One Year Later

It's hard to believe it's been a year since Keri and I stood in a rather sparsely furnished room in Wuhan, China on the second floor of the Civil Affairs Office and looked across an aisle of chairs at a little girl for the first time. She was scared to death and so were we. But we were also excited and anxious and ready to smother her with all the love we had been saving up on the 15,000 mile trip from Birmingham, Alabama.

A year later and much has changed in our own lives and in little Eden's life. We never imagined she would be so funny and smart and strange and interesting all at the same time. Those first few days were filled with sadness for her--but the Lord answered our prayers then to join her heart with ours. And God continues to answer our prayers as Eden grows into a sweet, loving, outgoing and beautiful girl.

This past weekend we took a trip to Georgia to visit the "Cabbage Patch Hospital" where the popular children's dolls are "born." We thought it fitting on the anniversary of Eden's adoption that we would celebrate by letting her "adopt" a doll of her very own. She chose a baby boy doll and named him "Moses"--I think she identifies with him when she sees him on the TV floating in a basket down a river in Egypt and being adopted by an Egyptian mother...

Here's a quick video of the experience, along with some recent pictures of Eden and our family. To all who have made the journey with us, personally and through prayer and friendships, thank you and God bless you. Our lives are richer than we could imagine and we give God all the credit for everything good He has done for us. Most of all, we thank Him for allowing us to shepherd the heart of a little girl that He brought to us from half a world away.

I Found the Peace and Quiet!

It's 12:42 AM on Saturday night and I'm updating our church's website. While I'm waiting for a 120MB video file to upload I switched over to another computer to read Keri's blog entries--so full have the days been I haven't even had the opportunity to soak in my wife's prayerful and loving thoughts on the whole adoption experience to date. I scrolled through them and nodded in agreement.

Eden is sleeping in the next room. She's just amazing. This afternoon while Keri went shopping Eden and I spent an hour or so after her nap playing in the living room. Sometimes I just stare at her little face and think, "Wow. God made that and I'm responsible for it." I keep wanting to go up to every dad I know and say, "I had no idea! I had no idea!"

More than anything I long to really be "daddy" and not just "guy who makes silly faces" to her... and that will just take lots of time. I'm praying about all her little doctor visits to come, and at the same time thankful that we just happen to be exactly where she'll get the very best medical care for her cleft palette and upper row of teeth that is available anywhere (coincidence? yeah, right. Thank you Lord for planning ahead!).

We took some pictures of her today that we wanted to be sorta "studio quality." The shots themselves are okay but I kept looking at them going, "Not good enough." I mean, I really wanted them to capture the heart of this little girl, you know? Heck, I'm a communications guy--I should be able to do this. I think the problem is that my subject matter moves too fast. I wish she had a slow-mo button.

By the way, the girl can poop. Thankfully Keri is a pro in the poop-handling department and has taken most of that task on daily. On the other hand, I am totally grossed out by the whole thing. I think she poops like 4-5 times a day, and by body weight she's got to be generating like 40% of her weight in poop every 24 hours. At first I was so out of touch with children I could not even tell she had pooped. Now I am acutely in tune with the poop. I can close my eyes right now and sense whether or not poop is present in the house...

I think I am going to pen a letter to the people who make the Diaper Genie and tell them they may have saved our home from permanent poopiness. We got all these boxes of diapers from folks and I thought at the time, "Geez, we're totally over-supplied." Not so. Again, more thank you notes to those who have given diapers. We're going through them at breakneck speed. I want to stock up--let's make sure we have extra boxes. What if we ever ran out? I don't even want to think about what would happen.

I've discovered I also like Eden's toy car keychain because it has cool sound effects. I'm seriously thinking of getting one for myself. I'm concerned that she is having all the fun. Certainly if I can make silly faces at her, I can also walk around with a Fisher Price keychain that makes a "moo" cow sound when I press it. I mean, who doesn't like that?

Oh, thank heavens the upload just finished. I'm headed to bed now--1:00 a.m. I used to stay up this late because it's where the peace and quiet is. I'll be snoring momentarily. You can likely hear me if you live in my area of Meadowbrook--Keri says I'm quite loud. Thank you for your continued prayers for Eden and our family. I'm so grateful for our friends and family and the many expressions of support for Eden and the adoption process we've received as we continue to navigate this new and interesting road of parenthood.