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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.
5 comments:
Why do you do this? I am hormonal and crying here like a fool. It is amazing how one small turn would have given us a totally different child and knowing the children we have and how well suited for us they are, it scares us. So I know exactly what you are talking about.
Yep, it is all beautifully true. Well said. I feel the same and when the new regulations came in and meant singles can no longer adopt from China I was physically sick with the thought that so little stood between me and not having YY at all. I had waited twenty years before acting and then had acted just in time. I stood over her crib and cried. The strength and fragility of it all is pretty overwhelming. Good to be reminded of as we head into another very trying bedtime. Perspective, perspective. : )
OK, this is amazing. Five minutes ago she was tearing around the house getting on my very, very last nerve and then as soon as I finished commenting on your post she came into my office/chaos room and sat on my lap. She began to do her yoga breathing where she pretends to inflate a large balloon and then slowly blows out again. She settled down, picked up some mess on her way to her room, tidied her blanket and climbed into bed. THEN she said for the first time, "I proud of myself." Hmmmm. She's so atuned to the emotional temperature of this house! Too bad that means I have to keep my temper all the time! : )
I have to thank you for this blog and for all the things that it awakes in me. I remember those feelings. I have said the "planets around the sun" comment before. Lina is our everything. She changed our life just as QQ has changed yours....so much for the better. I come to your blog for a reminder of how I feel and that my life is 100% complete....even if we don't adopt again.
She is enough.
Such a profound statement and I totally get it. I feel the same way and I can't imagine y life without this gift I've been given. Our year is slowly creeping up which some days seems like a lifetime ago and others feels like yesterday. I was shellshocked when I got "the call" from the WC program. They were more closely scrutinizing the dossiers of singles and I already felt this was my daughter. What if something happened. Though the wait from LOI to TA was relatively short it was the hardest part of the whole process. (sigh) Beautiful pic and pick-me-up
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