Getting so big...

This statement refers not just to how big Isaiah is getting but how "big" his hair has gotten. For the record I love Little Man's curls and yes I did intentionally grow it out. Now until the last couple of weeks Little Man has let me comb out his hair each day and then wet it to keep it curly. But in the midst of being two and having independence he has not been so keen on my combing or wetting his hair lately. So, much to the delight of many of my friends, I took him yesterday to go get his hair cut.

Little Man yesterday morning before his hair cut!

I was amazed at how different he looked once his hair was cut. He looked like a different little boy. Actually that was it, he looked like a little boy instead of a my baby! He is growing up so fast!
Post haircut. What a smile and such long legs!

Friends are the family we choose!

I have long held that to be the truth and as this past year has proven it is more and more accurate for my life.

I live on the opposite coast of my family. Yes, by choice and no, not because my family and I don't get along. Actually my family and I get along just fine, but I took an opportunity to grow personally and professionally and moved across the country. Do I miss having my family down the street? Of course I do. But being here has been a great experience. I have had the opportunity to "grow" my family.

My "family" of friends is large, diverse slightly dysfunctional, wonderfully eccentric and all the colors of the rainbow. We are a family of many religions, a variety of backgrounds and political beliefs. We argue, disagree, laugh, love, cry, share the good times and the bad times. We support each other when others don't. We challenge each other to grow. And like a family we may not always like each other, but we always love each other.

I am blessed by my family of friends. They make the days brighter and the load a little lighter.

Thank you family, blood and chosen for all the love and support you give me.

Isaiah-isms

Every time I enter a new developmental stage with Isaiah I think it is the best stage yet. (I hope that continues into the teenage years!) We are in the twos and don't get me wrong, he is strong willed, stubborn and wants control of as many things as he possibly can have. I have learned that the more things I can give him control over the more willing he is to let me have control on the things he can't. But I love watching him grow..physically, mentally, emotionally and right now verbally. He has come up with some great statements lately as he continues to master language.

Here are a few of my favorite Isaiah-ism as of late...

1) "Come sit sit"- said when he wants you to come sit by him and read or do a puzzle

2) "I did it"- most often said with arms thrown up in the air and usually after I have done something he wants done like pouring a cup of apple juice

3) "No no Mr. Kr***" - said when he is heading into an area he knows he is not suppose to go :)

4) " Mommy I hold you" - said when he wants my hand to walk downstairs or when he wants a hug

5) " Come, come..follow me" - said as he reaches for a hand to lead you somewhere he wants to go

6) "Tag you are it" - often said from the back seat of the car or as he runs from me to another room in the house!

He amazes me daily and everyday I fall more and more in love with him!

Sick..

It has been a long time since I posted. Isaiah and I have battled through a month of being sick. We are both finally well. And in February my goal is to post more frequently.

The month started with me getting a stomach virus that left me MISERABLE for 12 hours. The next day Isaiah got the same stomach virus. He threw up for the first time and unfortunately I was in the line of fire :( Poor little guy was terrified of what his body was doing. Once he got through with the getting sick he proceeded to sleep for the next 13 hours. We stayed home together the next day and just chilled out. Once he got over that he got a cold and then an ear infection. I think we are all done with the illnesses for now though.

Love is an action verb...

I have spent the last few days pondering those words. I was in a deep conversation with a good friend about relationships when she mentioned that love is an action verb. We were reminiscing about the past and past relationships, when she made this statement. Since that point, it has been on my mind as we get ready to enter in 2011. I am not a big resolution kind of person, although I have considered following Rosie's advice and doing a vision board. The vision board seems more me than making a bunch of resolutions that may or may not get followed through with during the year. But in my head I can see how the vision board and this phrase "love is an action verb" mold together for me.

For some reason the last month or so has been a reflection time for me, not just of this year but of the last several years. In reflecting I have realized that I had an love that I lost, due in part to not having action behind my words. I have put into action, on some levels, a love for myself by working through things that have been hard and to others may have seemed selfish, in order to get to a place where I can say I love myself. I put into action the love I wanted to have as a mother to a child and worked to get Isaiah. And now I put into action everyday my love for him to make sure he knows love is not simply a noun. Do I put enough action behind it where he is concerned...I hope so, but I think there is always room to improve.

I have loved myself enough to stop putting action behind the word with some people in my life and have let them go. I have been thankful for the part they played in my life, recognized the blessings they brought to me, and I hope I brought to them, realized that the parting is sometimes sweet, sometimes not and sometimes just slips away over time without either person really doing anything. I have also realized how little action I have put behind love with some people and hope that this year I can right the wrong I have done. That it is not enough to sign a card, email or FB post with "love ya" and hope they know what they mean to me.

"I love you" was a hard thing for me to say for a long time and now it has become to easy. This year I want to find the balance. I want it to be a bit harder to say, I want there to be deliberate action to back up the words....I want people in my life that I love to experience it, not just hear it. So to the people in my life that I love, those that are new in my life, those that have been around a while, and those that I have forgotten to nurture because I "assume" you know I love you, this year I hope to do better. I hope that at least in some small way you feel the "action" of my love on a fairly regular basis.

Here is what love has come to look like in my home...What does it look like in yours? Are your "I love you's" filled with action?

Our first big injury...

Isaiah and I have been home together for just over a year and for those of you who have seen Isaiah since he became mobile you know he is "ALL BOY". People tell me this often, even the pediatrician, as he climbs everything and jumps off of anything he can climb up on, throws anything that resembles a ball and is most often found running from one location to the next via the closest mud or dirt he can find :) Don't get me wrong I love it, nature walks with him are amazing and almost always involve a change of clothes before we can get in the car and drive home!

In light of his personality I am actually surprised we have not had an "accident" sooner. Now had this injury come from him being his usually daredevil self it might not bother me so much. But was truly just a bad accident. Isaiah and I had been at a play area with a friend, her son and niece. The boys had been riding a little carousel that was in the mall. It was time to go and I had lifted my friends' son off and was heading to get Isaiah. He has stood up and was giggling at me. I asked him to sit and wait, he did just that. The problem was in his giggling fit he was not watching where he sat, and he caught the back of the train car and there he went, head first over the back of the car, off the carousel base and on to the ground. As you can imagine the yell started immediately (his actually not me!). I picked him up and after about a minute my friends niece noticed blood on my sleeve. My friend and I began to search for where the blood was coming from. She found the injury first, he had a hole in the back of his head about an inch long and down to the bone. Now as a science teacher I am pretty good with blood and stuff, but on my own child it was a bit different. I tried to stay calm and my friend says I did pretty well, got a bit panicky when I saw how deep the gash was and could not get the doctor. The fear I think came when I was not sure what to do, drive to hospital, drive to doctors office or call the ambulance. It was not gushing blood so I put him in the car and headed toward the doctors office, the hospital is down the road from there, so that was easy. I called as I drove and the pediatrician said bring him in.

They were wonderful, cleaned him up, numbed the area, cleaned the wound up, and put five staples in the wound. He was not happy about being restrained for them to do the procedure, but he did awesome. All in all from the time of the fall to the time he was stapled and back in the car headed home was about an hour. I was impressed. He is doing well and it has not slowed him at all. He is still climbing and jumping off of everything.

The ride before the fall

Nice to have long hair..hard to see the staples!

Embassy Day 12/23/2009

Today was Embassy day! Isaiah had another good night of sleep and I had gotten up fairly early to get him and I ready for what we thought was a 10 Embassy appointment. Something happened with paperwork for someone in our travel group not sure who or what and really does not matter much now since it was all resolved and worked out quickly. But it did mean we were ready early. This was my first experience packing what I thought was how many bottles and diapers I might need for the day out with Isaiah. (I was wrong!)

Okay so the vans came and got us from our guest house and then we went to the other guest house to get Monica, Audrey, Byron and their kids. Monica had arrived late Tuesday night due to weather delays and such and had only gotten to meet her daughter shortly before we were set to head to the Embassy. Audrey and Byron's son was wonderful and helped Monica in calming her daughter down. It was neat to watch how the kids all interacted with each other, especially the older ones with the young ones.

We got to the Embassy and had to drop everything electronic off up front. Which meant I have no photo documentation of the actual Embassy trip. While at the Embassy I ran into a couple I had met at the DC airport who was adopting with another agency. When they got Ethiopia they were informed that the child they were adopting was actually a twin, that the mom had not turned the other baby in at first and was no willing to place the baby up for adoption. So they immediately started the process of updating everything to adopted the twin. I could only imagine the emotions that come with finding that out. We were at the Embassy for what seemed a long time, but I guess in reality was about 2 hours. Isaiah played in the play area for a while but then got hungry. I made him a bottle and fed him, and then placed him in my carrier to see if I could get him to go to sleep. He eventually did and woke up just as I was called to go upstairs for my meeting with the Embassy official. I got nervous when they stated my paperwork said a child of a year and that Isaiah was not a year at referral time was I okay with that. I said of course, I thought my paperwork had said newborn, so was suddenly nervous. She said everything was fine and stamped my paperwork. Told me I would have everything the next day. This was a surprise to me. I had not booked plane flights home until the 30th because they told us our paperwork would not be ready until Monday with the Christmas holiday. Now we were all waiting to hear from Haile if this was true...if we got our paperwork on the 24th were we allowed to head home on the 25th.

After the Embassy we went to the Zebra Cafe for lunch. It was the first time that all the families got to sit down and talk together. Shortly after we got served lunch it started to rain. The roof leaked on the restaurant and there were quickly people shifting, moving and grabbing stuff up to keep it from getting wet. Isaiah still was not really eating and by this point in the trip I was getting pretty sick..did not realize it until I got home, but yeah by then I was not really eating anything but breakfast. Once we all finished lunch we went back to the guest house for the rest of the day. Most of us went to our rooms to nap kids that needed naps and just generally recover from a busy and slightly stressful morning.