(Apologies to Dave Matthews for using his song as a blog post title. It was the best I could do.)

I had plans to blog on Friday, and then… well. And then an elementary school in Connecticut got shot up and I spent the rest of the day crying in front of the news.

I don’t have any brilliant insight or words of wisdom here. I’m just as dumbstruck as everyone else.

These school shootings happen way too often, and normally they don’t get to me like this one did. I don’t know why. Maybe because this was an elementary school and the kids were all around Catie’s age. Self-centered worldview, I guess. It just really hit me in my gut.

On Saturday night, we were up late because we had spent the evening at my parents’ house. Lucy has a cold, and it took me a while to get her settled in bed. While she was waiting for me, Catie fell asleep on the couch. Rather than wake her up, I decided to just carry her upstairs to bed. My first thought was how big she is. She’s weighs about twice what Lucy weighs, and when I carry her, her feet dangle past my knees because she’s so tall.

But at the same time, I had this overwhelming sense of how little she is, because even though she’s heavy, she’s still little enough that I’m able to pick her up and carry her up a flight of steps. After I put her to bed, I went to my room and sat on the floor next to my bed, and I cried for all of the parents who don’t get to pick up their “really too big to be carried” babies anymore.

Last month, my friend Laura took some pictures of us for our Christmas cards. (Seriously, if you’re local and need a photographer? Go talk to her.) Today I’m looking at these pictures of my beautiful girls, who are still here with me, and I feel so, so incredibly blessed and lucky to have them.

I mean, seriously. How did I ever get so fortunate?

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My lovely friend Victoria lost her nephew Noah Pozner in the Connecticut school shooting on Friday. For info on how you can help Noah’s family, click here.