Happy to be Happy

Since having Lucia and settling into daily life after her diagnosis, Juliet and I quickly got into the happy rhythm of having and raising a little girl.  Sure, there are days or moments when the PKS thing hits you, but for us, they fortunately quickly come and go.  Almost every morning begins with me running down the hallway after we hear Lucia wake up to greet her with a "good morning my beautiful girl, I love you!" I change her diaper, bring her to our bedroom, and Jules feeds her a bottle.  I go to work, think of her and  Jules often, then come home to my sweet girls each night.  After dinner, Juliet and Lu take a bath together and I pick her up from the bathtub with a "Ill wrap you up like a little burrito" and get Lu ready for bed.   It's a fun, rewarding, and it's a wonderful life.

However, for the second year in a row, Lucia's birthday week has been very tough for me.  Jules planned and had a wonderful party, Lu enjoyed her birthday song, the weather was awesome, and good friends and family showed up to celebrate.  It was great, but the memories of her diagnosis, the painful days that followed, the emergency trips to the hospital, the pleading with God that whatever was wrong with her would not be serious, the unfairness of it all, laying in bed at night crying about our new lives, it was hard, and for each of Lucia's birthday weeks, it has been totally consuming for me.   Maybe it's Gods way of reminding me how wonderful our lives are or perhaps it's simply my minds way of refocusing.  I'm not sure, but what I'm referring to as my "annual freak out week that I have a PKS child" has served as a reminder to me of how happy I am to be happy.

God works in funny ways.  This morning, the seventh day of my annual one week freak out, I closed my office door and lost it.  I felt horrible about posting a somewhat obnoxious facebook comment to some PKS friends the night before,  about what I thought they should do regarding a teacher who refused to take a PKS child to the zoo with his classmates.   I  then began obsessing over whether Lucia would ever have any friends other than her family who would care for her.  At that very moment, my friend Mike, who I've become buddies with at Crossfit over the last year, sent me a message asking whether Lucia and I wanted to meet he and his two year old daughter for a late afternoon beer and lunch.  I called Jules to tell her Lucia had been invited to have lunch with another little girl and we both teared up and started laughing at the same time.   It was the first time someone had invited me and Lucia to hang out with another little girl outside of our family.  Juliet sent me a picture of what Lucia was going to wear to meet her friend Elsa.   While the girls pretty much ate, we drank three beers, it was an awesome afternoon.

As of this afternoon, my "annual one week freak out that I have PKS child" is over.   I feel great again (other than my arm which is doing much better) and I'm ready for another year with my Lucia, Juliet, and XXXXX.   Thank you to all of our friends and family who make life so easy for Juliet and me.  We love you guys.

Elsa, Megan and Mike Bartholomy