Sarah

MSG. Madeleine, Sarah, Grace. After all the agonizing over names, and nicknames. After actually bringing two of our four girls home from the hospital without names. How did it escape my attention that the first three girls' initials would form that (in)famous collection of letters that causes headaches but also somehow ends up in lots of really yummy ethnic food?

MSG. The gang of three. Laura, our fourth, is striving every day to catch up with the big girls. She's been walking and talking much more than any 14-month-old ought.

Sarah Olivia, the first of our daughters to wait awhile for her name, is as sweet as a girl whose name means "princess" should be. She's a classic middle child in her peacemaking and easygoing manner, but she's possessed of plenty of spunk and creativity of her own. Don't touch that girl's watercolors... I'm just sayin'.

Maybe it's because she waited for her name, but she's 100 percent her own girl. Never one to be swayed by popular opinion, she's quick to beat us all in Scrabble with a 46-point use of the word "moron," which of course is off-limits in conversation but does exist in the Scrabble universe... and in strategy games: she's the one to make the important chess sacrifice with a perfect poker face only to erupt in giggles as she goes in for the checkmate.

Sarah's been facing some health struggles. She has a form of anemia called Thalessemia. It's chronic and usually not a hindrance to her daily life. But these past weeks, and maybe months, she's dealt with pneumonia and now some new symptoms that have precipitated a slew of tests. She thinks her blood as it's drawn looks like root beer. She entertains the phlebotomist and me. She can barely walk back to the car.

So we wait for test results and we pray that the news will be good. We save our energy for a trip to the General Store to celebrate her best friend's birthday with ice cream cones. We try not to hold our breath when we have the odd quiet moment. We realize the nurse can make or break our day with how long she pauses between words.

Tomorrow holds more tests. Today holds some pizza, homemade, and some Scrabble. And a lot of prayer.