Miah Miah how does you closet grow....

Here is the closet today.... I think I need to go shopping! Oh I am also posting a few of her new dresses they are 12 months in size so I am pretty sure she will get to wear them. I can not wait!

There are a few things that have and do help me get through the wait,and one of them is getting clothes for Miah. Now I have written about this in my past blog but I felt that the subject was worth repeating for me. The top picture is shortly after we started the process to bring Miah home. We started with a few outfits and well it just kept growing. I will add another picture tomorrow of what the closet looks like after a year of being LID, but as you can see at the half way point by this bottom picture we were already having to move the shoe rack out to make more room. That to me is a good thing. Every out fit I buy (almost always on sale) is one that I hold very close and love on. I dream of what Miah will look like and smell like. I try and imagine the sound of her laugh or the touch of her tiny hands. To me the clothes are a tangible reminder of what is to come not to mention that they are just to darn cute. I also know that fancily when Miah is home I will haft to watch the budget a little closer as diapers and formula is not cheap and if I must choose between covering her tush or the cute out fit ..... well the tush wins out! Now size wise I have mostly 12 month clothing and a lot of 18 month things. There are some 6-9 month and a few 9 month things so just in case she is younger or really small I have a few things for her. I do have a back up plan to donate anything she can not wear so I do not feel guilty about buying the clothes at all, in fact they are all picked out with love and held with love so who ever wears them be it Miah or another child I know that I put my heart in to every one.

I have said it before, James is adopted... However this is something I tend to forget on a day to day basis, he is our son. It is just that simple, and it is not meant to take away from his birthmother or to ignore that part of his past, but we do not live our lives around the fact that he is adopted rather adoption is how he came to be in our lives. That being said we do not hide that fact from him either, we talk of his adoption with him and around him. We are open about it and even more so with the adoption of our daughter pending, who will look nothing like him and bring questions from outsiders that he has never had to face before. To me since he will be older than sister right away and be able to understand most of what is being said about his sister her adoption and adoption in general I want him to be prepared and well grounded in the fact that adoption is a wonderful thing and he is loved very much. Now back to the part about forgetting that he is adopted on a moment to moment world and I will tell you it is easy to forget he does not have my husbands DNA. James is JUST like his daddy in so many ways it is really cool. He talks like Randy and he acts like Randy but it is the little things that get me the most. Like when James is mad he will sigh almost identical to Randy and this is with out trying to mimics or even thinking about what he is doing, and when he concentrates really hard he sticks his tongue out and moves it the EXACT same way as Randy.... It is sooooo cute but the kicker is he looks so much like his daddy it is uncanny sometimes. There are things I would rather not mention that he does just like me but my favorite thing is the way he loves to make up a song, and how he will sing to himself making up things as he goes along not caring who hears or if it makes sense to anyone else. I sure do love my little buddy.

Enjoy the new scrap page!

One Year LID

Well in the beginning I never thought I would even see a one year mark of our LID without our daughter in hand. As time went by that became more and more of a reality and eventually I began to pray that we would only get so far as this one year mark. Well we are here and still have no clue as to when we will see our daughters face. It could be two months or it could be six. This journey has been good and it has been bad, it has been easy and it has been hard however I am grateful that we have made it this far at least this is one year I will never haft to wait again and with any luck this time next year this wait will be a distant memory and we will look back and say how worth it she is.I think the bad and hard things are the not knowing. Not knowing when and how many referrals are coming, not knowing it there will be a new set of rules set in place, or knowing if they will grandfather us in if there are. Not knowing when Miah may be born or when I can guess that she has been. That and so many more unknowns that nothing but a referral and then our daughter in arms can answer.The good and the easy have been falling in love with our daughter even without seeing her face. Setting up a place for her in our home and lives. Making a choice that no matter what we would wait for her and cherish her when we a finally given the chance. Buying all the cute clothes and holding them close wondering how she will feel in my arms and sending prayers her way.I am grateful that I have had my James to help ease the wait because I know what it is to be childless for many years and yearn for a child with none to hold. He has been as always my little prince charming and as best he could eased some of the pain of this wait. I am blessed with Randy as well as he has been a rock and helped me to keep my sanity when days like the one with only five referral days came in. Reminding me that it is just a matter of time and then we will have the child meant for us. Letting me cry but not wallow in self pity, and holding me.Don't get me wrong waiting is not the end of the world and I know that well as I have waited for a child only to hold her and lose her, that is as close to the end as I want to come. Waiting for Miah is just hard HARD.One year thank goodness we have come this far.... Almost there baby girl we are coming and we love you. Hold on!

9/11

Five years ago today I woke up to the sweet sound of my two month old son needing some attention. I made him a bottle, feed him and then lay him down on a soft blanket in the floor for some stimulation about two feet from our TV and I lay down beside him and turned it on to hear the news and weather report for the day. Never in a million years did I expect what came next. I thought I was watching a movie clip at first and then after they showed the clip of the first plane hitting the twin towers for the third or fourth time it hit me that this was real. Oh My God, I looked at James and just wanted to pick him up and hide, but I could not tear my gaze away from the news and then it happened. I watched in horror as a second plane hit, there was no turning away of the camera or going off air no I saw it all from the safety of my living room and I still felt the jolt of that impact as if I were standing there. I called Randy right away and told him about the second plane and he was stunned yelling at his co workers to turn on the new online right now, then suddenly as I am on the phone I hear a reporter stating that the pentagon has been hit..... I tell Randy this and again stunned silence, I think we just sat on the phone in silence for a while not know what to say or to do next. What was happening.... By this time there was no question that we were under attack of some kind but why and who and how were questions that would take time to answer. I stayed glued to the TV all day holding James and crying, praying and being afraid....Fear like I had never known, I mean this is America and you just don't mess with her.
Today James is five and thriving and our country has rallied together and come back from the terrible tragedy but it is not the same as before. It will never be the same,
To all who lost a loved one in this horrible event my heart and prayers go out to you may you find peace today and every day.
To our country may we continue to heal and grow, let us cause a better future for our children and a safe one at that.