More balloon photos

I have no self control.
None whatsoever.
I had a few balloon photos on my other camera, and I can't resist posting them, even though I posted many last time.
But just look how excited she was!
Well, her second birthday is only a few months away...
I guess we know what we'll be doing!
Look at her spiky hair all standing on end! That's a lot of balloon electricity!

Beautiful

A blog friend of mine over in Germany alerted me to this "old photo" generator out of somewhere in Asia, and I couldn't resist playing around with it. It's really a very simple generator floating around out there in the web-ether. You just upload a photo and hit a button and voila! A faux-antique photo! But it's confusing because none of the page is in English, so it takes some getting the hang of it. Once I figured it out, however, I couldn't stop. I thought this one came out particularly lovely.

My girl, how I love her. Forgive me if I wax on a bit here...but I'm feeling particularly sentimental tonight. I love her like chocolate. I love her like summer rain on your face after a drought. I love her like dancing in the moonlight on cool grass. I love her like the first love you ever had. I love her like the wingbeats of turtledoves on the pink air at dawn. I love her so much it actually hurts. It hurts under my breastbone. It makes me want to ghasp. It fills me up like helium so I feel like I might burst.

Sometimes, I am struck dumb by the idea that had one teensy little thing been different, we might never have crossed paths with this child. Had we waited just a little longer to decide we wanted to give parenthood a try. Had we hesitated even a few weeks longer over wondering whether we could afford adoption. Had we chosen a different program, a different agency. We were so close to the deadline for the new Hague convention regulations for adopting from China...had we vacillated even a few days more in our decision, we might not have qualified. Had we not discovered the Waiting Child (special medical needs) program, and basically dived headfirst into it, we might not have had access to the orphanage, the program, the system that allowed us to be matched with QQ.

The international adoption world is mercurial at best, nerve-shattering and even heart-breaking at worst.

Bottom line: we were incredibly, profoundly, unspeakably fortunate. I can't even tell you. Just nine months after meeting her for the first time (I can't believe it hasn't even been a year) we can not imagine our lives without her.

We are like small planets circling around her very bright sun. Our lives literally revolve around her. My husband will snatch 15 minutes from his workday to drive home in order to see her smiling face over dinner break. When I put her down for a nap, I'm lucky if I go twenty minutes without the temptation to sneak in and see her sleeping form, pat her tiny back, stroke the sleep-damp, spikey hairs over her temple. Sometimes at night, before I go to bed, I'm almost irresistibly tempted to wake her, just to hear her rusty giggle and feel the strong wriggle of her body under my hands...to make sure she's still living, still OK, still happy.

Actually, the truth is, we do go in and harrass her late at night, after my husband comes home from work. We lean over her crib and pat her back and tuck a blanket around her whisper words of love to her. And here's the thing: when we say "I love you" to her while she's sleeping, she actually chuckles in her sleep.

The pure beauty of childhood

Meet Jade.
She's our neighbor, give or take four blocks.
QQ and I have passed Jade's house for months on our daily runs, headed down South to Sloan's Lake. As winter has (with many fits and starts) passed into spring, Jade has started to come out onto her lawn more frequently of an afternoon.
The first time we passed her, she turned immediately, strode purposefully toward us, and introduced herself. She then proceeded to introduce us to her two cats (one sociable, the other retiring) and give QQ a high-five.
Since that first meeting, we have passed Jade playing on her lawn four or five times. She always remembers us. She always comes to greet us.
On this day, it was particularly warm and sunny, and she was out gardening with her next-door neighbor, Mary. Mary is a widowed grandmother with a shock of red hair turning to grey, and a kind word for everyone who passes. QQ and I have been acquainted with Mary since we first brought QQ home from China. She always has a word of advice, and a word of affection, waiting for us when we pass by.
I have never met Jade's parents. It's always just Jade, by herself, making up games on her front lawn. I was very glad to see that she had been befriended by Mary.
In the interest of gardening in the sun with Mary for the afternoon, Jade had donned a particularly stylish red hat which matched her trendy shirt. I happened to have my good Nikon with me, so I asked if I could take her picture.
She was more than willing.
I love this picture because you can see her genuine, sunny, ingenuous personality shining through.
We love you, Jade!

Bath

QQ continues to love and cherish her bathtime. Sometimes, after breakfast, when she has some slight residue of oatmeal or yogurt on her face and hands (even though she's not terribly messy, and it's usually quite minor), she signs for a bath, even if she's had one the night before.
It looks like she's cold in these shots, but this is actually a vibration of excitement (look close and you can see that her hands are clapping) at the promise of an adventure she's been verbally offered. She gets very, very excited about "adventures"...even though more often than not that word indicates nothing more scintillating than a trip to the Sunflower Market or the coffee shop.

Spring in Woodstock

Since we have no pink blooms in Denver this spring, I'm substituting my mother's beautiful shots of her almond tree, back home in Woodstock.
Ahhhhh, spring.
Hopefully next year will be a better year for blooms in Denver. I miss them terribly.

Overcoming old fears, with joy.

QQ begins to overcome her fear of baseball hats.

Those of you who have been around for a while might remember that running gear was difficult in the early months with Q, because I have always worn a baseball cap while running. It holds back the sweat and contains my unruly hair. In the summer, it shades my face from the strong, thin, powerful Colorado sun. Baseball caps have also always been a staple for M., who found it difficult to wean himself off wearing them out after a shower, or on a casual day off from work.

Q was terrified by hats when we first brought her home, and after a few months we realized that baseball caps were the greatest of evils in her mind. Even when she began to enjoy playing with and trying on my straw summer hats, mugging with them in front of the mirror, she would still frown and balk and crumple her face if either of us put on a baseball cap. Presented with them, she would grab at them and fling them fiercely across the room, like we had just handed her a large spider.

None of us will ever know what it was in Q's early life that made her wary of them. It seems evident that she had very few bad experiences during her time in the orphanage. She's confident, happy, easily affectionate, and normally fearless. Hats have been her one and only consistent source of fear or trepidation.

A couple of weeks ago, she finally began to allow me to don a cap as we headed out for our daily runs. Thank goodness, since it's rainy season, and almost summer! A few days ago, I put on a trucker cap from my husband's university as we headed out the door. Instead of frowning in consternation, she actually smiled at me as I slipped it on. As we returned up the hill from our run around the lake, she reached out for my hat. I took it off and handed it to her. Rather than flinging it, she smiled and began attempting to wrangle it onto her own head.
I could hardly believe my eyes.
What was even funnier was how she put it on sideways, just like a little hipster!
Here, she is applauding for herself.
Yay me!!!!
That looks like comfort to me.
Little girl from the 'hood. The North Denver 'hood.
Yes, that IS a Transformers t-shirt she's wearing. Her daddy was a huge Transformers fan in his misguided youth.
Happy little hipster.

social distortion

Yep. She's drawing on my wall in these photos. With one of my very own illustration pencils. I didn't have the heart to stop her. Later, she went over it again with eyeshadow, we think.
We pick our battles. This is not one of them.