NINE
The number of months since we decided to take this leap of faith and start our adoption journey. And, the number of months of life Leo has lived without his Forever Family.
Leo is nine months old today (April must have gone by quickly, I feel like I just posted that he was eight months old!). That’s old enough to crawl…old enough to pull himself up and cruise around holding on to furniture...old enough to move on to more complex (chunkier and delicious) food options…and old enough to begin to have stranger anxiety. Oh, how I don’t want to be the stranger Leo has anxiety over!
So, Leo…here are nine things (one for each month of your life) you should know about your Mom:
- I love your dad, your brother, and you more than anything in the whole world.
- I have the shape of your nose, the part in your hair, the arch of your feet, and the sweet intensity of your eyes etched into my mind.
- Being able to read to you while we snuggle and get to know each other is something I think about every single day.
- Nothing will ever stand in my way of making sure you and your brother have what you need to thrive in this world.
- Without a doubt, I am a passionate and emotional person…and on the day we finally meet face-to-face, it should not be hard to recognize me – I will be the one with tears of enormous pride and joy swelling in my eyes.
- Your bedroom is truly a labor of love...and not a day goes by that I do not open that door and at least peek in (often I go in & sit for a bit), smile and dream about the day we can be in there together sleeping, reading, playing, dancing…living together.
- Your foster family and your birth family are in my daily prayers…to them I will be forever grateful for their strength and courage; it’s obvious to me where you get your bravery from.
- I am silly...or at least your brother thinks so, and I would trust his opinion - he is young and hip like you.
- Brown is my favorite color...and I long to look into your beautiful brown eyes so you can see exactly how much I love you.
Today is also the three month mark of Leo “officially” being a part of our lives – as we officially accepted the referral on February 5th. I would LOVE to think and hope that that means we are at least half way through our wait to travel to bring Leo home. Knock on wood, we’ve been managing the wait pretty darn well. There are days that we think “What are we doing?! Who do we think we are thinking we can handle the challenges that lie ahead”; there are days that we are frustrated with “the process” and don’t understand why it takes so long to bring our son home…isn’t it in everyone’s best interests to get these children to their Forever Families sooner rather than later?!; there are days when we feel so incredibly blessed to have been matched with Leo when we did – we easily could still be waiting for our referral and therefore not be traveling until mid- to late-2011; and there are days (everyday) when we can’t think of life without Leo - he is so much a part of our daily life already. Our life…our family…without Leo!? UNTHINKABLE!!
Until next time…I'll be wondering how Leo spends his days now that he's nine months old
