a sweet pop-up story about a little bear named Lola who pesters her brother while he is making his Valentines, but in the end gives the cutest one to her. I am struck by the fact that my daughter, who not so long ago, was saying, "Happy Hollentine's day, Mama!" is now reading to me. A look back reminds me of my tiny princess and our first few Valentine's together...the first year she was just walking, with a cute heart sweater and Pebble's hairdo, not so sure about what the day meant. Now she knows and and celebrates with joy.

As I sit here with her, I cherish this day and wonder what our next Valentine's Day will bring. A look forward to next year could reveal an array of possibilities. Will there be a little one crawling on our floor? Will we still be waiting? Will we be in Kazakhstan? its possible that our baby is already born and waiting for us. Annika thinks this is the case and says she is already a big sister. She has a good sense of such things and may be right. I don't have that feeling yet, but I have been a bundle of nerves and am not tuned into my senses just yet.

Whatever the next year brings, with so many unknowns, it will hopefully be posiitive and exciting. There are so many things to hope for while waiting and the excitement in our house on Valentine's Day 2009 is palpable.