There was a time when I used to blog. It’s true.

For a good couple years, I would open up my laptop and type out little stories from our lives. And then for several reasons, some good, some not as good, I stopped. More like I sputtered to a stop, coughing out a few last stories over the past year.

You would think that after almost of year of not blogging, I would have forgotten about the whole enterprise. But nearly every night as I’m drifting off to sleep, I reflect upon the day and those images generally arrange themselves into a blog post. Then I think, “This is blog worthy. I really should post this.” And then I remind myself that I let my blog die.

This blog is like that poor neglected plant that you forgot to water for months and months. You don’t tend to it and you don’t throw it away. It just sits there limp and lifeless in its dried out dirt, a pathetic reminder of what it had been or should be. And it’s not like you could go water it now.

You know what happens when you water a dead plant? All the water pools up and pours down the sides.

That’s a mess. No one wants that.

And so I don’t post. And yet, I can’t close the blog.

At the end of December, I got my blog rental notice. My lease on my little spot on the internet was up. How could I justify renewing a lease on a vacant blog? But how do I let go of my little storybook?

This is it. Today I’m putting the pot back by the window and pouring in a little water in hopes that there are seeds lying dormant waiting to sprout.

Hello, little friend, I’ve missed you.

At first this post was going to be about how he went from this

to this.

About how he is no longer a sleep-all-day-and-night infant,

but a smiling, laughing, rolling-over, bubble-blowing baby.

Even though he has doubled his birth weight and discovered his toes, in many ways the biggest changes around here these past four and half months have been hers.

She has gone from being shared by her parents

to sharing her parents.

She has become his big sister.

She went from sounding out little readers to reading him “big” books.

She bid farewell to the birds on her wall and the only home she’s known. She learned to sleep far away from her parents and claims to no longer need Bubba.

She had her first dance recital,

learned to ride on two wheels, and blew out six candles on her cake.

And before I could blink, she waved goodbye to Kindergarten.

In the shadows of all these events I’ve sensed a maturity happening that I cannot capture in pictures and hardly even name. Over the past four and half months I have felt a shift, a deepening of understanding, a lessening of selfishness, and an eagerness to serve others. It’s as though I’ve been given glimpses of the young lady that is emerging

and she is lovely.

after a long, hard winter

you have to go outside

and unwind.