I don’t want Aliya’s birthday to always be about her dramatic entrance into the world followed by a recount of the emergency plane ride to UCSF’s NICU and her week-long stay there. I don’t want her birthday to become some sort of quasi-joyous occasion with the shadow of how she got here always looming with looks of concern or pity around the room. Yet, as much as I don’t want that, it is part of her story and it’s part of what makes her life with us, now, so amazing. And maybe because it’s a story with a happy ending, it’s a pretty damn exciting birthday story to have.

How she got here aside, every day she grows and develops into a less and less tiny bundle of the best of both of us. Just like her sisters before her, she amazes us with her brilliance, wit, agility, creativity, ferocity, sweetness, and just plain kick-assery. I mean, if “kick-ass” can’t be used to define three, what can? What else is there to say? Happy Birthday Aliya. You’re three and you earned it.