Gotcha Girl

We've been celebrating Gotcha Days for 5 years now.

Since day 1, we have been very open with Josie about her adoption.  Andrew and I know that being adopted is special and something to be proud of.  As the kids grow older, I want them to always remember to see how God's fingerprints are all over their stories.  

Josie's Gotcha Day is my favorite day of the year.

Better then Christmas, better then Birthdays, better then the debut of peppermint mochas at Starbucks.

It's the day she was home.

Safe, validated, loved, and adored.

It's also the day I became a Mom and Andrew became a Dad.

We didn't have 9 months to prepare.  

We missed watching her take her first breath of air, her first smiles, her first ohhs and ahhs.

But we got her.

And 30 seconds into meeting her, none of those other things mattered.

So we celebrate every year and we do our best to make her feel as absolutely special as she is.

This is the first year that she really seems to understand what happened on her original Gotcha Day.  

She counted down the days leading up to it and woke me up with a huge smile and an, "aren't you so glad you got me?"

She told us at least 100 times how glad she was that God picked us to be her Mommy and Daddy.  That if anyone else ever tried to get her she would have run away to find us.

And I would have run to find her too.

We started the day with a rousing round of "Happy Gotcha Day To You" and candles in her oatmeal.

Then some whipped cream at Starbucks.

*inside tip - Starbucks will give kids a squirt of whipped cream if you ask really nice.  It makes my kids day and is often used as a reward for behaving during our errands.

*please don't tell Andrew I let her eat it in the new car.

Then we met up with some friends at the Center of Puppetry Arts in Atlanta.

I love this place.

It's creative and fun and, bonus, I got to count it as a field trip for school.

We saw Sleeping Beauty and then made fun owl puppet.

FYI - little boys are hard to get pictures of

We went and had a special lunch with friends after the play.

After lunch, we had to run a few errands.

Josie told everyone that would listen that it was her "Gotcha Day."  I love how proud she is to share her adoption story.  No shame, no worry about what people might think.  Just joy and excitement.

She doesn't quite understand why nobody knows what a Gotcha Day is.  After I explained it to the check out lady at Trader Joe's, she told us to hold on and ran and got Josie these special flowers.  It seriously made Josie's day.  She felt so special.  

Good job Trader Joe's, I will buy your Two Buck Chuck from now until forever.

And because Andrew missed out on our Gotcha Day celebration, we extended the party one more day and had the Mabes over for a Gotcha Day Dinner.

Josie got to pick the meal.  Meatloaf, Mashed Potatoes, Broccoli, and Biscuits and cupcakes for dessert.

It was a great celebration.

Like I've said a million times, I'm so glad I get to be her Mom.