Happy 1st Birthday Maggie Aoi

She's smiled her way out of trouble for a year now...she's cried us awake, and smiled the moment she saw our faces in the dark for 365 days today.  She's grabbed for nearly everything within reach, and barked like a puppy every time that she saw a dog.  She looks nothing like her sister, and she behaves similar only in the sense that she's a dream to deal with.  She has perhaps the longest eyelashes in recorded history, and just might be the only girl that could have followed her sister, Zoey.

It's so hard to describe your second child because all of the feeling that you had for the first seem so immediate, so impossible to experience again, and then...there they are again, but different.  This one is going to tear a giant hole in my heart, I know it. This little girl will wrap me up in ways that her sister couldn't, and I will be doubly damned.

This little girl is one year old today, and my chest explodes each time she reminds me that she's here and wants my attention.

This time Mom has worked much harder than I have...much harder to get to 365 days.  We divided and conquered, but somehow Mom still got the most work, the least sleep, and almost all of the really tight squeezes.  Maggie and Mom are a difficult duo to separate, but I try to steal as many of the tired head resting on shoulders as I can.  I've never seen a child light up when they saw you like this one.  I thought no one could smile wider and brighter and make an entire room swoon better than Zoey...until Maggie was born.

Two girls, I tell myself...two pretty beautiful little girls.  My heart must have been stamped at the factory with heartbreak.  Happy Birthday Maggie Aoi DeWagner...my how fast a year can slip away.