When We Met

Good Morning Everyone! I woke up to the sweet face of our little boy today and, as always, it’s the best sight I could imagine first thing in the morning. And to think that I first saw this face only one year ago today. The second that I saw him then in Dr. Alma’s office in Astana, I was overtaken more by uncertainty than anything. Was this the child meant for us? But Gulsanna, with a raise of her shoulders and a nod of her head, told us that he was ours and the confusion turned adoration. How could anyone not fall in love with this face? The caretaker passed him to me and I can truly say it is the most surreal, most amazing, most terrifying , and most wonderful moment in my life. And when I looked over at Peter, I knew he felt the same. Every day Peter and I say to each other at least ten times “Do you think he’s the best baby ever?” The answer, of course, is always an emphatic “Yes.” -m

Off to Kaz- 1 Year Ago

So here I am packing by bags to head to Kazakhstan to meet our son. No wait- that was last year. Yup, exactly one year ago today a frazzled, terrified couple left DC on a plane to Kazakhstan and came back almost two months later as parents. I can’t believe it has been a year already! It’s like someone pushed the fast-forward button and here we are. I still remember so vividly sitting in the terminal at Dulles just sitting, waiting, watching the people around us and wondering where they were going- meeting family (like us!), funeral, vacation, work. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t read, I could barely put two words together and I was so distracted that I was afraid I wouldn’t hear them call the flight. In short, I was a complete mess. Of course, Peter wasn’t exactly calm, cool, and collected himself either but at least he didn’t dump coffee all over himself minutes before getting on the plane for a 20 hour trip like I did. If only I had known that things would turn out as perfectly as they did. Here I am a year later and I have the most amazing, adorable, and loving family that I could have hoped for. I am truly lucky. As the anniversary of our trip to Kaz approached, I have felt kind of like the holidays are coming. And I guess they sort of are. We have so many stepping stones to celebrate- the day we met Rinat, the day the judge announced he was ours, the day we took him out of the Baby House to our apartment, the day we left Astana for good to complete our trip in Almaty, the day we stepped off the plane in DC and were finally home- there are 7 weeks of celebrations as we little by little became his family and he ours. As Rinat grows older, I hope to revisit this time every year and be able to relive the weeks, days, hours, and minutes that brought us together. I know it’ll drive him crazy and I’ll hear “Mooooommm, do I have to hear it again?” But I don’t care- he’ll know the whole story word for word even if I have to tie him down and torture him with it. I hope that you too can find something to celebrate today. Love to all. -m

It's Been a While

Hi everyone! Gosh, where do I even start? I feel like it’s been eons since I last updated you guys on what our little sweet pea is up to. I guess it kinda has been. Well, it’s not for lack of cute & fun stories to tell about him. It’s not because our lives are boring and I have nothing to report. Quite the opposite actually. It’s been just as wonderful having our guy with us as always. He is still just as amazing to me. Sometimes (this morning in fact) I look at him and just want to grab him and squish him and kiss him until he cries out for mercy. OK so I really did chase him around the house in his adorable little footie pj’s this morning after breakfast and grab and smooch him until he said “Mama, NO! NO! NO!” Is there such thing as loving your kid too much? If so, I’m definitely guilty. So… since I last posted, we have had a couple more firsts. We left our sweet baby for a weekend for the first time with Peter’s sis, Ann. We went away four our TEN YEAR anniversary (can you believe it?) and though Peter only checked in with her a couple times, my friends- the protective bulldogs that they are- called to check up on Ann and Rin 4 times. I still don’t think Ann believes that I didn’t put them up to it. He, of course, was fine and had tons of fun with his Auntie. And still, almost 2 months later, out of the blue will say “Aaaaannnn! Puppy!” because she brought her dogs. We also spent almost a week at the lake house and had a great time. We had Mer/Caroline and Nan/Walt/Sam/Sara come and he just had a blast with everyone. He just soaked up everything- the beach, the water, the finger-painting, and he learned 9 new words from his cousins (mostly Sara). The last day that we were there, he and the cousins spent the morning running up and down the hallway chasing each other and laughing hysterically. It makes me want a million of them. We also took a trip to Lynchburg where he had his first trip to the pool. It has since become a several-times-a-week activity at our house. He loves it and can spend hours and hours there until I have to drag him away screaming. Also in L’Burg, he rode on the tractor with Mar which was the equivalent of Peter riding in a delorian or something. He’s such a boy and loves all things that are construction related- especially diggers. He must say that word about 40 times a day. And speaking of which, we had his 18 month checkup the other day and they asked if he could say 4-6 words. I counted after I got home and he knows… are you ready for this?… 100 words- not counting animal noises and people's names. ‘No’ is, of course, his all time favorite but he also can say things like ‘raspberry’ and ‘river’. And he also knows the letters D, R, O, E and the number 8. I think he may be brilliant. Actually, I hope that every parent thinks that about their kid but I really do think he’s well on his way to living up to his name. And he's so flippin cute I can hardly stand it sometimes. One of his new favorite things to do is to find a booboo on Mama, kiss it, and say “Booboo, bye-bye” and wave to it. It’s the sweetest thing ever. He has also started to play pretend with his animals. He shares his snacks, drinks, and binkies with them, puts a diaper on them, puts them on the potty, and tucks them in. He also has enjoyed pretending to cook in his friend Hadley’s play kitchen. I’m considering getting one for him- do you think Pottery Barn makes one in blue? And, lastly, we are finally finally finally getting started with the next adoption. We had to change placement agencies because the Kaz program with CAI is on hold at the moment. So we are now with a new agency that some of our friends in Kaz used and we are happy so far. I put a link up to their website on the left of the blog. We are trying for a girl this time so it will take quite a bit longer (like a couple years) but we are happy to get going with things. And I think the timing will be a good thing since I think Rin will be a better brother if he can get a couple of years on his little sis. Things are a bit slower with Kaz adoptions right now and we had considered adopting from somewhere else but we went to a party at the Kaz embassy here in DC in May and felt such pride at our adopted country that it made us even more certain that Kaz was the right way to go- even if the process is a bit rockier this time around. Cross your fingers that we don’t hit any more road blocks! In the meantime, we will be enjoying every second with adorable, sweet, smart, funny, and ornery little Rinat. We hope all’s well in your world. -m