The last of the "last year"s

Sometimes I can't help but look back on my life in yearly increments. During my freshman year in college, I spent a lot of timing thinking back to my final year in high school - what I was doing and with whom, as I watched my world change around me. The year after Sam came home from New Zealand, I just remembered all the times I was apart from him and how great it was to have him in the here and now. The year we were married, the times I was trying to get pregnant....when I was pregnant, the first year Ian was around. Thinking back to what I had been like that previous year.

Now we are approaching the days when I will no longer look back to last year and not have Jesse in my life. This past Thanksgiving, I remember to the previous year - seeing his picture for the first time. At his birthday party, I remembered our small little dinner for 3 and how I bought a cake at the grocery store. This past Mother's Day, it was hard not to remember how last year we had just gotten our travel call - making the whole day that much brighter. Now I will never be able to look back to the previous year and not have Jesse in my world. We left for Bangkok on June 4, 2007 and met him on June 6, 2007. He came home with us on the 8th and forever more has been mine.

I know it's a weird little mind game, but I've always done it. But it allows me to reflect on how far I've come. I look into his precious little face and feel like he's been mine forever - but at the same time I can't believe it's been a year already (I remember the trip so vividly, like it was yesterday). Some blogger buddies of ours are actually in flight to Thailand now - it's been making me think a lot about my journey and all the babies who have come home since Jesse. I don't know where I"m going with this....so I'll just post acute picture from Mother's Day.