Today, a forgotten sound whispers past my ears: the sound of rain.  After a week of clouds following a week of conflagration, we finally get rain.  The ground is so parched that very little, if any, rain soaks in.  Rather, it sits on top of the ground like foie gras in front of a starving child.  It will eventually get put to good use, but for the nonce it just sits.

As for me, I sit too.  At my desk, trying in vain to take photographs of ultrasound pictures that will not, despite my best efforts, be photographed.  Every attempt ends up with grossly misleading images that would have you believe I am gestating a fully formed alien or blob of White-Out.

I’ve resolved that the only way I’m going to get any decent images is to wander over to my in-laws’ house sometime this week to use their scanner.  If they’ll be so kind as to let me in exchange for new pictures of their newest (and smallest) grandchild.

Of course, pulling out one photo album leads to pulling out all my photo albums and before I know it I’m traipsing through my past.  I smile at the pictures my parents snapped of me while I was laughing, goofing around, crying for one reason or another.  It’s quite a remarkable blessing to go back through these pictures, reliving moments both good and bad, and think how blessed I’ve been.

Maybe it’s just the pregnancy hormones talking, but I doubt it.  I think that if you can look at the sum total of your life’s experiences (the good, the bad, and the ugly) and wind up grateful for your whole life, not just where you’ve ended up, you’re very lucky indeed.

It’s just that now that I’m facing the reality of becoming a parent to my own child, I’m looking at my childhood through a different lens.  I see my parents less as stoic, unchanging forces of nature that always have and always will exist and more as who they are: two people who did the best they could to raise their kids.  And who, I might add, did an excellent job.

I’m combing through the pictures now with an eye for, “How’d they do it?”  I don’t see the bad hair or the ginormous glasses I used to wear, I see family outings, two siblings who loved each other and played together constantly, and no shortage of photos that continue to make me laugh a full 20 years later.

Ahem. Yes, that's me.

When I think of the sum total of the years that went into making me who I am, I feel overwhelmed at the prospect of being responsible for that process for someone else.  Then I look at the pictures of my brother eating paint and me swimming in a river with our family dog and I remind myself that Wes and I will do the same thing for our kids the way our parents did it for us: One day at a time.  One vacation at a time.  One holiday at a time.  One year at a time.