Is it me?

Or does the book title "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Connecting with Your Angels" seem a bit redundant?

10 Months

Sweet, sweet Grace.

You bless me everyday with your smile, hugs, and cheery disposition.

Do you see her two new teeth?

They came in last week while at the beach with the grandparents.  The tooth tally is now at 4.

Gracie is the most laid back child I've ever seen.  She doesn't let a little thing liked missed naps or meals bother her.  Which makes her a wonderful traveler.  She'll sleep in pack and play, a car seat, a lap, a high chair, a stroller.  I think she gets this from her father as I, well, let's just say I'm a little more Princess and the Pea...

When she is hungry, she does cry a little bit.  But not in the whiny battle cry that is your typical baby crying for food.  Rather she sticks out her bottom lip, flares her little nostrils, slowly releasing crocodile tears, and just sort of whimpers, as if to say, "I am the saddest, hungriest baby in the world.  Oh won't you pretty please feed me?"  So, of course, we oblige her.

Her favorite food is sweet potatoes with cinnamon.  When she eats then she shakes with delight and says, "MMMMM!"  and even claps her hands.

She claps her hands quite often.  This is vastly different than Henry.  Gracie constantly wants to interact with us and so often claps when we speak to her, sing to her, or put her in her high chair.  She also likes to clap to music. 

Which brings me to her real love: dancing.  She claps to the beat and sort of rocks back and forth.  She raises her hands in the air like she just doesn't care.  She raises the roof.  She hops along the floor and squeals with delight.  And when trapped in her car seat, she rocks back and forth and slaps her thighs.  It is awesome.  Her favorites Stevie Wonder and the Black Eyed Peas.  But she'll dance to anything--be it the commercials on TV, Henry singing a song, or the noise from a toy.

She adores to crawl over Henry and she doesn't even mind when he crawls all over her.  Henry also likes to pretend to ride her as she crawls,  straddling her and waddling as she moves along, saying "Yeehaw!  Giddy up Gracie!"  I used to discourage this, saying, "Henry, it is never appropriate to ride your sister."  But he's now taken to standing while doing it rather than actually sitting on her.  And, well, I've just sort of given up.  I figure if she minded she wouldn't be giggling and making fart noises.

She cruises around all the furniture and will walk when holding our hands.  She walks on her tippy toes.  She especially loves to stand holding on to the couch and bounce up and down.  She also jumps up and down in her crib while holding onto the railing.  She has also begun to let go and stand for a few seconds before plopping down on her behind.  I predict she'll be walking by Halloween. 

She waves occasionally.  And she doesn't just do a little hand flapping.  She raises her hand up above her head as if she is flagging someone down.  In truth, she first learned this behavior from Curious George. (I imagine that many of her talents and favorites will be directly related to her older brother's favorites.)

Violet (9), Gracie, me, and Bo (7) at the beach. Gracie and Violet became the best of friends.

She continues to draw attention wherever we go.  She shamelessly flirts with every man within a 20 foot radius.  I've tried explaining that anyone older than 3 years old is too old for her, but she doesn't seem to listen.  She also adores her cousins and aunts.  While she is not a big fan of either set of grandparents (which just makes me feel horrible), she does adore her Aunts Sonya and Holly.  She also can't get enough of Violet, Rachel, or Caleb. 

But, in the end, she prefers her Mommy.  Which just melts my heart.  I think it is her femaleness versus Henry's maleness.  Henry could go days without human contact.  I could just set out Zbars and Capri Suns and he'd be happy as a clam to play trains or Legos by himself.  (Just this morning he told me he couldn't come down to breakfast because he needed to play trains by himself in his room.  He said, "I just need 5 more minutes of me time and den I can hewp you."  Hmmm.....wonder where he heard that?)  But Gracie is the opposite.  She'll play with toys by herself, but only if she can see me, Sloan, or Henry.  

And despite her constant nearness, she has yet to find her "inside voice".  She has begun to constantly babble.  In various ear piercing tones.  Sometimes I think she is just practicing her scales.  Other times she seems to be calling butterflies.  And other times, it is to get our attention, channeling her inner Elizabeth Edwards, screaming "LOOK AT ME!!!"   

Well, my darling Margaret Grace, it is my joy to look at you.

Figure Eight

At the beach with the in-laws.

Six adults.  Five children--Violet (9), Bo (7), Gigi (3), Henry (3), Gracie (10 months).  12 bottles of wine. 3 lap tops.  1 Ipad.  4 Ipods.  1 Kindle.  Too many bags of chips, cheetos, Doritos, Cheez-its, popcorn, pretzels to count.  It's a bit like Costco threw up here.  3 Ginormo holes dug in the sand courtesy of Uncle Marshall.  1 time Sloan forgot to put a swim diaper on Gracie and she pooped in her swimsuit. 

Good times. 

The best part?  I haven't worn shoes all day.  And tomorrow's not looking good for shoes either.

Just Singing in the Rain...

Sorry for the foginess of the pics.  Couldn't wipe the lens fast enough. 

Dancing in puddles ...

So thankful the thunder finally stopped so we could enjoy the shower.

Boys and their trucks...after playing in the drain pipe.  That's right--my son was playing in the gutter.

And now we must swing in the rain...

Are you kidding me?

Yeah...  I have the cutest kids on the planet.  And what is even more dear is how they love each other.

It's me, you old poop*...

Sloan loves telling me he is old.  Because he is a whopping 4 years older than me and has gray hair.  I reply that being lazy and being old are two entirely different things.

However, this morning it came to my attention that I may very well be old.  Not getting old, but, sadly, already there and unpacked.  Ready for shuffleboard and my 4pm dinner. 

You see, I injured myself putting on deodorant.  I pulled a muscle in my back.  When it first happened, I was quite certain that I was having a pulmonary embolism and well on my way to dying from a stroke.  (Can you tell I watch too much Deadliest Catch?)  I was having sharp, shooting pains in my back, right under my chicken wing bones (to use the medical term).  And the pain was so intense that it made breathing difficult--which was not helped by the fact I was certain I was dying, which, duh, was causing me to hyperventilate. 

I tried convincing Sloan that my near death experience was well worth him cancelling his day's meetings.  I didn't care how many people had flown in from California. 

"You can't go out of town, I think I may be dying." I yelled to Sloan from our front porch as he put his suitcase in the trunk of his car. 

"How did you do this again?"

"Shut up.  Don't make me laugh.  I think a blood clot is passing through my lungs and heart."

"You pulled a muscle putting on deodorant; you're not Captain of the Cornelia Marie."

"Well, if you need me today and can't reach me, it may be because I'm at the hospital."

None of these ploys seemed to make him stay at home.   He simply told me to take it easy.  What?  As opposed to all those days I take it hard? 

By the end of breakfast, I was almost positive that I would live throughout the day.  I think I may have even been exaggerating.  But really, I did pull a muscle and it did hurt to breathe for awhile and that did scare me.  So we had a relaxing morning of doing laundry and watching Kung Fu Panda and The Princess and the Frog.  My back now simply has that ache you feel when you strain something. 

But when putting on deodorant becomes a strain, that means you are OLD.  Or it is time to move to France. 

*Another sign of being elderly?  The ability to quote "On Golden Pond" at will.  It was my mother's favorite movie and one of about 6 VHS tapes we had as a kid.  I watched it a lot.  That and "Poltergeist".  Probably not the most age appropriate thing. 

Blog about Article on Blog on Blog (what?)

On Friday, Sloan, Gracie and I headed once again to Fredericksburg to speak at an adoption training for Bethany Christian Services.  It shocked me how just speaking about our adoption journey was still so emotional for me.  I was not prepared to grieve for Emma Sloan once again.  I mean, I know she was never really our daughter, and yet discussing her and that disapointment still hurt.  Deeply.  Of course, the pain was tempered by the cuteness and sweetness of Gracie, who seemed to coo and giggle as if on cue.  She was the perfect exclamation point to our many punch lines. 

We continue to be moved by God each time we tell our story.  And so we will keep on telling it.  If for no other reason than to remind ourselves of how big and good God is. 

And because some of you wanted to see it, below is the article I wrote for Bethany's August newsletter.  That's right, I'm posting on my blog an article about my blog. 

I began my blog (www.henryandgrace.com) over three years ago while pregnant and on hospitalized bedrest with my son, Henry. Once he was born, like many Mommy-blogs, it became a digital scrapbook for my son, a way for family and friends to see what we were up to, and a way for me to finally put my degrees in Creative Writing and Christian Education to use. Sometimes the posts were funny stories of late night poop-explosions, other times I wrote of repenting of my many idols that Motherhood brought to the foreground. As Henry approached toddlerdom, it began, more and more, to be about my struggles with infertility. As God worked on my heart bringing me into the world of adoption, it became apparent that He was creating something more than a 21st century baby book and diary--He was creating a place for me to see Him at work, carving out a ministry for me, and creating community.

I must confess my husband and I had many discussions about what could and could not go on the blog, particularly when it came to our adoption journey. What if our case worker read it and learned the only reason our base boards were dusted was because she was coming over? Or that my heart still ached when friends told me they were pregnant? Or that I was constantly repenting of raising my voice at Henry for peeing on the couch? Eventually, and not always perfectly, I learned to ask “Am I writing this because I want to talk about myself or because I think God might be glorified in this?” And because God’s strength is most readily seen in human weakness, I included everything from my fears about what an open adoption might mean, to how dorky I was at the training seminar. (Seriously, folks, I could have only been less cool had I shown up with apples for all of the case workers.) I even included my heart-ache when the birthmother of our first placement reinstated her parental rights on day 8.

And in as much as my blog began to be a place where I could preach the Gospel to myself, it began touching others as well. I’ve gotten emails from women struggling with infertility, who are thinking about adoption, or who have adopted and just wanted to connect with another Mom whose kids had different skin color. I’ve been asked everything from housecleaning tips for home studies (HA!), to what is it like raising a white son and a brown daughter, to what is it REALLY like helping a child wean themselves off narcotics.

Through my blog, I’ve met some incredible people. Sometimes I only know them in cyber-space, commenting on one another’s blogs or sending each other Facebook messages as they live in Texas, or Georgia, or Canada. I’ve educated friends of friends about the adoption process. I’ve been in contact with adoptees who have shared with me their stories of how they learned about their adoption. I’ve had the opportunity to tell women who have never stepped foot in a church about how God pursued me and knit my family together. I’ve even been stopped in a grocery store by a stranger because she recognized me from my blog and wanted to let me know that because of my blog, she and her husband felt free to pursue a transracial adoption (SOOOOO wished I’d bathed that day).

Each time I connect with someone, I am humbled. I know how minor of a player I am in all of this-- just an extra in God’s ridiculous love affair with humanity. My blog is called “Elizabethtown: Where I’m Homecoming Queen and Always Write”. However, I like to think that if you look closely, what you’ll really read is the story of how God loves me so well.