missing my boy

Adoption is crazy!  How can you miss someone you have never met?  How can a little boy thousands of miles away reach across that time and space and grab hold so hard of my heart?  And he has no idea.  I always loved this song from the Dixie chicks.  When i was pregnant with our oldest son, i would listen to it all the time and smile, thinking of all the fun things we were in for once he was born.  Now that we are "expecting" again, i listen to it and still smile, thinking of Eli joining us!

"Dragon tales and the water is wide
Pirate’s sail and lost boys fly
Fish bite moonbeams every night
And I love you

Godspeed, little man
Sweet dreams, little man
Oh my love will fly to you each night on angels wings
Godspeed
Sweet dreams

The rocket racer’s all tuckered out
Superman’s in pajamas on the couch
Goodnight moon, we’ll find the mouse
And I love you

Godspeed, little man
Sweet dreams, little man
Oh my love will fly to you each night on angels wings
Godspeed
Sweet dreams

God bless mommy and match box cars
God bless dad and thanks for the stars
God heard amen, wherever you are
And I love you

Godspeed, little man
Sweet dreams, little man
Oh my love will fly to you each night on angels wings
Godspeed
Godspeed
Godspeed
Sweet dreams "

Oh, that line about love flying every night, that is exactly how i feel!  I sent hugs and kisses and love to little man everynight.

How do you know

How do you know when a child is meant to be yours?  Is it a smile, a twinkle in the eye?  A pleading look?  An instant connection to a picture?  How do you know?

I'm struggling with this right now.  I am so excited to be bringing Eli home.  I thought i was content.  Then, another child who is in the same area as Eli got listed this weekend.  I had to see his picture.  There is one other child listed right now from Eli's area and although he is cute i didn't feel any connection.  When i looked at this newly listed child, my heart lept.  Seriously, skipped a beat in my chest.  He is adorable.  He looks like he could be my child.  I want to bring him home too.  I want him and Eli to be brothers.  I want him to experience the joy our family has, our highs, our lows, our family. 

How do you know?  I've been thinking about the newly listed child all day.  I'm afraid.  I'm afraid he is in the same place as our Eli and i will have to look into his eyes and tell him i can't be his mama.  I'm not sure i could do it.  So what do you do? 

For all you Eli fans!

Ok, we are being boring right now b/c we are on hold with paperwork stuff! Soooooo....here is a new pic for all you eli fans!  See my smart boy! ;)  he is doing his puzzle like a good boy!  He will fit right in for homeschooling next year ;)

Homestudy

wooooohooooo!!!! We got the rough draft of our homestudy from our social worker today!!!!! Yayyyyy! I have been sooooo excited all day! I reviewed the draft and sent it back. Just a couple minor things to be fixed!!! Hooray for social workers who work so quickly to help us get our boy home! I cannot say enough nice things about the sw. She got our visits done in record time and the rough draft done quickly too! She has been a blessing for sure! One more step closer!!!! Hang on buddy, we are coming!!!!!

luci!

Luci finally has enough hair (sort of) for a ponytail!  Here is a picture for posterity!  She kept it in for all of 4 minutes before ripping it out :)  But she is still adorable!

Birthday part two

Yesterday was Eli's birthday!  I felt so many different emtions.  Happiness that one of my children was having a birthday, overwhelming sadness that we aren't with him to celebrate the day of his birth.  Hoping that someone in his orphanage remembered it was his birthday and gave him a kiss, but Mama sent him about a million across the ocean anyway. 

Happy Birthday Lovie, we love you so much and are working so hard to get to you.  Hang on tight!  We made cupcakes for you and next year we will make cupcakes WITH you!

Happy Birthday Eli

Happy Birthday Eli. Hopefully you have a great day and Mommy and Daddy are working on getting you home. Last visit for the home study today.

jumpin!

Whew!  We are jumping jumping jumping through the miriad of hoops that are required to bring our boy home!  Don't get me wrong, he is worth every piece of paperwork or class or money or whatever it takes to get him home, but man this is a fulltime job!

We had our physical done and had to find a notary to come to the doc's office with us to notarize the papers, which is kind of funny really :)  Once that is done we have a bunch of paperwork that need to be taken up to columbus and apostilled, which i guess is kind of like notarized the notary.

I had to call our police department to see who could help us sign the form that says we are not criminals in this town.  Different from the fbi and bci check.  The guy i talked with was very nice but kind of laughed and said he had been at the pd for 10 years and never heard of what we were needing!  I laughed with him and said we were finding that a lot with this adoption!

On a much cuter note, we have been talking with the children quite a bit about what having down syndrome means.  One of the things we discussed was that Eli might need to live with us for his whole life.  Our oldest, Thomas piped right up and said when he got married and had babies that Eli was going to come live with him.  I love his heart!  He loves others and wants to serve them!  What a great kid!!!!!