One month together!

Hair time is a special time....oh, and we learned the Amharic word for "lice."


More special hair time. Moments before the tragic finger burn of 2009....
It has been one busy month!

Somehow this is our first family photo.....(in Chicago)

Wow! I initially had intentions of doing a "decade in review" post, and then when that fell by the wayside the second option was a "2009 in photos." Perhaps luckily for you, sleep just keeps on winning and here you have what remains: our first month together. And what a month it was.

I'm not gonna lie. Parenting ain't easy. Perhaps I was shocked that I was so shocked by the adjustment. This month has been full of ups and downs. Our first few weeks together were uber hard. Really. I am SOO thankful that N was able to have so much time off or I may not be writing this right now. Since he is a teacher, he already was scheduled to have the two week holiday break. Our travel dates could not have been more perfect as he was able to have two FMLA weeks off as well. Y LOVES her Babba....a lot! Having N around so much made the initial transition so much smoother!

The first few weeks were full of sleep loss, temper tantrums, travel, sickness, unpredictability and confusion all around. I think we wondered how we were going to be able to do it, and Y wondered what happened to life as she knew it.

The last two have involved introductions, family fun, sledding, more sleep, less tantrums, mild sickness and more stability. In some ways, the improvements Y has made have been miraculous. With a few boundaries and tons of attention, she is really adjusting rapidly.

Y is a gift to our family. She really is. She makes us laugh every single day and her courage is amazing. She loves to eat, play with dolls that have hair, slide really fast down big hills, read books, serve pretend coffee and go to visit people. She truly misses her friends from her orphanages and asks about them (and to pray for them) daily. Her desire to see them again, and her lack of real understanding about where they are now, is sometimes heart breaking. We have certainly seen her mourn in her own ways.

And I think I have mourned more as well. As we have learned more and more about her past, I am constantly reminded of how that will impact her future. It isn't all hard, but it isn't all easy either. Adoption just isn't. But that is ok. Our first month together is only the beginning. We have so many months and so many more ups and downs.