moments

My eyes are filled with tears... i just finished watching a movie with evelyn (Kit Kittredge - An American Doll) and sometimes moments just hit me...like, that i can't believe my baby isn't a baby. We watched the whole movie together, it was just so special. ( Also, a really great movie!) And then, not 15 minutes after we finished i look out the window and see evelyn on a bike without training wheels! This can't be!!! And registering for first grade... and going to see the Justin Beiber movie at the theater... and seeing her say hi to a boy from school at a basketball game.... and on and on... Oh, I hope I am savoring these moments... We've also been watching a lot of our home movies lately... i guess it makes me sentimental or something... :-) Even in just the nine months we've had Lindy... looking back on home videos from last summer.... how much more vocal she is, how much more willing to smile she is... wow. feeling very thankful.. and a bit more mushy than usual! ;-)

things to not forget

We were in the car the other night going to the Target in Reynoldsburg (because they carry some hair products for Lindy that I can't buy in Lancaster) and we were commenting on what words Lindy can say... Daniel and I were at a loss as to what her first word was. Evelyn remembered! :) It was "uh-oh". I will get a 'baby book' together for Lindy sometime in the nearer future, but for now, I need to jot a few of these things down. Lindy is 20 months old now.. she can routinely say: uh-oh, mama, daddy, baba (bottle), juice, shoes, cheese, sissy (not super clear), bye-bye (sounds kind of like baa-bo), ball, and a version of trash... it's the same everytime she wants to throw something away, so I'll give her that! Ha!

For the past two or three nights, Lindy has cried when we lay her down to bed after giving her a bottle... she is fine if we stand there and make some sort of physical contact with her, but as soon as we start to leave, she cries... almost screams... the first night of this, I was patting her bottom to a rhythm and started to slowly stop and lift my hand away... she quickly grabbed my hand with hers and squeezed tight and brought it up to her chest! As I stood there with her firm grip on my hand, my eyes welled up with tears... oh, how precious for my girl to find comfort in the grasp of our hands. Last night, the crying lasted longer... I'm not sure what is going on in that little brain of hers... but she is determined to not let us walk out of that room! But, tonight.. I talked her through the fact that it was time to go to sleep and close her eyes... I repeatedly said, "it's okay.. it's okay... time to go night night, Lindy... time to go night night." She did her bought of crying again, I started to pat her bottom and decided to sing to her... it must have been the singing... she calmed down and didn't grab for me to touch her.. I continued singing 'Jesus loves me' and then moved into humming it... walked closer to the door while humming and she must have been asleep. I closed the door and that was an hour and a half ago and she's been completely quiet. Precious baby... love her so!

Evelyn has been so tenderhearted to Lindy... it is so sweet.. She cries when Lindy cries. She cried the other evening when I scolded Lindy for hitting Evelyn... Not because Evelyn was hurt, but because she didn't want Lindy to be in trouble! Last night while I spent an hour in Lindy's room getting her to fall asleep, precious Evelyn practiced her first piano lesson by herself and then got in bed and was asleep when I came out of Lindy's room...

And at the dinner table tonight, Evelyn informed us of how 'back in the old days, white people and black people weren't allowed to play together... but then a good guy decided that was wrong and then the white people could play with the brown people.' :) she wondered why it mattered what color their skin was, as long as they were nice and loving it didn't matter. Which reminds me about a few weeks ago when we went up to Easton... I think one of the first things Evelyn said when we walked in the mall was, "Oh, this is nice, they have a lot of brown people here". hehehehe.. how sweet and innocent and honest she is! love it! I love what her openness to Lindy and her love for her will do to her spirit as she matures... She's already convinced that when she gets to be a mom, she is going to have one baby from her belly and adopt the other! :-)

On the paperwork front, I am almost completely done with all that needs done for Lindiwe! I received her social security card in the mail yesterday... i just have to take it in and do a legal name change and we'll be good to go! Whew! That will feel so good!!! Two whole years of paperwork!! We will have the 12 month, 18 month and 24 month post placement reports and then that will be totally it!

We have freezing rain coming down right now and for the rest of the night.... hoping that power doesn't go out!!