Normal. It’s such an underrated word. Lost amongst the likes of super, fantastic, exceptional and excellent, if something is considered normal it’s almost an insult. “Normal” isn’t something that people seem to strive for. No one is proud of normal. Expect, maybe, the parents of NICU babies. To these moms and dads normal is something that is no longer taken for granted, these parents begin to appreciate normal. We’re proud to be able to say that this is the 14th year that we’ve been a part of March For Babies. When we began Mark was still incredibly tiny, almost swallowed by the stroller we were pushing him in and E was in Kindergarten, still so small herself. We were lucky to even make it to that first walk; Mark was in the hospital so much that is was anyone’s guess whether we would actually make it anywhere that we wanted to go. E wasn’t yet aware that this wasn’t a normal life; maybe it was a blessing that she wouldn’t figure that out until much later. For the time being, she was content to walk beside me knowing that for this day, at least, she wouldn’t have to loose me to the inside of a hospital. Life during that first walk was nowhere near normal. Now life is nothing but normal. E is a senior looking forward to graduation and beginning college. Her thoughts don’t revolve around whether or not her mom and her brother are going to once again disappear inside the hospital doors but around the upcoming soccer season and getting ready for dorm life. Mark is now a healthy and completely normal thirteen year old boy who loves Tea Kwan Do and video games. Moose has always been nothing but normal, thanks to the research done by the March of Dimes he was blessed enough to enter this world with none of the health complications that his brother had to overcome and he was only six weeks early. He too loves Tae Kwan Do and soccer and he is thriving in school. The kids are boringly, predictably and beautifully normal. They bicker at the dinner table and tease each other over their crushes but they will fight to the death to protect one another. They stay up too late on Friday nights hanging out with their friends and they are impossible to get out of bed on Saturday mornings. They demolish the groceries before we even get a chance to get them into the pantry, always hungry and growing like weeds. That is why we still do what we do. So that other moms and dads who are in NICU today can find the blessing that normal is. So that when those parents finally take their preemie home they will know that it does, in fact, get better: the baby that they have to be so careful with now will become the kid that thinks he’s invincible. So that they can become the parents that know that although not invincible their baby will always be pretty remarkable.