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We've been making big moves over here: new house, new school, new life, new beginnings. I'm happy to report that Quinn no longer cries when I drop him off in the morning, Atticus is loving 4th grade, and Lucy is making lots of new friends in PK. Once Atticus figured this out, he started to write her little notes with pictures of things she loves unicorns, puppies, stick figure kids holding hands passing them to her through the chain link fence that separates the big kid playground from hers each day. I knew I needed to find a way to communicate his differences with the other families in his class, so I wrote yet another letter, this time to the Kindergarten students at his new school, asking the parents to read and discuss it at home.

And that's because for years now, I've been facing some pretty significant challenges And therein lies the problem of creating a life that's on display (even if it's only to advocate for your child with special needs): when things like divorce and crippling depression come calling, you never really know what you're supposed to say to this audience you've built. Lucy knows Quinn's language better than anyone and translates often. She knows how to work a room and still hasn't come to terms with the old adage, "you can't always get what you want.

As we navigated the flood waters of Houston, breathing through contractions and dodging cars going the wrong direction on I-10 in the pitch black 5am darkness because the other side of the freeway was underwater, I should have known Lucy was the kind of girl who would blaze her own path. And as the year has progressed, her personality has blossomed before our eyes, dazzling us with her dimpled smile, demanding attitude, and ceaseless curiosity, all of which I saw coming that morning I went into labor. And while there will come a day when I will mourn the loss of baby toes and fluttering eyelashes, I acknowledge that time stops for no one, not even a mother desperate to cling to the final stages of babyhood. Even as a storm rolled during the "Birthday Song" (which is fitting, given the day she came into this world), I was still snapping pictures while her brothers swiped frosting from her pink smash cake.