Seventh Heaven

It's been seven weeks since we touched down on American soil and began our life with Lucy. I can't even begin to put our family's transformation into words -- but since this is a blog and that's the actual point -- I will try.

Through the process, you can read, research, ask questions and pray that you'll be prepared to provide the best life possible for your child. You have all these thoughts, expectations, and ideas of how life will be. And sometimes, it actually will be like that. But most of the time, it will be so completely different from what you could possibly imagine. I've always been one to put an extra amount of pressure on myself. But when you take a child away from everything she's ever known, fly her halfway around the world and force her to live a life that she never asked for, a lot of pressure, emotions and thoughts can cloud your mind and create additional obstacles to overcome.

Lucy, 9/10/08

At 20-mos, Lucy is kicking some serious butt with her ability to adapt and grow through so many changes. And she's similar to so many kids who, at this age, will run at you for a quick smiles and then push and shove to get away from you -- it's completely natural. But for most families ... those children have had a year and a half of kisses and cuddles to go along with it. From 7-months to 19-months, she (and we) were completely robbed of the opportunity to connect and bond -- but we need to accept that and just appreciate every moment we have together now and for many years to come.

But enough of that, I wish you could all climb in and interact with the Lucy we know now. Her sense of humor, the smiley glances across the room, and the way she amazes us daily with her ability to communicate in such a short time -- we are so lucky to have her.

Lucy, 10/28/08

Some highlights:
Lucy now has a few words. Mama, Dada, Jacob, doggy, up, again, night night, bye bye... to name a few.
She's doing signs regularly for: more, eat, please, thank you, milk, water...
She knows the sound a lion makes (her roar is adorably hilarious) and she can point to her nose, head, eyes, mouth and toes when asked.

Lucy also knows where to get and put her shoes and runs in on her own when she knows we're heading out... she turns on the music, closes the door and climbs up on me in the rocking chair when it's bedtime, brushes her teeth like a champ, tries to pull off her clothes and climb in when it's bath time and eats her veggies! She's obsessed with sitting on the potty and even had her first poop in it this morning and went potty again this afternoon! She's opinionated, defiant and adventurous and -- when it's not driving me to pull my hair out -- I am loving every minute of it.