The Valentine package

Dear Brit,

We got an email from your dad last night telling us what you are up to these days.  Sounds like you have finally mastered the big girl pants. Hooray for no more diapers!

I chuckled as I read about you and your little brother emptying out the dresser and putting all the clothes in the crib.  Sounds like the kind of thing that would happen in a house full of toddlers.

Your dad also said that you are quite the chatty girl now.  And your response to everything is "really".

But by far our favorite line in the entire email was when he told us you have an imaginary chicken that you chase through the house.  I laughed and laughed when I heard that.

I looked up at BF and I said "I wonder who she gets THAT from!"

He immediately looked back and me and said "She gets her curly hair from me, and her eyes from me, but there is absolutely no question that she gets chasing imaginary chickens through the house from YOU!"

He's probably right.

I hope you got your Valentine's Day package that we sent to you.  We just love picking out special things for you and we delight in imagining you playing with them, reading them, wearing them or eating them.

The entire package of Valentine fun

The chocolates taped to a Valentine plate

 This time I included chocolates, which I hope brought you great joy.  It is funny to me because I don't like chocolate at all so I don't even think about sending it to you, but from what I have heard, you seem to love chocolate enough to make up for chocolate that I don't eat!

Our card to you

Your hair clips

We also included hair clips and piggy tail holders, not that you like to wear them, but we felt like we should at least send them to try to help you tame that crazy mass of curls that we love so much!

Only one more month until your third birthday.  It is amazing how you are growing up.  We anxiously await being able to have a visit with you again.  And more than anything we long for the day that we can have an ongoing relationship with you.  We keep telling ourselves that each day that passes is another day closer to that relationship we long for.  We want you to be able to know first hand the love we have for you.

Thinking about and loving you from a distance.

Long time no post

Yes, I am alive and well.  Thank you to everyone who left comments and sent me private messages.  It was so nice to see that so many people even noticed that I have been quiet.

Me, my sister and our friend
on our weekend getaway

There is no dramatic reason for the lack of posting.  It is just the reality of a very busy life with our boys.  My every minute seems to be filled with ball practices, games and meetings of every kind.  We also had some sad days as one of my son's friends was killed in a car accident.  BF and I went away for a weekend with my sister and some friends, which was great fun.  There just always seems to be something that keeps us so busy.  But all in all, we have been well and just living and loving each other.

I have been a bit more active on the FB side of adoption land lately.  I am part of several adoption related groups and I have also been researching and reading so much about adoption, specifically how adoption affects adoptees.  One of my favorite new blogs is Adoptee Restoration.  The author, Deanna Shrodes, is amazing.  She says it like it is, which is often not how our society wants to hear it.  I am always anxious for her next post.  She is bold and outspoken, and I think she seriously ROCKS.  I love her Christian perspective on adoption.  Very different from what you would expect.  If you are involved in adoption in any way I suggest you follow her.  It is challenging to me every time I read her blog posts.

During my quiet time away from my blog, I have also been chatting back and forth with some of my adoptive mom friends and a couple of birthmother friends.  It seems like it has been a really tough month for lots of us.

I will say that one of my super amazing adoptive mom friends did have a great experience when her daughter's birthmother emailed back after months of complete silence.  It was so wonderful and heartbreaking at the same time to see how my friend was longing for a connection to her daughter's first family and how the silence was just killing her.  Then the email came in, followed by an exchange of text messages and now hopefully there can be continued conversation between the two of them.

This particular adoptive mother and I were texting each other and she shared with me the text exchange she had just had with her daughter's first mother and I will admit, I cried as I read one of the messages she sent to her daughter's first mother.  She said "Well let me know if you have any questions or want a picture or something.  You're her mom too, we want you in our family!"

Yes, an adoptive mom said that to her daughter's first mother.

And it isn't just lip service.  This adoptive mom has over and over again talked to me about how she doesn't know how to have more interaction with her daughter's first family.  She has written letters and sent emails and she just sits and waits to hear back.  She desperately wants her daughter to know her other family too.  That is one lucky little girl.  She has a mom who gets it.  Her mom wants her to feel whole, knowing all of the things that make her who she is.  I am so glad she has become my friend.

So with that, I am going to sign off for today, because I need to head home to my boys.  But I have a blog post that I have been dying to write about birthmothers that I may try to sit down and sort through this evening.

And above all else, I will sit with my phone in my hand just waiting for the email update, since today is the 25th...

BF and me under the neon lights on our trip

My sweet LanMan after his
last basketball game of the season