Snow Baby

^ My own cozy house, snug in the snow. 

Snow lay deep and lush on the ground, typical of a mid-century Michigan New Year's Eve, and all was quiet and calm. 

But as afternoon turned to evening, sleet began to fall from the sky in dazzling drops of freezing rain and soon every inch of landscape was coated in ice.

Wasn't I a brave little thing to choose this night for my entrance into the world?

^ The Douglas firs outside my neighborhood embrace the snow like few other trees can. Love. 

Aware of the weather's growing menace, my parents set out to the hospital plenty early, around ten p..m.. Expecting the interstate to be an ice rink, they inched along on Old 23 and slowly crept the 18 miles to Ann Arbor.

University of Michigan's Women's Hospital sat halfway up a hill near campus, and as they approached, my folks saw the evening's celebratory pedestrians navigating the ice-covered sidewalks on their hands and knees. 

^ My own second-born was born in midsummer and barely waited till I cleared the elevator before she was born. But that's a story for another day. 

Inside, as my mom approached the maternity ward check-in desk, she noticed that they'd already broken out Happy New Year signs and streamers; the nurses were all wearing party hats and tooting party horns. Not realizing that the precarious drive had taken hours and that it was now well past midnight, my mom wondered why they had prematurely begun their celebration. One quick-witted nurse quipped, "We're celebrating because you're here to have your baby!"

My mom just loved that.

^ My dog-ter was also born in January, though in central Florida, 

so there was probably not much snow. 

Hours passed and soon I was born. It was quickly determined that I was suffering a cold and I was whisked off to an isolation nursery where the only people allowed in the room were my mother and one nurse. Happily, I recovered quickly and before my mom's then-standard week in the hospital was over, I was finally introduced to the world.

Soon after, we drove home through pristine snow to our snug little house on the shores of frozen Ore Lake, and my life properly began. 

^ A perfect day for a snow baby like me. 

It makes perfect sense for a baby born in a winter storm to feel most at home in the snow. And so last week, as I celebrated my birthday with a most unusual foot of sparkling white blanketing the ground and temperatures riding down in the teens, I reflected on my birth story and decided that it felt just right.