Happy 1st Referral Day

One year ago today, the day started like any other. Me, anxious and full of anticipation. Waiting and waiting. Wondering. Trying to push through everything like life was normal, as if we weren't waiting for our future with every second that ticked by. I had decided to work from home that day when THE CALL came.

It's hard to believe we've known about Gadisa for 1 year now. It's gone by so quickly. My life is completely different than what it used to be one year ago. I no longer am just a "me" when sharing my day's stories with my husband. I am a "we." "We" are an "us". The two of us, my son and I. My little sidekick and adventure buddy.

When I saw the first photo of him I couldn't breathe. He was surreal. A dream long in the making. We had a face to focus on. That face had a name now.

Oliver Gadisa Lyric has been in my heart from the moment he was referred to us. Every motherly sense about me came out instinctively and I hung tightly to my heart to keep him safe. I thought about him every second of the day and starred at his few photos that we had until every image was engraved in my mind.

These days, I live what I wondered about. I love just watching him. Playing, laughing, touching things & then looking at me to see when I will say "No!" Then I think...there was actually a time when we didn't know each other?? How could that be?! Gadisa is one of those people that pull you in. His charm, that sneaky smile, the way he wants to make you laugh and his seriousness all bundled into one soul is beyond beautiful. Being his mother is such an honor.

Happy Referral Day, G! We love you so much and are so very proud of you!

Leaving the bottle behind

I wanted to put it off. I wanted to keep babying him. Our doctor told us at 15 months, get him off. Josh agreed. To me this is more symbolic than just taking him off the bottle. To me, it's a loss of his infancy. It's a loss of an aspect of mothering. Those slow, afternoon moments of rocking him to sleep while feeding him a bottle remind me of summer. Remind me of when he came to us. Now, our little guy is a toddler. Now, he's a sippy cup taker. Now, he's a walker. It's happening so fast. Everyone says it does. I just want to scoop him up and push pause. It's so hard to watch them grow up before your eyes, yet so sooo beautiful.

I informed Josh the other day that if Gadisa chooses to go to college in another city (gulp!) we would in fact be moving to whatever city that was. I mean, come on...who else is going to cut up his food into itty-bitty pieces so he doesn't choke?

Baby Derby

G's new favorite home activity has swept the household. Baby Derby! Oliver and his dad came up with this one the other day when all of a sudden around the corner in a screeching turn came our little guy barreling across the living room floor in his Derby cart. He squeals and screams the faster they go.

Our son is going to be a daredevil. I can tell already. He loves to swing around, fall, be thrown up in the air...you name it. Anything that could result in him getting hurt and me doing the infamous quick inhale of air while clutching my chest he is into. I'm already terrified for him. I do admit however, I'm a big fan of Baby Derby.

A little High Five action before starting.

Ahhh...man. I hate it when that happens.

Looks like we need a pit stop repair.

Highchair Tears

Check out this angry, sad little face.

This sight is becoming a daily occurrence. We get this reaction lately when we are wrapping up meal time. Food has been a soothing factor for Gadisa since we met him, but really isn't it for any child this age?? On the other hand, I've read about adoptive children having issues with food. Gadisa just over eats. And then eats and eats some more. He's at a healthy weight now, but we are trying to come up with how to handle his angry cries for more food. When he screams, it's more like he's yelling at us for more food. We don't necessarily want to give him things when he's got this tone of crying/screaming with us and we know he's not hungry, he's just stocking up. It could be a reaction from his time in the orphanage and the association of hunger with food and the frequency or lack of when it was given. Or, it could be the toddler in him coming out to get what he wants when he wants it. Whatever the reason, this little man is pretty angry at his mama when he sees me going to wipe off his hands and face. Hopefully, this phase will wrap up soon. For now, we just calmly take him out of the high chair and walk around to calm him down and distract him with another activity. If you've got other suggestions, I'd love to hear them!

Thank You, 2010.

The clock is ticking to the end of the year and the beginning of something new. 2010 is so close to my heart. It brought us our son. It brought us the roller coaster journey of emotions that bringing us our son entailed. It was a year of personal journey as I juggled with who I was with just the two of us and then how I've transformed with the three of us. It was a year of decisions and the indecisiveness I always fight to come to a conclusion.

Here are my most memorable moments of 2010...

1. Seeing Gadisa's face light up and the biggest smile come across it the moment we looked at each other. I will never, ever, ever forget that sight and the emotions that flooded with it.

2. Watching my grandfather pass. I never saw him as often as I would have liked, but I am grateful to have been there when he moved on, surrounded by my extended familia. It was the way it was supposed to be.

3. A warm, summer evening giggling on a park bench in Rome with my husband and eating gelato. I knew when it was happening that I was in love with that moment.

4. Running through a downpour of rain with my oldest, closest friends after spending an evening enjoying them. I heart my friends!

5. The countless, slow summer days of sitting on the porch in my favorite rocking chair with my son swinging beside me completely happy with where I was.

I decided to extend my blogging experience to this new location. www.morningsparrow.com

Morning Sparrow is a new adventure of sharing for me. I wanted to expand beyond adoption blogging and well....just chat about whatever, whenever without having any topic boundaries.

I plan to still update this blog with all things Oliver Gadisa, adoption and our adventures, but with Morning Sparrow I hope to evolve into all sorts of things. It's really outside of my comfort level as I went back and forth on how much to share and why. Just starting this adoption blog was a big jump into letting walls down. I tend to be more private than blogging permits, but it's been good to just let it all flow out. In the end, writing is therapeutic for me and that won out all insecurities. So here I am. We'll see where it goes.

I hope the New Year brings you adventures, blissfulness and happiness galore. Happy New Year to you!

What a difference

Last year...last Christmas, I was anxiously awaiting a magical phone call from our adoption agency. I had a tiny glimmer of hope that they would surprise us on Xmas Day with THE phone call that we had a child. That call never came that day and I was disappointed.

This year, we spent the day with this little guy.

A long, slow, happy day with the 3 of us. Our first Christmas together. Our new tradition of spending Christmas day together in our house. We opened presents and sat around drinking coffee in our pajamas for most of the day. I feel overly grateful this Christmas. My family is together...happy and healthy. What a difference a year makes.

I hope all of you had a very relaxing, enjoyable Christmas with the ones that are the dearest to you. I hope you had a moment to stop, slow down and just be. Happy Holidays!

Swish, Swish, Swish

The other morning as I'm trying hard to get a few more minutes of sleep, I hear Josh get up and go into Ollie's room to get him up. I can hear through the baby monitor all this commotion as they greet each other for the day. Then, I keep hearing a "swish, swish" type sound. For the life of me, I can not figure out what that is. Swish, swish, swish....and then walks in G and Dad. Ta da! A super cheesy, 90's era Kansas University jumpsuit. I laughed and laughed. Perfect way to start a day! This outfit is courtesy of a summer garage sale item found by my sister. Too good to pass up. I need a matching one for Josh.

We celebrated the Hunt family Xmas this weekend. It was a costume Xmas and here is our little Jayhawk. I promise...he will get other options for costumes of his choosing as he gets older. ;)

I can't believe Christmas is this week! I'm looking forward to a very mello Christmas day with Gadisa. We decided to start our family tradition of spending Christmas day at our house instead of going out of town anywhere. We aren't going too overboard with his gifts, but we did have fun going shopping for him. Generally, we have the last 2 weeks of the year off from work off, but I'm still home with G for now on an extended maternity leave and Josh is working on some big festivals for the spring/summer already so he will be working as usual. I'm just thankful for the business so as long as I can steal Josh away for some 1/2 days I'm happy.