Remembering Bumpa

Dear Ian, Liliana, and Cooper,

This is hard stuff. I'm writing to you because you have lost a very important man in your life. It's been a month since your Bumpa died and I've been trying to write this ever since then. Ian, I know you have good memories of your Bumpa; you are almost 9 years old and I know this has been especially hard on you. I am so proud of the way you have handled yourself like such a little man through this all. I am proud of how you have talked about your feelings with mum and dad, and even let yourself cry a little; about how you bravely sat at the side of Bumpa's casket numerous times during the wake, no doubt processing what it all meant; how you decided that the flowers from yourself, your sister and brother needed to be placed on your Bumpa's heart before closing his casket and not only did you ask the funeral director yourself if that could be done, but lovingly placed the flowers there yourself, and how seriously you took your role as honorary pall bearer at Bumpa's funeral. You are not always the best at sharing how you are feeling, but it was evident to everyone present that day that you loved and respected your Bumpa very much and for that I am very proud.

You were Bumpa's first grandchild Ian, and I'm certain you reserved a special place in his heart. You loved it when Bumpa would get down on the floor with you and blow raspberries on your belly. I loved that too; he did that with all three of you, and I remember thinking how funny it was to see this man with such a crunchy exterior cooing and ga ga-ing over you guys in a high pitched voice you would never expect to come out of him. He couldn't wait until you were old enough to give treats to. It started when you were about 5 months with, "Can I give him a little piece of cracker?"; to which Mimi would incredulously reply, "Ed! He can't have that!!". Mommy agreed with Mimi, sorry bud. But as soon as he found out you could have treats, you better believe he was at the door just about every Saturday. It started with bottles of chocolate milk and small bags of Ritz Bits peanut butter crackers. Honestly, I'm pretty sure he chose those items because, well you know how first time moms can be, but milk and peanut butter, could mom really deny you that?! You were the first to spoil; and boy did he love to do that!

By the time Ana came along, Bumpa caught on that mummy was a little more relaxed and she knew that you weren't going to wither away by being treated on the weekends so his visits would bring one of a few usual suspects; ice cream sandwiches (always the neapolitan kind), devil dogs, Hostess Donettes (you know, those waxy chocolate covered "donuts" that you guys LOVE!), ding dongs, Market Basket brand chewy chocolate chip cookies, or the most recent addition after finding out Ana's love for it, popcorn. These things will always remind me of your Bumpa.

Liliana, you have handled this I guess like any 3 year old would. We were torn whether to bring you to the wake and funeral, but I do think it was good for you and has helped you understand a little more than you otherwise would have. We were a little concerned when you asked a couple times at the wake for Bumpa to "wake up" but when we explained that Bumpa's body didn't work anymore, I think on some level you got it. At the funeral, you asked to see Bumpa a few times and as they wheeled the casket out you wanted to "go with Bumpa", so I'm sure you knew that even though you didn't see the casket close, you knew that's where Bumpa was. When you went with Mimi back to the cemetery a couple days after the burial, I'm told you did ask where Bumpa went. When Mimi told you that Bumpa was under the flowers you responded with a very literal 3 year old response of "Well, he's gonna get all messy under there!" I do think your presence through all of this added some levity and like to think that it helped especially your Mimi, Daddy and Uncles. I'm certain you don't fully understand all that has happened, which was made clear to me a couple nights ago when you asked if Bumpa was done dying yet so we could bring him chocolate in the hospital and make him feel better. I explained to you again that we wouldn't be able to see Bumpa again and you got a sad face and said, "Oh...dat sad". It is so sad my sweet girl. Liliana, Bumpa really loved having a grand-daughter! I'm told that he always wanted a daughter, and you could tell by the way he looked at you that he thoroughly enjoyed watching you and your girl-y ways. "Ahh-na", he would say, (again in that high pitched Bumpa voice) "look at your pretty dress!" He would always remark on your shoes and how they never matched and were always on the wrong feet, because you do that, a lot! He loved it when you would stay with them while mummy ran errands or had appointments because he was very proud of the fact that he was the only one you would cuddle calmly enough with to fall asleep next to him on the couch. Thank goodness Mimi even caught this on film a couple times. You were definitely his special princess!

Cooper, I'm especially sad for you. You are so young, and your memories will be based in the pictures and stories we will share with you. That's a big reason this was so important to me to get down on "paper". The day you were born, Bumpa had to have a procedure done and he was not happy about it! You better believe though that he was the first visitor bright and early (your Bumpa was ALWAYS bright and early!) the next morning so he could give you an extra squeeze! I'm sad that you didn't get to experience the weekend Bumpa treats like your brother and sister did since it really was something that made your Bumpa especially happy to do. This was not due to his lack of trying though!! I think you were about 3 months when he first tried to give you a cookie crumb to which your Mimi exclaimed, just like she did years ago with your brother, "Ed! He can't have that!!" Cooper, your Bumpa was quite taken with you and how much you look like your daddy; "Spittin' image of Greg", he would say every time he saw you. He loved what an easy baby you are! When you were teenie, he would come over and pull you out of the swing (whether you were sleeping or not) to give you a cuddle; you would sit with him and he would remark, "Such a happy baby!". You loved it when he would pretend to gobble up your chubby little fists, making that chomping noise that only Bumpa could make as you would reach out to him for more. You also loved when Bumpa would get down on the floor with you just like with your brother and sister; no matter how much I'm sure his legs were hurting, he got right down with you on the floor and blew raspberries on your belly too! You certainly were special to your Bumpa!

All in all, I think Sharon summed up your Bumpa the best when she said that he was a lot like a toasted marshmallow; kind of crusty and crunchy on the outside but all gooey and smooshy on the inside. That gooey goodness oozed out whenever he was around you kids. He loved you all with every ounce of that tired heart of his and that's what I want you to remember the most; how much he really loved being your Bumpa.

Three!

My Sweet Liliana,
You are three years old today!
It's hard to remember you as
the quiet little baby you once were
because you are anything but quiet now!

You love to sing
Quite dramatically actually
and loudly!

You clutch your hands to your chest,
tilt your cute little face upward
and belt it out.

Your songs usually don't have words.
But when they do,
they are ones you have made up
and don't often make sense.
But that's okay, it's wonderful all the same.

The drama doesn't stop there though.
Whether it be changing your clothes 14 times a day
(you are very particular about your clothing)
Or your fiery attitude
(you are a sassy little monkey)
You definitely keep the boredom away in our house!

You are also trouble with a capital T!
No matter how many times you've been told,
you think drawing on walls,
furniture
or yourself
is far more creative than doing it on paper.

You think Milo's food is there for your amusement.
You especially like to mix it with his water,
or to the water drip tray from our water dispenser
or stuffing it into the soil of my ficus plant.
That's my personal favorite.

But you can be so sweet too!
You melt my heart when you offer kisses and hugs
and "I lub you's"
without prompting
or lay a big hug on Ian (whether he wants it or not)
or get right down on the floor with Cooper to hug him
and say "I lub you" Coopie

You are such a loving little girl...
even though you do still give your cousin Stevie a hard time!



Today we spent the day playing outside.
You pushed your baby around the yard in her stroller
Tried to steal blueberries from the bushes
Played on the swing set
Tried to steal blueberries from the bushes
pulled leaves off the forsythia bushes,
and pretended to cook them in your playhouse
Stole blueberries from the bushes
Yeah you LOVE blueberries.



We met Papa and Ian at the golf course
to watch Ian finish his final lesson.
Then Papa bought us pizza for lunch on the way home
and sent you home with
a chocolate chip muffin in a bag for dessert.

You watched Tinkerbelle and the Lost Treasure
for a little rest time
because a nap was not on your menu for the day

Then we played outside some more.
This time Ian joined you,
and you had a ball pretending to drive
back and forth to the grocery store;
loading your cart up with leaves, twigs and dirt

When daddy got home we went to
Ice Cream Haven for a treat.
You requested that specific ice cream place
so you could see the "baby" ducks.
They're kind of "grown up" ducks now
but you can call them babies if you want to.



You wanted a purple ice cream cone.
I don't think you would have cared about the flavor
as long as it was purple.

You took a few licks of that cone
then left it on the table to melt
because feeding the ducks was way more interesting.



All in all, I think you had a great day.
We are looking forward to
celebrating with family on Saturday
and with your friends next weekend for
a yet to be determined
princess or fairy party
(you change your mind hourly).

Happy Birthday to you my sweet girl!
I love you so very much
and can't wait to see what this year brings!

Guatemala 900

I've met many blog friends during our adoption journey. One story that I have followed with much heartache is Yesenia's family who have struggled 3 years to bring their little girl home from Guatemala. They received their referral a month after we received ours. As you know we just passed our 2 year anniversary of having Ana home with us. They however have had to endure setback after setback in their journey with no clear end in sight. Sadly they are not alone. This is from our agency:

"Some of you may be aware that there are still approximately 500 adoptions, which were grandfathered under the new law, which have been obstructed by the Guatemalan authorities for various reasons. Hundreds of U.S. families are still hoping to be united with the children they started adopting - in most cases, more than 3 years ago. Some don't know where their children are. Some are supporting their child and hoping that child will come home. This is a travesty of justice on the part of both the Guatemalan and U.S. governments.

The Guatemala900 organization, www.guatemala900.org , has scheduled a Congressional Briefing on Thursday, May 6, between 10-12 A.M. They will be marching from the Holiday Inn Capital Hill to the Hart building for the briefing. The adoptive families and their advocates will be attending the briefing, the details are on the Guatemala900 website. BE AN ADVOCATE to encourage Congressional intercession with our Department of State, so that this becomes a matter of the highest priority for them to resolve. Please contact your congressional reps and ask them to attend this briefing. Please contact any families in the DC area to see if they can join the march and briefing. Please, if you are an agency near DC, please attend and show your support to US adoptive families and their children who are caught in this painful situation."

My friends and family were so supportive when we were waiting for Ana to come home. I'm hoping you might be able to help out other families bring their precious children home. There is a petition that will be presented that is directed to the US and Guatemalan First Ladies asking for their support that this will be the LAST Mother's Day waiting mothers will be without their children.

My heart just aches for these families.
I can't imagine the pain and worry they are enduring.
I can't look at my own sweet Guatemalan princess without tearing up.
We are so blessed to have her here safe with us!

Won't you please click here to sign the petition?

Thanks for your help!

Cooper Fast Forward...

So, after Ian was born I really got into photography.

When he was about 2 months old I took a set of photographs that I really loved and from that point on I decided I was not going to take him to a studio and pay outlandish prices, and hope and pray he would be having a good enough moment to get some good shots.

I decided that I would do them.

And that's what I did.
Every month.
And I was happy.

Along came Ana and though I had the best of intentions and did mostly okay, with a few delays here and there in timing. The difference with her was that I didn't print out oodles of copies every month and hand them out to everyone willing to take one.

I handed out her 1 year photos,

But mostly, they sit here on my computer.
But I'm still happy.
I can look at them whenever I want to after all.

So onto Cooper.
He's quite possibly my last baby.
I want to hold onto every memory even more so.

I've been doing okay.
Well, except that I missed the 1 month and 4 month ones.
Oops.

It's just so hard to find the time;
enough time to set up the backdrop,
to take the pictures,
and take DOWN the backdrop all in one day.
It didn't matter so much with Ian if things were still set up the next day.

But with Ms. Mischief in the house, it most certainly matters!
In a "we would probably end up in the ER with head trauma" sort of way.

Anyways, what I haven't been so good about is sharing with you all.
So I thought I'd catch you up on how much our Coop has changed over the last 5 months.

So here you go, a Cooper Fast Forward:

There you go.
5 months already.
Time really flies.

But I say that a lot, don't I?

2 Years Ago Tonight...

This cutie became a U.S. citizen.

We were so happy to finally have her HOME...



It's hard to remember her at that age!
She has changed in so very many ways!

Sleepy Stories

Between having a 4 month old who alternates between sleeping 7-8 hours in his own bed to spending vast amounts of time in between mummy and daddy; a 2 1/2 year old who has just graduated to a toddler bed; and an 8 year old who still climbs into mummy and daddy's bed every single night, there's a lot of chatter in this house about sleep. I've started a couple different posts about different stories and have decided to pool them together into one post.

This first one is from February 8th:
Okay, it's 5:20 am and Cooper has slept through the night, and is still sleeping! Why then, have I been up all night? Well, he's got me freaked out, that's why! Besides the sleeping so long thing which was enough to keep me up, he's insisting on pulling the blankets over his head over and over again. So I've been up for hours just listening to him breathing. We did have a big day yesterday, traveling to Worcester, MA to visit with a college friend and go to an indoor zoo event. He was awake most of the day so I shouldn't be that surprised, but he fell asleep in the car around 6:15, and I had to wake him at 8:15 because he continued to sleep in his seat when we got home. He slept through me changing his diaper, then nursed, but never opened his eyes. I put him down at about 9pm and here we are at just about 5:30. As I've been typing he's starting to finally stir, and is working hard to fill his diaper.

So, fast forward to 8 am...I totally expected him to wake up STARVING; after all, it had been 9 hours since his last feeding! But this is what I was greeted with when I peered over the bed side:

I laughed out loud when I saw the grin on his face, he is so funny!

From Febrary 17th:
Ana has graduated to a toddler bed, or as she calls it, her big girl bed. She's doing pretty good and as I type it's her fourth night in it. We have a gate on her room so she can't get out and wander if she awakes during the night, which apparently she does because each time we go to get her after nap (which doesn't involve sleep anymore by the way) or in the morning she is wearing different clothes than she was put to bed in. Yesterday morning, I go in to check on her in the morning and she sits up quickly in her bed and says, "Oh, hi mummy! I waked up! I put my dess on!" (dess is clothes). Her "dess" of choice was a shirt, tights, and FOUR pairs of underpants! I got a total giggle when I helped her on the potty and counted layer after layer of underpant; it was too funny!

Ana sleeping in her big girl bed for the first time!

Okay, here's the new stuff:

A little more about Ana's big girl bed escapades - Ana has since started to not want to nap during the day, it's far more interesting to empty her drawers and paw through the bucket of out-grown clothes in her closet, putting on multiple layers of shirts, pants and/or dresses. I'm hoping to do a separate post just on her post-nap styling, but you all know my track record, so don't hold your breath! Another problem we have encountered is that the gate we had been securing her doorway with she figured out how to maneuver out of. One morning last week we woke up and she wasn't in her room...PANIC! She had gone downstairs and had emptied an entire loaf of bread onto the bathroom floor and was playing with it. I can't think about the incident without getting sick to my stomach with the possibilities that could have arisen from her being downstairs by herself (she has taken to trying to go outside to play all by herself on multiple occasions). I'm so thankful that loaf of bread held her interest for some unknown reason!

Lastly, lately our bed has been a gathering place for all members of the family. I have come to the conclusion that we desperately need a king size bed! Anyways, after climbing out of bed one morning a couple weeks ago, I got a real kick out of this sight:

I call it "Small, Medium, and Large".

Oh, I guess there is one last sleep story to share. It's pretty involved, and I'm going to save it for another post. I'll just say that we discovered recently that Ian is a sleep walker...and it was in a very scary way that we made this discovery! More to come....

Ana-versary

Recovering from the stomach bug can do a lot to you, but I can't believe it let yesterday slip by without a mention. Two years ago yesterday, Ana was placed in our arms forever. I simply cannot believe it has been two years already! It seems like only yesterday we were sitting in that crowded hotel lobby holding an 8 month old Ana, in disbelief that she was finally coming home with us. Not hearing a word the hogar director was saying to us, only admiring chubby cheeks and crazy dark sticky up hair that covered her sweet head. Two years later, and she has brought so much joy and laughter to our house. I can't imagine our lives without her!

Happy Ana-versary Liliana Michele!
We love you so, so much!


Oh, and thanks to Debbie over at World of Weeks from whom I stole the term "Ana-versary" from. They will be celebrating their own "Lilianaversary" in just over a week, which also happens to be while they are in Ethiopia picking up their newest addition, sweet Naomi. Congratulations guys, and have a safe trip, we'll be thinking about you and can't wait to see pictures of Lili with her new baby sister!