1 Year Around the Sun

It's sort of hard to believe that Samaya has already experienced all four seasons, each of the 12 months, each of the 365 days this little planet earth has spent traveling around its sun, and each of those days' sleepless (still!) nights. She most certainly has her parents circling around her, out of love yes, but also out of necessity. We got a fearless one, folks. The kind that will leap unhesitatingly over small cliffs, and into oceans and oncoming traffic if we let her. We try not to. Usually.

She had a lovely little birthday party with her little friends on Tuesday. Just a simple lunch in a nearby park complete with a pinata made by a dear friend and homemade cupcakes. We gave Samaya the opportunity to partake of sugar for the first time but she opted out and went for the strawberries on top. That's my girl.

We love this little fireball with her own ideas about the world. No doubt it will prove a challenge as we accompany her on her journey to join fearlessness with wisdom, willfulness with compromise, independence with interdependence. I hope we prove to be adequate mentors. And it is comforting to know she will never be walked on, bullied, or oppressed if she has any say about it. This one can fend for herself. Let's just please, please be gentle about it, Samaya. Deal?

I have been hoping and praying that we could get her a wooden kitchen for her birthday, and with the help of her grandparents, aunt, uncle, and the wonderful man in Gorham who makes beautiful children's furniture, today I got my wish. (I'm pretty sure it's Samaya's wish too.) She is quite pleased so far. My vision is to surround our family with what is necessary, high quality, and beautiful and to do my best in keeping out the incessant flow of plastic that inevitably seeps in. So here's to stone soup, mud pies, and pockets full of flowers.