wile e. coyote vs. hello kitty

before i address the title of this entry i am so thrilled to report that monday came and went without incident! things went fantastic on our end as we move along to making georgia officially a terryn and then she too can start a lifetime of explaining how you pronounce her last name. our birth mother came over that afternoon and hung out for a while and as usual we had a great time and talked about how georgia was doing and set up some future dates to get together. it makes me smile as i type this to think about how all of this is and has turned out.

on a totally different note....georgia is doing incredible. i can say that with so much conviction as we've come off a five night stretch of sleeping six to seven hours at a time. i don't know if this is a permanent development but i don't know why she wouldn't want to make it one.....everyone is so much happier as a result!

i had to take her in for her first shot yesterday. oh, the dreaded shots that moms shed tears over. i swore i wasn't going to be one of those moms....and i wasn't....but......it is really sad and i felt so much compassion for her as she had no idea why someone was doing that to her. it made me really feel such compassion for parents of kids who have to undergo immense medical struggles and so many times parents can't explain to their kids why certain things are happening to them. in that moment when they gave her that shot my love meter for her went up just a bit more. it's amazing to me how every day there is one or two or three or fifty more little things that happen that make me love her even more.....makes up for the moments when she's screaming in my ear for forty minutes for no reason that i can figure out!

but....the shots bring me to my title. so.....after the shot they put a band-aid on her little leg. now....i think this is a big deal. this is her first band-aid ever (yes...of course i saved it)! that is significant and kids love band-aids (i know.....i teach middle school students who need band-aids every time they have the hiccups). so what does the nurse whip out? a wile e. coyote band-aid. i thought....seriously? were all the elmer fudd band-aids gone? you don't have a cute girly band-aid? hello kitty? barbie? hannah montana? my sister's response.....didn't they know who georgia was? i think i'll bring my own band-aids next time to seal the deal on the label of crazy mom.

so.....while there isn't a lot new to report in this blog entry i feel like the shots are a significant event. i wouldn't have believed three months ago that i'd be bringing in a little girl for shots. we've come a long way and she has cemented a place in our hearts, our home, and our family.

she is georgia terryn!

a little fear.....

is what i have. warranted, unwarranted.....i don't know. i think warranted because there are some aspects of the adoption process that are not shared by all parents...that's not to say that all parents don't deal with some kind of fear, trepidation, and anxiety about this little person that they are now in charge of, and it's not to say that as parents we don't need to understand that these babies are given to us a a gift from god and they are never really our own, but as our court date for our birth parents gets closer my "crazy" meter goes up.

our birth parents go to court on monday to terminate their parental rights. i have NO reason to think that things won't go smoothly other than the given fears that always exist with an adoption--people changing their minds. on monday night of this week i had a bit of a breakdown and went and stared at georgia in bed for about about a 1/2 hour. i just kept thinking about how much i am in love with this little girl, and all the imaginings i have about her future and what our relationship will be like......the thought of her not being with us as her parents knocks the wind out of me. eventually i went to bed and was able to put it out of my mind for a bit.

i went to a friends house on tuesday and then headed out to do some errands. while i was out our birth mom's mom (does that make sense?) called and left a message on my answering machine that she was in the area and wanted to stop by if it was okay. i called her back when i got home and she was already home and couldn't get out again. but, we started talking about georgia and how she now weighs 10 1/2 pounds, how strong she's getting, and some pictures that i'd sent to them. i love talking to this woman. i have so much respect for her as a mom and think she's incredibly wise and reflective. towards the end of the conversation she asked if i knew that they had a court date for monday. i said i did. she asked if i was nervous about it. i paused for a minute and then just decided to be honest. she told me she completely understood and if the situation was reversed she'd probably feel the same way....but she wanted to assure me that there was nothing to be nervous about....this is their firm decision and they know it's best for everyone involved, especially georgia.

when we hung up i thought about the timing of that phone call in relationship to my fears the night before. i know it wasn't a coincidence--she's never called me out of the blue of like that--it was god's way of comforting me at that moment. i'll be honest....it hasn't taken all the fear away completely because i'm a doubter and a worrier and i can create a thousand scenarios in my head as to how something could go wrong....but it was a pocket of time that made me feel confident and know that god was watching out for me......and my mental state.

georgia continues to do so well. she's a fantastic baby and we love her so much. i think she gets about ten thousand kisses a day on her cheeks and her feet....she just looks at me like i'm crazy. every once in a while she makes one of those baby cooing sounds that i know will become more and more frequent as she gets older and i just can't wait to see what her little personality is going to be like. we love to watch her sleep because she makes the craziest noises and facial expressions (i know....everyone's baby does....but somehow when it's yours you think it's original and no other baby has ever done that). she's amazing.

here are a few shots we've taken of her in the last few days....this first one was after a bath....this girl's got hair! the second one with my mom is georgia staring at our ceiling fan....her favorite. and the last one is georgia asleep on chris's chest.

some things i love.....

georgia will be three weeks old tomorrow.

so crazy to think that she's been a part of our lives for three weeks. we're learning her little facial expressions, what all of her little noises mean, that when she makes a loud gasping sound she's fine and that we don't need to run into her room, and that we love her like crazy. there is always this moment in the middle of the night when i go to pick her up out of her bed that i feel this overwhelming emotion for her. she looks so cute all wrapped up like a burrito with just her little face poking out of her blanket and i can't help but kiss her all over before i feed her (and then it dawns on me that it's three in the morning and i'm really tired).

becoming parents has been fantastic.....the good outweighs the hard but there are definitely things about it that you can just never prepare for. it's this never-ending cycle of work and guessing or preparing for what she'll need next. it's constantly counting out the hours of your day figuring out how the time that i want to meet people for lunch will fit into her schedule. it's forcing myself to go to bed early so that i can get a reasonable amount of sleep. it's doing more laundry than i've ever done in my life. it's giving up independence and a job that i loved with all my heart. but.......despite all these things there are so many that i love......so many that over-shadow the parts that i think are hard.....i thought i'd make a list of them for you.........

i love......

-when georgia raises her arm in the air like she has a question

-when georgia purses her lips into a little pucker like she wants to kiss you

-when georgia won't move her hands out of her mouth even though she's screaming for food
-when georgia sleeps on chris's chest

-when georgia looks me straight in the eye when i'm feeding her

-when georgia won't stop wiggling around so i can change her

-when georgia raises her eyebrows like she's skeptical of what you're about to do

-when georgia smiles....i say she's smiling even though others attribute that smile to something else

-when georgia lets me kiss the bottoms of her feet because they are the softest things in the world

-when georgia sleeps on her tummy and sticks her little bottom up in the air

-when georgia falls asleep while i'm trying to burp her or give her a bath

-when georgia waves her arms like she's directing traffic

and....

-i love that georgia is our daughter and that we get to shape the little girl that she turns into.....

here are just a few pictures of the three of us that my friend lisa took......i'll post a slide-show of our entire shoot soon!