Luthien is one

So much of everything in life is mindset. I think had we gone into parenting thinking, “this is going to be awful and will ruin our lives,” then it might have. We very much went into parenting thinking, “ we have no idea what we are doing, but we are going to figure it out, and dang it we are going to have a good time.”

Sometimes the fact that we didn’t exactly plan on having Lu when we did (yeah, something like, “HOLY CRAP! I’m pregnant!), helped us be more chilled out parents. We knew we still had lots of stuff we wanted to do in life, so we incorporated her into our lives, rather than stopping our lives to raise children. She is part of us, we adjusted our lives to fit her, but we didn’t end them. I made a pretty big career change, but ultimately I think that change is for the better. We constantly remind ourselves that life with Lu is about adjusting so that we don’t feel smothered and she is well cared for. “Adjusting” being the key word here. We don’t’ end or change things in our minds, we adjust. My career has been adjusted to fit Lu, Andy adjusted his work schedule to fit our lives as a bigger family.

One of the best pieces of advice I was given for Lu, was from a very old friend of mine who now has a two year old son. She told me, “Trust your instincts,” I know it’s kind of a cliché, but new parents are often told so many crazy, hard-lining things, that this piece of advice really stuck with me. Of course lots of people have good pieces of advice, and we have asked for it before, but so many things parents just have to do what they think is best for their kids and for their own sanity.

I wish someone had told me that. Again I suppose it should be fairly obvious, but all this parenting stuff was pretty new for us, and it can be tough to know what to do.

Luthien has become the third puzzle piece in our little lives. We keep growing to love her more as she gets older, and we come to know her better. She is a spunky, energetic little girl, who loves to meet new people, and climb anything she can find. This past year has been blow-your-mind-awesome. The fact that we have managed to raise a little person through her first year of life is overwhelming and so encouraging. Happy late Birthday Luthiemonster.