My ladybug.

There is a sunbeam living in my home. A little ray of light that lives with me and brightens everything she touches. A little beam of light that makes you feel warm and loved. Her name is Audrey Kay.

There are many words to describe her. Enthusiastic, charasmatic, funny, enlightened, happy-go-lucky, fun, sensitive, caring, affectionate, loving, and precious. She has a tender heart, and it bruises easily. She is one of the most loving people I have ever known, and showers anyone around her with hugs, kisses, and words of affirmation. I love how I can be doing something in the kitchen, or just watching tv, and she will come to me, place my face in her hands, and tell me she loves me. I will never tire of that.

Jessica was our little firecracker when we moved to Fort Benning Ga. Getting into anything and everything, loving The Wiggles, playing with toys, and just being a sweet 10 month old. After we settled into life in Georgia, Adam and I agreed we felt it was time to start trying for another baby. We knew from friends, that it can take time to get pregnant when you are trying. So we started off with the mindset that it could take months to years. I became a member of Fertilityfriend.com, and charted out my fertility. The first month we tried, we were pregnant.

About four weeks after trying, I was a few days late for my period. I had been irregular from breastfeeding Jessie, and it wasn't uncommon for this, but since we were trying to get pregnant I went to buy a test. Since having Jessica, I had taken a few tests. This time I noticed the shaking was back. The same shaking I had experienced with my very first pregnancy test. I went to the store with Jessie in tow to purchase it.

I thought about waiting around for Adam to come home from work, but I have never been very good at waiting. I took the test while Jessie was napping. The moment I took it, once again, it said Positive. I was overjoyed! This time, I knew what to expect, and it was such a wonderful feeling. Adam came home from work about 10 minutes after taking the test, and I handed it to him and he read it and we embraced. We were both thrilled to be going down this road again, and felt so blessed to have gotten pregnant so fast.

I craved fruit punch and tuna fish with Jessie, and this time it was totally different. Audrey is made of vanilla soy milk and fresh strawberries. Seriously, check her DNA, and you will find strands of soy milk and strawberries. I consumed that much.

While Jessica picked a spot to lay in for most of my third trimester, Audrey wiggled more. I remember telling Adam she was going to come out breakdancing. I didn't gain any weight this time, only pregnancy weight that came right off with having her. I had no morning sickness, and no problems. I had an amazing pregnancy with her.

One night in August, I woke up around 2 am with a nightmare. I sat straight up in my bed, heart racing, and realized it was a contraction. I layed back down, and tried to fall back asleep. Then another, and another, until I finally got out of bed to try to walk around. I thought perhaps it was just braxton hicks, so I got in the tub to try to relax. They continued in the tub. That's when I decided to time them. 10 minutes apart, almost on the dot. I waited through about two hours of them before waking Adam up to tell him to get ready. We woke my Mom up, as she was visiting us for the birth, and told her it was time. I remember being so excited, and so starving during all of this. I ate a few bites, and drank a clear gatorade. The ride to the hospital was tough. It was only a 3 minute drive, but I happened to have a contraction right in the middle of it, and it felt horrible.

I was checked, and was 4 centimeters, so they admitted me. I was determined to do better this time with the pain management, and was going to try to get through the entire labor with no epidural. I made it to 7 centemeters and begged for the epidural. I was writhing in pain and screaming. I thought I was making a huge scene with my screaming, but Adam and my Mom assured me I wasn't that loud. I remember writhing back and forth, shaking, and screaming, and just feeling like my tailbone was breaking. I told my nurse that I felt like my pelvic and tail bone were ripping apart, and he said "That's not normal". There was really nothing he could do at this point, other than the epidural. They had the epidural working for about an hour, but it was only on one side of me, so when they came to fix it I was already 10 centimeters and ready to push. I remember being in so much pain and just feeling like I was going insane. Out came my little chubby 8 lb light haired baby girl, Audrey. She was so beautiful. I felt almost completely back to normal only minutes after having her.

Her first year was spent happily. In fact, that is one of the best years of our marriage. We learned a lot through many marriage retreats, and made new friends we still consider to be wonderful life-long friends that year. She was such a happy baby. One of my fondest memories of her is when we would "toot" her. We would grab her legs and push them toward her tummy and it would help move her gas. It was too funny! Another good memory is how much she loved her bouncer. She bounced in that thing until she would fall asleep almost every day. It was a sure-fire way to put her to sleep. She rarely fussed, and never met a stranger.

One of the only downsides to Audrey's first year of life was my post partum depression. It hit me hard, and I suffered for about a year. I have since recovered, but it's something I share with people so they know that it is common, and in hopes that people will get help when they need it. I am happy to say that I am fully recovered.

Our family got orders to move to Fort Sill, Oklahoma after the beginning of her second year of life. We packed our belongings and headed to the windy state. Only weeks after arriving, Audrey, myself, and my sister caught the chicken pox. The three of us were holed in our house, miserable, for two whole weeks. Jessie escaped with only four, and Adam had already had them as a child.

One afternoon, while still sick with chicken pox, Audrey and Jessie were sitting at the lunch table eating. Audrey was about 16 months at the time, and liked to put her legs on the bars of the table and push back. This was dangerous, and I did not notice she was doing it until all of the sudden I heard CRASH, and then a blood curddling scream. I look over from making myself a sandwich, and see blood everywhere. She had pushed her chair backwards and cracked her skin open on the back of her head. There was so much blood I couldn't tell how bad the injury was, all I knew was she needed to go to the ER immediately. I called Adam, seeing as how we had only one car, and told him he needed to come home ASAP. I held her in my arms, nursed her, put ice on the wound, and tried to keep her conscious, just in case. We headed to the ER, and on the way, noticed it was still oozing blood. We knew she would need stitches.

When we arrived, we waited for a bit before they realized they needed to put her in quarantine since she was contageous with chicken pox. The doctor ended up putting several stitches in her head, and had to cut her beautiful hair to do so. It was a pretty nasty wound. Thankfully, she had no concussion, and her scar is now barely even noticable. We were so thankful it was easy to care for. It was one of the hardest things Adam and I had ever been through as parents.

Since that day, Audrey continued her happy-go-lucky attitude towards life. She is a free spirit, and nothing holds her back. I have never known anyone as affectionate and loving as her. She has such a big heart, and such a sweet disposition, you can't help but fall in love with her.

She and her big sister, Jessie, are inseperable. One thing I really wanted when getting pregnant with Audrey, was for them to be close. They play like twins, liking the same things, and always enjoying each others company. On the occasions they fight, it is easily resolved, and within minutes they are back to being their happy selves.

Since the birth of her baby brother, Oliver, Audrey has doted on him every moment she is allowed. She loves him immensely and I sometimes have trouble seperating her grasp from him. She is deeply offended when I tell her not to hug on him too tightly, or kiss him so much. There has been many a time when she bursts into tears when I tell her to be careful, or not to touch him because she is sick.

In the past few months she has begun creating ellaborate stories. They are so intricate, detailed, and exciting. Everything is exaggerated, and over the top. She has a superb ability to make Jessie laugh. She dreams of ladybugs, and mermaids, and fish named spongebob, and fairies in our front yard. I love to listen to her make them up. Her imagination is endless.

I think she is too young still, to grasp the entirety of her Daddy being gone. However, on occasion she has shown me how much she misses him when she sees other daddies, or when she hears Hannah Montana's Dad in songs. She will say "I miss my Daddy" in the saddest tone you've ever heard, and it breaks my heart a thousand times. As with Jessie, when she tells me the same. It's never easy to hear that my girls are hurting.

She feels deeply. Expresses her emotions with ellaborate details. She is always fun to be around, and everything is a game to her. She will light up any situation, and make any dreery day sunny. She is my wonderful second-born.