Well, it’s slightly past midnight on an early, Sunday morning and I just happened to be up again. My wife and baby are fast asleep and I pause for a moment to look across at them. My daughter is now just past her first year and these times have been rewarding, yet tough on my wife and me.

Even with a little help from my parents, it’s been a challenge; Child rearing has been my wife’s full-time occupation with me filling in the small gaps in between work and sleep. People ask us when the “next one” is on his/her way and I find myself dumbfounded at the notion. One has been enough for us to handle! Still, we marvel at the small miracle of our daughter, who has grown beyond any level we could have imagined since that day when she was born into this world.

In the silence, I say a small prayer of thanks for the gift of this past year – we made it! I browse through the many pictures we have taken to date and eagerly trace the growth and development of our child through the thread of thumbnails on my computer screen. The memories are all good to me, and some even bring, through the darkness of night, a light chuckle to my throat.

My thoughts wander to a short, anecdotal story about motherhood entitled “You Will Call Her Mom“. It talks about a dialogue between a child in heaven talking to God and about his/her assignment to come down to earth to be born. Indeed I feel that the child in our care is a gift from God. He has entrusted my daughter into the hands of my wife and myself. I pray a little harder for a blessing and for guidance in raising, protecting and nurturing our child towards a responsible, hard-working, God-fearing life.