Kiya's weekend adventures part 1

We took Kiya to Wisconsin Dells this weekend to hang out with some very dear friends. This was her first trip to a waterpark. We knew she loved water given the crazy splashing and giggles that are bath time but we weren't sure how she would do. Here are some pictures. SHE LOVED IT! She was so brave and had so much fun.

The wave pool was hands down her favorite part and thus where we spent most of our time. She wasn't afraid at all. The more the waves hit her the more she smiled and laughed.

She wanted to walk in the waves. She pretty much insisted on it. She wanted to go farther and farther in.


We didn't get any pictures but she also loved the small water slides. Dave would bring her up to the top and I would catch her at the bottom. A couple of times her head would go part of the way underwater and I thought she would get scared but boy was I wrong. She thought it was great. We tried the Lazy River and she hated that. Not enough excitement for her I guess :)

Kiya had a fabulous weekend overall. She slept pretty well, ate pretty well and was in generally a good mood most of the time. A little quiet at times in bigger groups but you could tell she was having fun. One thing is for sure, it appears that we have a little dare devil on our hands.

On a personal note, I had a BLAST being a Mom this weekend. There was nothing better than watching the pure joy and smiles and laughs. It melted my heart. I just loved it. The whole weekend was wonderful. Traveling with a toddler can be tricky and in the past we have had our moments but Kiya was just the sweetest, silliest and best kid ever this weekend. Of course we always think she is the best kid ever :)

Stay tuned for video....pending me being able to figure it out :)

We are the truth

We Are The Truth – an adoption blogger day: To ensure the world knows about every successful adoption, on Thursday, April 15, 2010 blog about your adoption or the adoption of someone you know. It doesn’t matter if your adoption is with Russia, domestic or otherwise international. Let the world know your truth!

By now I am sure all of you have heard about the woman that sent her 7 year old son on a plane back to Russia alone. She had adopted this boy. He was legally her son. As a result of her actions, I read this article today. Bloggers are uniting to tell the truth. The happy truth about adoption.

So I am blogging today to join this call to action. To share the joy of adoption.

Our journey to parenthood was not easy but every bump in the road that we hit was worth it the second that phone rang on January 6 2009 at 12:53pm. This was it. This was our destiny. Our fate. Our daughter was born to us that day. She was 5 1/2 weeks old and 7 some thousand miles away in beautiful Ethiopia. We were presented with the greatest gift. We saw our sweet little girls face and our heart melted. Somewhere deep inside we just knew that this was it. We were supposed to be together. That these last 6 years were all leading us to her.

As we approach our 1 year of being a family, I am reminded of the beauty that is Ethiopia. I long to return to Ethiopia. To soak up as much as I can. Why? Not for me but for my sweet daughter. We owe it to her. We made a commitment to her and to her Ethiopian mother. I look forward to honoring those commitments.

We spent countless hours researching, educating ourselves and being investigated in order to be able to adopt. There were no secrets. There were background checks, fingerprints, more background checks, more fingerprints, home visits, fire safety plans, classes to attend, applications to fill out and more paperwork than it took to buy our house and car times 10.

We attended classes on transracial adoption, we read about Ethiopia, we reviewed medical information. We did our homework.

It was all so that we could realize our dreams of parenthood. There are many many more positive adoption stories than negative. But if you read the papers and worse if you do it online and read the comments you would think otherwise.

We are truly blessed. I was fortunate enough to read this article. I think the author sums it up really well. He says, "Love trumps genetics" That couldn't be more true. He also says " There's something mysterious and wonderful about the bond between an adoptive parent and child." Yup, true again.

If I could say anything to people who read these articles about adoption gone wrong. I would say don't judge all adoptive parents by the actions of a few. Many more of us are willing to put in the effort and do the work to see our dreams of parenthood come true. We don't go into adoption with rose colored glasses on. We know the realities and are willing to deal with them. Sadly, yes some people are unwilling to make this same commitment but please don't judge us all.

Adoption is how I started my family and it will be how I grow my family. I couldn't be any happier with this path we chose and I for sure couldn't imagine being anymore in love with my little girl.

Wordless Wednesday

For love of the park

So we had GORGEOUS weather this weekend in Wisconsin and we took full advantage with trips to the park. Kiya likes to play outdoors.

She went down the slides and played on the swings and bounced on a fire truck and a crocodile. She had a blast. Sorry forgot the camera so you will have to take my word for it. We will bring in next time.

It would be one trip down the slide and a very emphatic point and "dat" or that to do it again. And again and yet again. Saturday was all about the slide and not a little bitty slide but a pretty big slide. She loved it. Daddy got her up there and she came sliding down to Mom all with a HUGE grin.

Sunday it was all about the swings. Oh my I never knew a kid could love swings this much. Sure she went down the slides a few times and did some other things but she always wanted to go back to the swings. If she wasn't going fast enough she got mad. We at first thought her madness was an indication she was all done but we tried to stop the swing and that led to a meltdown in the park. She wanted more.

I swear she would have slept in the swing had we let her. She kind of lost it for a little bit when it was time to leave. She wanted to be on the swings and she was sure to let us and everyone else at the park know it.

Overall we had a great sunshine filled weekend outdoors. I see many more trips to the park in our future.

In other fabulous Kiya news, she has learned to stand up in her crib. Daddy saw it. I haven't yet. She has also learned how to climb into her chair and is getting quite good and pulling herself up to a stand on just about anything and everything. She even grabs your pant legs and uses them to pull herself up. And scooting is taking a backseat to crawling. She is crawling a lot more now and a lot faster. She will still scoot too just not as much which is good as the scooting was tearing up the skin on her ankles. She is also becoming a master of feeding herself with a fork and a spoon though sometimes she will throw silverware so we need to work on that. She has also learned how to drink from a straw. She is such a big girl now.

Then there is timeout. Well, time in really. She still loves to hit mommy and she thinks it is funny when I say "no hitting or we don't hit". I tried to say ow that hurts or fake cry and neither of those worked. One day she was just hitting and laughing and I had had enough so I went with Super Nanny's advice. I gave Kiya a warning. I said "this is your warning, if you hit Mommy again we are going to sit it time out." She laughed and hit me again. So I picked her up and sat her down behind the couch away from all toys, etc and said "we are going to sit here because you kept hitting mommy and we don't hit." I sat next to her for about 1 minute. After that I explained to her again why she had to sit there and asked her for a hug and a kiss. She wouldn't give me a kiss but gave me a hug and we went on to read a book.

We had one more incident of hitting later that afternoon. This time she tried to get up from timeout so I placed her back and started the time over. She tried twice. The third time she sat there and was quiet. At the end I asked for a hug and a kiss and I got both and we went on to playing again.

She understands so much more than I thought she did which has its pros and cons. I would think 16 months is too young for timeout/in but I had run out of options.

Wordless Wednesday--Easter

Kiya's first Easter

I had visions in my head of my sweet 16 month old dressed up and ready for church in her pretty Easter dress. She would "direct" the choir and be a joy while at church barely making a peep. She would nap in the car on the way to lunch and show off her amazing vocal abilities to adoring family while at lunch. She would eat well and be happy, smiley and pleasant. We would get lots of great photos and all in all in it would be a fabulous day.

Well, let's just say it was an okay day with good food and family. Wow, we saw a side of Kiya we have NEVER seen before. She was just so into screaming and whining all day. Church was spent walking around and switching off who did the walking. She wouldn't sit still and wouldn't not scream for more than a few minutes at a time. She had to touch walls, windows, and was in love with the water fountain and kept wanting to push the buttons on it. She even went so far as to steal a plastic Easter egg from a little boy that was playing with it. Yeah it was awesome. We did eventually distract her enough to get the egg away and return it to that sweet little boy before we left.

Pictures were a DISASTER. She was either scowling, sucking her finger, drinking milk or crawling away.

She did nap in the car but didn't really wake up in any better mood. Lunch was right in the middle of her nap time and she had to get up early for church which didn't help either. She managed to eat a little lasagna, a little bread, some cheesecake and some chocolate cake. She managed to scream, throw things and go for walks with grandma, grandpa and dad. She refused to drink from her sippy cup and only wanted grandma's water glass. She insisted on feeding herself but not with her child friendly fork but a rather large and heavy metal fork. To her credit though, she did do quite well with the fork and with drinking from a glass. She refused to let her Uncle Andy hold her and right before we were leaving she puked on Dave. Thank goodness for the balloon grandma and grandpa brought her or I fear it would have been much worse.

Now here is where the day gets better. We got in the car to head home. It was little over an hour drive. We thought she would fall asleep. She didn't. She was chatty and happy and even singing at some points. We had to stop at the grocery store on the way home and my sweet baby girl was back. She wanted to give lots of kisses, she had a blast in the shopping cart and was so smiley and happy. She was like this for the rest of the night until we told her it was bedtime of course. Even then she got a little whiny which is typical these days but went straight to bed at 7pm and barely a peep was to be heard from her until morning.

I think it was overall way too much for her and the waking up early and not getting a decent nap topped with the visual proof of her molars coming in and she had had enough. Picture post to come as they are quite funny and some even pass for adorable. There is always next year...

We were hers and she was ours

One year ago tomorrow, so April 3, 2009, we got the phone call that changed our lives officially forever. I was a Mom. For real. An Ethiopian judge almost 8000 miles away signed the necessary paperwork that made us parents. We were hers and she was ours. It was real. It was finally real.

Just days before this we got our social report which contained these amazing photos.

April 3rd was a Friday so I was at work and completely freaked out that we wouldn't hear about our court date that day and have to fret about it all weekend. I was a total basket case. We were hoping to hear by noon that day. I was resisting the urge to contact my specialist and ask as I knew that if she knew she would call. I made it until about 11am and I broke and emailed her. She didn't know anything yet.....

I was a wreck. About an hour later the phone rang at work and I answered it. Since I am the manager the phone is usually for me and it was this time too. The one BIG exception was this time it was someone from CHSFS. It wasn't my specialist as she was out of the office so another specialist called to tell me the FABULOUS news. I couldn't contain the tears. I was over the moon excited and immediately called oh let's see everyone.

I wanted to shout it from the rooftops. I AM A MOM!!!!! Sometimes I still pinch myself to make sure this is all real. Life is good.