10 Years Ago Today...

Tony and I were married in a lovely ceremony that was part of a very fun day. I remember we needed rain very badly at this time 10 years ago. People were saying it would be OK if it rained on Saturday but I said, "No! Wait 'til Sunday!" It was a sunny, slightly overcast day but it didn't rain. We were even able to take some pictures outside!

We have been through a lot in 10 years! We've gotten to travel some (Florida, California, Colorado, South Dakota, Kansas, Ohio, North Carolina, and probably some other states that I'm not specifically remembering at the moment, 2 cruises (Bahamas and Southern Caribbean), Mexico 3 times, and of course CHINA!). We doubled the size of our house (mostly by ourselves and learned a lot in the process) over about 5 years. We lost a cat and added two. We added a daughter. Tony started his own business soon after we got married and he's been doing that most of our 10 years.

I don't think we could have made it 10 years with all we've had to deal with without LOVE.

HAPPY 10th ANNIVERSARY!

Here We Go Again!

(The following post was written in a notebook but not actually posted on the blog until we received our referral because we didn’t tell our family that we were in process. We waited until we had the referral for our son before we published on the blog because we wanted to do this “covertly” and have it be a surprise to as many people as possible.)

We have started the process for another adoption from China. It isn’t a new thought for us as we have been thinking about it for a year now. Although we haven’t actually sent in the application yet, we have it ready to go for when we have “enough” money saved to cover the initial expenses – app fee, home study fee, background checks fees, etc. We will be socking away money as we have it.

Mother's Day Pictures

Here are a couple pictures from late yesterday. They don't tell you how our day went. I'll spare you the pictures of the front of our car after rear-ending a pickup on the way to brunch, which we never made it to. We ended up having to call a tow truck and my parents came to pick us up and take us home. We had KFC for a late lunch and Tony's parents came up later with angel food cake and strawberries. Oh, well. I hope it doesn't take too long to get the Bravada fixed.

Mother's Day -- My First Full Year of Momhood

My second Mother's Day! Wow! How time has flown! We have a beautiful, playful, intelligent little girl who we met just 13 short months ago. Today she has beautiful black hair that blows in the wind (instead of the short "peach fuzz" she had then). She's grown 6" and gained 6 pounds! She LOVES balls and will probably play soccer someday. She loves music and dancing so she'll probably be on stage someday in some capacity. She's also quite a monkey so she'll probably be in gymnastics someday. Whatever she ends up doing, I want to make sure she enjoys it and isn't doing it just to make me/us happy.

I look at her (sometimes I can't help staring!) and am amazed at her every day. We are completely (and wonderfully) oblivious to what she SHOULD be doing at her age so we have been able to "meet her where she is." The one thing we wish she were doing now is talking. We realize that she hasn't heard English her whole life but she understands almost everything we say or ask her to do. We are told she's not behind in talking "'cause my son/nephew/cousin's kid didn't talk till they were 3." Every child is different so she'll talk when she's ready -- and she'll "talk in paragraphs" as her speech therapist says!

Being a mom has changed my life in so many ways. I've had to get used to a new schedule -- sometimes with no particular goal for the day! That was kind of difficult for me since I've had to go to work every day for how many years? I remember the first Monday after we came home. We were still dealing with jet lag. Tony went to work. I got up and got ready, got Meighan up, gave her breakfast, dressed her and set her down in the living room. Then I thought, "Now what?" We had a few toys but we'd only known her for less than two weeks! What did she want to do? I don't remember what we did -- other than take a nap! -- that day, but I guess we figured it out!

Now, she likes books, Elmo, Yo Gabba Gabba, dancing, running, being tickled, being outside, blowing bubbles, balls of all kinds, music, lasagna, ice cream, chocolate (like Mama like daughter), laughing, climbing anything, drinking from a straw and sleeping in her "new" Big Girl bed since this past Friday night. We are working on other "big girl" things, too.

She's moving into 18-month sized clothes. She has wonderful fine motor skills. She jumps, balances on one foot, stands on top of her "bike" seat and balances, kicks and throws balls pretty darn accurately, does somersaults and doesn't miss much of what we do.

I have enjoyed seeing her learn new things. Recently, I taught her:

"Here is the church,
Here is the steeple,
Open the doors
And see all the people."

Then I wiggled my fingers (and so did she) and then I added "DANCING!" It's pretty cute. She tries to copy the "hand jive." Someday (soon?) it will be cool to see her do it full speed! She also likes to fold her hands, bow her head, close her eyes and help us say grace at mealtime.

My, how she has blossomed and changed and grown in the 13 months since we met her! I was watching videos of those first few days a while back and can't believe the changes!

I wonder what the next year will bring for her. I wonder...

Birthmother's Day

Today, the day before Mother's Day, is the day that some adoptive families celebrate Birthmother's Day. It is a day to remember the child's FIRST mother or even spend the day with her if she is known.

At this point, I don't know if Meighan will want to remember/contemplate her birthmother or not. Some kids don't. Some do. But several times since we met Meighan, I have thought about her birthmother.

What does she look like? If Meighan looks a lot like her, she must be very pretty. What was her situation in life that she chose to leave her baby to be found on such a busy sidewalk? I know she must have loved her baby a lot if she wanted her to be found. Did she "hang out" and make sure someone found her like Moses' mother had his sister do? Was she married? Were they too poor to provide care for a baby with a cleft lip? Did they already have a daughter and want a son? (Some areas of China allow a second child if the first is a girl and hopefully the second will be a boy.) Were her parents farmers? What did they raise? What does the house look like where she would have been raised?

We may never know answers to these and other questions. Currently, China is closed for birthparent searches. If they ever open up, will Meighan want to search? I do know that if it is ever possible to search and if Meighan wants to, I will help her as best I can to find her birthparents.

I do know that for whatever reason, Meighan was meant to be our daughter and be raised in the United States. We are the ones she calls "Mama" and "Nana." I can only imagine what she would be like being raised in China. She would probably still be a fun-loving, running, ticklish, music- and dance-loving little girl with the BEST laugh! Many times when she's having a giggle time or when she's laughing so hard she laughs silently until she regains her breath, I think "Oh, what her birthparents are missing!" I would love to tell them that she smiles and laughs a lot, learns quickly and loves to be outdoors, chase bubbles and kick balls. I would love to tell them how loving she is and would bet that she got that trait from them. I would love to tell them how much joy she has brought to our lives despite all of the losses that we all have had. Our loss was the ability to have biological children. Their loss was their biological child because of their circumstances -- whatever they were. Meighan's loss was her biological parents -- through no fault or choice of her own. But through our losses, we all gained something. We gained Meighan as a daughter. If we had not had the loss we did, we would not have her as our daughter. She gained us as parents. Her birthparents gained (hopefully) peace of mind that their daughter would be raised by good people in a good environment with lots of opportunities.

She will definitely be given all the opportunities we can give her. She is loved every day and in every way possible. If we ever get to meet her birthparents, we will welcome them into our lives as we did her. They are part of our family, too!

Happy Birthmother's Day -- whoever and wherever you are!

32" and Growing!

We measured Meighan yesterday and she is now 32" tall! Last measure was April 8 and she was 31.5"! I weighed her last night and she was 21.5 pounds. She toggles between 21.5 and 22 pounds right now. She sure is growing fast!

She runs so cute down the hall and when she has squeaky shoes on, it's really funny! She no longer cries (much) when we leave her in childcare at church. She has figured out how to blow pretty big bubbles! She gives everyone she meets high fives and LOVES to be outside (thank goodness for the nice weather lately!). She is starting to experiment with new sounds and jabbers sometimes, although I have NO idea what she's saying. She loves the Nick Jr. show "Yo Gabba Gabba" and can say it when she wants to watch it -- she says "Wo Ba Ba" -- even when it's not on right now.

Yesterday we were at the neighbors' house and they have a hummingbird wind twirler that was turning in the breeze. They told her to blow on it to make it go and just then the breeze came up and made it turn and she thought SHE was making it go! It was so funny! She did it several times!