Celebrating 17 years in lazy style.... Happy Anniversary to my rock!

17 years of marriage is HUGE considering many of our friends are now divorced. We started out as knowing each other through his sister, who was in my grade school and high school class. He was in the Air Force when we were in High school and she would bring her snail mail letters to lunch and read them to me. He use to drive us to soccer games at Lafayette Park in the City when we were in grade school, but never did I expect that he and I would exchange phone numbers on my 19th birthday at his moms house after a downer of a night and a cancelled party. LOL I Had to call his sister the next day and tell her he had asked for my phone number and I hope it would not make her mad. That my friends marks the beginning of our nearly 18.5 years of being together and then now 17 years of marriage. No, it has not all been a smooth road, but honestly those bumps in the road have brought us closer than ever. Many miscarriages later, failed adoptions and now the beautiful daughter we love to the core, it has been worth every moment.

Happy Anniversary my sweetie.



and this is what makes me so proud of him. He is such a wonderful daddy.

can't sleep so my thoughts are running wild

I often try to find the blogs of the women I went through IVF / infertility treatment cycles with from some of the internet forum boards I was on. Man, I have lost touch with so many. I have moreso lately bookmarked blogs that relate more to my time in my life now, Parenting after Infertility and Adoption (also those that suffer miscarriages still). I migrate to these blogs that talk about the feelings they are dealing with in the adoption side of their lives, questions they get asked publically, staring that happens when a family is transracially formed by adoption, open adoption, family reactions to such adoptions and how birthmothers/birtfamilies are doing after a placement has been made. (that includes the birth siblings of an adoptive child, like J).

I had to mention to my sister yesterday that if she does take J to the local movie theater that hosts free kids movies that there might be a chance that she could run into a part of the birthmothers family of Julia. Maybe her birthsister, birthbrother and even her birthmother! They don't live far from us and the movie house that is hosting this free event is near smack dab in the middle of where we live and where J's birthmother lives!!!!! I know they go to these free events often because a mutual friend of the birthmothers and ours gave us the list of movies and movie houses they are playing at.

At first my sister was a little taken back that she might have an encounter like this, but after a few minutes I could tell she was relieved to know this could happen to her if she is out and about with all the kids (she has her 3, my brothers 3 and Julia each day (all cousins!! FUN)). I wonder if my sister will ever have "adoption" type questions thrown at her about us having adopted Julia and how is it that we can have such an open adoption like we do. We are honest with people and let them know how it works. Of course we don't share details of our visits, but just that an overall understanding of how we meet and how we let things just fall into place every few months for when we all feel the need to see each other. It really does work out well. I know one day we will all run into each other in public by chance and I wanted to let my sister know this so she could be prepared to answer any possible questions my nieces and nephews might have as to who these other people are. I told my sister to tell them they are our extended family now. J's birthfamily told us they consider us extended family now too.

I love our open adoption and am glad to share the ups and downs with anyone if they want to ask. I am proud of J's birthmother and we are so very very blessed to have her in our lives and for J to grow up knowing they all love her so much!

ok, off to bed. That is my random thought of the night... OOPS.. scratch that... random thought of the morning since it is now 1:12 am. bah.

gotta work tomorrow too. ick

Attaining a new babysitter, what a heartache yet joyful change

Julia has been with the same babysitter from 8 weeks of age until now at just over 8 months old. Tomorrow is her last day with D, her current babysitter. D lives about 10 minutes SW of us and I drop Julia off there M-F around 7:30 am. DH picks her up. D is a great sitter, but there is a time when it comes to knowing our daughter needs to expand her sights. My sister is now going to babysit her full time in her home.

See, this is a good thing. Why? Well, my sister is one that love to take her 3 children (14, 12, 5) to the zoo, grants farm, science center, susson park (sp, is that spelled correctly?) and to the water park at Six flaggs. Julia didn't get to do those things with her current sitter and I hated knowing that sitter did not even have a car at home in case of emergencies.

The good of those months with D as her sitter are that she was able to help closely interact with Julia to teach her many things. Helped her reach many milestones. It was an understanding that D would not tell us of any milestones reached because she wanted to have us experience them as first time parents on our own. So when Julia started to smile, maybe D saw it first, but she never let us know that. The only way we would know if Julia reached a milestone is we relayed it back to D that we saw that milestone and she just smiled and shook her head. I know some moms wouldn't like this kind of care, but it made me feel good to know I got to see her crawl for the first time, say bye-bye and wave for the first time.

I trust my sister, I know she has raised her children to not be 100% spoiled and makes them do chores and makes them sit down and do their homework each night, plus she really gets down on their level to talk to them if something has not gone accordingly or a little "time out" needs to be instilled. She does not raise a hand to her children and I am so thankful for that. I don't want my child to be around such negativity in discipline (not that D had this happening). My sister will work with Julia on her skills, help her learn to walk, help her learn playtime sharing of toys and just overall have fun each day.

I want my daughter to have fun, yet have respect for her adult figure in charge of her. I know this will be carried over into her life by my sister.

I am so thankful for family being in town and that my sister has decided to be a stay-at-home mom again. Plus she gets to spend time with her other cousins, my brothers children, because my sister will also be babysitting them. No, not too many children at all in one house, just lots of cousins to share time together with.

Julia, I know you will have such fun there. You'll be able to learn to swim, spend time with Aunt C and have nap time with your cousins too each day. I can't wait to see you in action with them all. I'll hopefully be able to go to the zoo and or grants farm with you all soon.

Cheers to family and the support they give.