Downscaling.net

Today is my birthday. Normally birthdays are happy occasions and mine will indeed be full of fun and celebration. Girlfriends from work are taking me out for a drink, my daughter rearranged her schedule to be home for dinner and later I will pick out some decadent birthday dessert.

All day long my phone has been clinking with birthday messages from Facebook friends. I have a lot of love in my life and I am very grateful for that.

But over on Twitter, where I am a bit more anonymous and a indeed more true to myself than I am on my public Facebook page, I became aware there is another birthday to commemorate today.

I am relatively new to a community of friends in Twitter, many of whom are mothers who use social media and blogs to reach out to other parents, sharing stories about children, pets, men and life. As the parent of an adult, I read their tweets and blogs and reminisce about the days when my girl was little. I am enjoying these ladies, and admit to being a little envious of the tools they have now to bond. It was a lot harder to find kindred souls back in the day.

Today I know from the community on Twitter that this should have been Madeline Alice Sphor’s second birthday. It should have been, but this lovely child was lost to a respiratory infection last April.

You can read more about Maddie here, here, here and here. She was a gorgeous little girl with a smile that will melt even the coldest heart, at least that’s my best guess why there’s a puddle all over my desk right now.

My husband’s cousin and his wife, along with the rest of our family, count blessings every day. Bridget gave birth to twins boys at 26 weeks, and they spent months in the NICU with their boys, Max and Tyler, who are now 21 months old and healthy.

She kept an amazing blog about the experience, which has allowed our family, scattered all over the country, to watch these two beautiful kids grow.

So today I am going to give myself a birthday present: A donation to Friends of Maddie and the March of Dimes. So more kids, including Max and Tyler, can have many birthday celebrations.