oh June.

One of the hard things for me (Molly) has been celebrating birthdays, holidays, and milestones without a sick feeling in my stomach that it could be the last for whatever that event is.  The last birthday, the last Christmas, the last whatever.  No matter how much I enjoy the day it just feels so weighty.  I feel determined to soak up every second of it.  Which is sometimes fine and sometimes impossible. 


The closer we get to Wave's second birthday the more it fills me with dread.  I absolutely want to celebrate two years with Sweet Wave as a charming and delightful girl I am lucky to have as our daughter, but it really feels like a constant reminder that this has been going on for basically two years and the end is nowhere in sight.  I am very sorry to be so glum here, I am just having a difficult time with the fact that tomorrow is the first day of June, and in twenty-four days my sweet girl will be two.  Last year at this time I was worse.  Just nervous and heavy-hearted all of the time, praying that Wavy's first birthday wouldn't be the only one I knew with her.  I am keeping a wary eye on the calender as these days pass by, hoping that we don't see her third birthday come in the same fashion.

  

Wavybel's Big Sister

So this blog is about Wave and our journey through her adoption. Which means I don't put much about our firstborn on here.  The downside of that is you might not know something important about Miss Wave.  She has the most amazing big sister.  

A huge part of Wavy's day is made up of her relationship with our oldest daughter Harper.  Harper has a really loving personality so even though they absolutely have their moments, considering they are almost two and almost four, these two get along beautifully.  When Wavybel was born Harper was incredibly tender and sweet with her.  She is concerned if Wave is hurt, mad at Matt and I if Wave is in trouble, and calls Wave the sweetest pet names.  Great examples of this are when Wave needs something Harper will get it for her without being asked and then say "Here you go, You Little Honey Bee."  Sometimes when Harper likes Wave's outfit she'll say, "you're just beautiful You Sweet Little Cutie Pie." During those times I just revel in happiness that sweet things like that go down in my very own house.

Harper is Wave's greatest translator.  Some of her best interpretive work has been "Wavy wants to read Jesse Bear What Will You Wear," "She's saying she wants to go down the neighbor's slide," and "She wants to listen to Baby Cheetahs, not Baby Meerkats."  Each time she translates we look to Wave to see if Harper got it right and without fail Wave nods solemnly.  

Harper is an amazing sister, and that is just one her many beautiful traits.  Harper is compassionate, hilarious, full of personality, smart, a conversationalist, and a sports fan.  She loves playing hard and being active.  She also lives for dressing in fancy clothes.  She is into dress up and princesses.  She wears a skirt under her nightgown and only wears pants under duress.  "Princesses don't wear pants" is her steadfast rule.  She dances like a rockstar and drives a Barbie ATV.  She listens to The Wiggles, Johnny Cash, and Queen.  What I'm trying to say is she is perfect.

A lot of days, Harper wakes up with a look in her eyes and I know I am in for it.  Our days are not perfect. She knows just how to push my buttons and seems to enjoy doing it.  The other day Wave screamed from the tub where she and her sister usually play quite nicely together.  I rushed in and Harper had poured a huge bucket of water over Wavy's head.  "What are you doing??" I asked.  "Well, I'm pretending to be Miss LaTonya (H's hair dresser) so I'm going to need to wash Wavy's hair now" came her response. As if it couldn't be more obvious.  She tells me what's for with her hands on her hips and life isn't easy if she isn't getting her own way.  But I could not love anyone more than these two amazing girls.  On our worst days I love these kids so much that it is ridiculous.  

Last night it was storming out.  Harper is quite afraid of thunder and lightning.  In the middle of the night I woke up to two skinny arms sliding around my neck and a little body snuggling up to me.  Harper kissed my cheek and said, "Don't worry Mommy, I'm not afraid of thunder."  I just smiled in the dark.  Every day I count my blessings that I don't just have two little girls but these exact, specific girls because there are none better, and I can't believe they are my very own daughters.  I hope everyone who reads this has the joy of knowing that their family was perfectly created.  Each person meant for the other.  I know that is true of mine.  I just wanted to give you some insight into the rest of Wave's family.  So you know who she is sharing her life with us.  And to remind you that the only place for her is with us, her family.

Thanks for reading. Love, 
Molly

2 fun things to share today:

1.  In follow up to the last few posts about the amazing benefit dinner Coach's held for us, we are able to pay off one of our three forms of debt.  We have two credit cards and a personal loan to pay back.  We are happy to say we will now only have one credit card to pay off instead of two!!  Hooray!!! Yay!!! A moment please while I gleefully dance around and cheer in the kitchen by myself right now...  And -- done!  We are keeping a lot of the money aside to pay for a bill we are expecting any day now, but we are still able to put a nice amount towards that credit card and kiss it goodbye forever! What a feeling!  Thank you again to everyone who made that possible.

2.  A Wave anecdote: On Wavy's first birthday she received a book from Aunt Judy (who always picks the best ones) that is a sweet illustrated version of Hush Little Baby.  Obviously the baby is crying in a lot of the pictures.  On each page Wave looks at the baby's mouth and says, "baby crying" or "baby screaming" along with whatever other observations she shares with me.  On the last pages when he stops crying she says, "baby quiet!"  Wavybel also loves fruit snacks with her whole heart.  She talks about them all day long.  Today when we were reading she kept insisting "baby fruit snacks" and pointing to his mouth.  Finally through the process of elimination (me asking questions, Wave nodding yes or no emphatically) I determined that Wavy is convinced the baby is crying because he wants fruit snacks.  Then she fed him a lot of imaginary fruit snacks and said, "Happy.  Happy." How could it get any better than that?

no words -- only faces

There have been so many days throughout the process of trying to finalize Wavy's adoption that we have gotten really rough news.  I feel like on so many of those days we have had hardly any verbal reaction.  Sometimes words just fail us.  I just look at Matt's face and see what must be all over my face too: despair, fatigue, hopelessness.  After the benefit dinner Coach's held for us we were back in that same boat of not really having any words.  We just kept looking at each other and smiling and shaking our heads.  With happiness and disbelief.  Every once in a while I giggled.  


We were so overwhelmed by the amount of people that came out tonight (about 175!).  It was not only encouraging to see how many people were there for us but who those people were.  We were so delighted to see friends and family rallying for us.  We also had the pleasure of seeing friends we have not seen in ages, family and friends OF our family and friends, and new friends we have made through this blog but had not yet met in person.  Another thing that Matt and I really marveled over was a strong sense of support and family from the adoptive community.  What a lovely, lovely experience.  


Here's the thing.  Our sincere sentiment was that the dinner at Coach's would have been an amazing experience for us as a source of support and encouragement if it had been simply a gathering of friends for the sake of uplifting our spirits.  We would have paid handsomely for that experience.  I felt positively euphoric afterwards and have smiled and laughed more in the past 48 hours than I probably have in the last month or so.  But listen.  


It raised a lot of money.  


We have some upcoming legal bills that will be pretty sizable.  Our lawyer consulted at length with a brief writing specialist (not the technical term I'm sure) for this latest round of appeal.  We are so relieved to have funds to pay for that with instead of incurring further credit card debt.  It's true that money can't buy happiness, but it can buy a whole lot of legal counsel.  Which feels pretty fantastic.


So a huge thank you to all of you who were a part of this.  We are so grateful.  And for those of you who read this and pray for us we are infinitely thankful for you as well.  Thank you for providing us with love and community and the assurance that we are not in this alone.  Thank you for the smiles on our faces.


Love,
Molly for all

  

Thank You!

Hi everyone,

Just a quick note to say THANK YOU to all of you who came out to the Eat, Meet & Greet on on Sunday.  It was a HUGE success.  Between all of the eating and drinking you guys did, the photo booth, the raffles and the general donations,we are thrilled to be able to give a generous donation to M&M.  

You made this possible. Thank you for your continuous support of our dear friends.  

SPECIAL THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS:

Coach’s Bar and Grill

SayCheez Photo Booth

Agenda KC

imij foto

Los Tules Restaurant & Cantina

Californos

Granite City Food & Brewery

Long Branch Steak House

Starbucks

Alter Aura

The Fiddly Fig

Sincerely, 

Bri and Christie