in celebration of our fourth birthday here at Arrow, we would like to share some thoughts on the subject from our dear friend, tabatha tucker.

please enjoy!

I love my birthday. I tell my friends when it is; I make sure I have something special to do that day. A few years ago, I was very pregnant with my second child on my birthday and I spent that birthday feeling very close to giving birth and thinking about when the baby would come. The next day, my daughter was born and my birthday was forever changed.

I now spend my birthday preparing for my child’s birthday. Her anticipation for her birthday is infectious and outshines my own, by far. Children grow and change so quickly that each birthday marks mountains of progress and miles of achievement. The joy and pride that children feel at becoming a new “number” is simply magical. They are eager to greet the next year with all the powers of the new age.

We adults create celebrations to express the magnitude and wonder of children’s birthdays but most importantly, we bring significance to our children for each change of age. Within that, we are blessed with the opportunity to celebrate the changes in us. The change in our lives brought forth by the birth of our children, from the selves we were as individuals into the selves we are as parents. My greatest birthday gift is to be a part of this special moment of hers and to look forward to all of the 364 other days along her next journey around the sun.

A birthday poem for the night before, a “verse of anticipation”

When I have said my evening prayer,

And my clothes are folded on the chair,

And mother switches off the light,

I’ll still be 2 years old tonight.

But, from the very break of day,

Before the children rise and play,

Before the darkness turns to gold,

Tomorrow, I’ll be 3 years old.

3 kisses when I wake,

3 candles on my cake.

{ A special birthday crown }