19 months old

Before I start this months letter to Max I just want to give a shout out to a friend.

I know a lot of people don't read this blog. In fact I think there may be three people who read it with any kind of regularity. One of those people is a friend from high school who is currently going through the process of adopting a child with her husband.
First of all , she and I had a great friendship in high school and for a few years following high school until we lost touch. We have recently reconnected (YAY FACEBOOK!) and I am loving having her "back" in my life.
My spouse and I know some of the pain of wanting a child and not being successful and now that we are going through the process of adoption I know the frustration of not having things work out in the way and in the time that we want them to. We went through a situation once of having a child "offered" to us and then everything fell through after we had made a mental and emotional commitment. It was rough and we still have some sadness over the incident. Having said that, we are EXTREMELY blessed that we already have Max in our lives and are not waiting for any more than paperwork (which we HOPE will come through without problems!) I just wanted to say to my friend, in the words of the Indigo Girls " I know love will come to you", you are in my thoughts and everytime that I sit to write a letter to my son, I think of you and pray that your child will arrive speedily, and that until that day comes I pray peace for your heart.


Dear Max,

You turned 19 months old and it has been a crazy month. Earlier this week I was folding laundry with your mom and I couldn't believe how big your clothes are. You aren't the little baby who was too small to fit in anything we could find anymore. Your shirts are already sizes two and three and your feet are gargantuan.
We had a few days of really nice weather last week which turned out to be a curse because you apparently LOVE being outside and you don't care now that it is snowing with a windchill making the temperature dip below -15 degrees. You want to go OUT. That has made life a little bit hard on your mom these past few blustery days. Thank goodness you haven't yet figured out how to open the front door (not for lack of trying). I have had to rescue you already from some puddles which were a bit deeper than you realized before plunging in, but you remain undaunted. I just hope its a short and relatively mudless spring, but looking out the window tonight I think resistance is futile. (That was a science fiction reference for your mom's sake).

You have learned to zip and unzip, which means you are taking your clothing off a bit more frequently. The weather has made this a bit of a problem also - as illustrated by your BARE FEET in the photo above.

Which brings me to something I wasn't going to mention but here goes. When we met with the adoption supervisor she said that she understood our "hurry" to adopt you because we wanted to "start parenting you OUR way". I don't know exactly what that means, because we have parented you OUR way since the day we picked you up, and we will continue to do so until long past the time when you want us to anymore. That means I will be putting those shoes on everytime we leave the house, no matter how much you scream!
We are counting down the days until you meat your Granny Byrne. You did meet her once when you were three months old, but you haven't seen her since. Because we are taking a LONG road trip to pick her up we are VERY happy that your early negative experience in the car (translate: SCREAMING) seems to have passed. If not, granny can sit with you in the back on the trip home!

This month seems to have been one filled with a lot of good things. Mom figured out you like sweet pickles - HURRAH! - feeding you takes up a lot of time still as we try to negotiate around your allergies and your preferences. You are feeding yourself with both hands and doing WAY better at keeping the food on the fork or spoon as it heads to your mouth. For some reason you have decided that drinking babyfood is much more fun that using a spoon. We'd like to take you off the babyf ood but buddy, you don't eat ANYTHING, so corn casserole it is until we can figure out something else.
You are fascinated with all things electrical and related to the pets. I'm pretty sure you'll be hacking into computers before you can talk because you seem to know exactly what button to press to freeze everything or to start all kinds of programs running while I am trying to read email. Thanks for that. Now if only you could download some good movies for me in between moving the dog water back and forth across the kitchen floor and turning the dishwasher on and the lights off.
You still are having night terrors and while I hate that you wake up crying, I LOVE that you want to snuggle with me when I come to see what's happening. You are just SOOO big, but still my baby. Rest your head close to my heart, never to part, baby of mine.

Love mom.