Happy Birthday, D!

Tomorrow is my nephew’s first birthday, so I’m going to head down to see him for the first time in almost four months! That seems like forever to me since for the first seven months of D’s life I was there at least once a month if not every two or three weeks.

D was born a year ago…nearly four months early. After four months in the NICU for him and the Ronald McDonald House for my sister and brother-in-law, they all got to finally come home just before Thanksgiving.

I like to call his first year of life a miracle. He has suffered pretty severe bleeding in his brain, lived for months on end breathing with the help of a machine and eating through a tube, and had some damage to his lungs.

Through God’s grace, lots of prayers from people all over the world, and the privilege of living in a country with advanced scientific and medical knowledge, D is alive and well. He has accomplished so much over the past year.

If you saw a picture of him the day he was born and today, you’d be surprised that all these changes happened in just one year.

Here’s my “Top Ten” list of all the growing and changing D has done during his first year of life:

10. D’s lungs finished growing.
9. His brain developed.
8. D’s eyes finished forming with no problems.
7. D learned to breathe on his own.
6. He began eating all by himself. (Well, he only needs help from his mommy when it comes to holding the bottle or the spoon.)
5. D gained 14 lbs. during the last year. (When he was born he weighed a mere 1 lb. 10 oz. At his last doctor’s appointment, he weighed in at 15 lb. 11 oz!)
4. D grew a whole head full of hair and even got a haircut from his mommy.
3. He learned to roll around on the floor (and sitting by himself should be coming up soon).
2. D knows how to grab and play with his toys now.
1. He is now well-practiced in smiling, laughing, and charming everyone he meets. (He has such an amazingly happy personality for a little boy who has been through so much and still has to make a couple trips to the hospital every week for therapy.)

And just in case you haven't heard me say it a billion times before, my nephew is absolutely one of the cutest kids in the world. (I might be a bit biased...but, no, I really think I speak the truth in this case.)

I just can’t express how thankful I am to God for knitting D together and continuing to grow and develop him into such a happy, joyful, charming little boy!