I loved you first

Hip, Hip, Hooray!  First Day is coming up on Sunday!

This is your friendly reminder to set out those cameras and get to clicking all day Sunday!

We added a First Day tab up top with all the details.  

See you Monday for all the stalking you can handle!

<a href="http://www.journeytojosie.com"><img src="http://i496.photobucket.com/albums/rr321/thehanchan/firstday.jpg"></a>

Josie has a ridiculously long bedtime routine.

She takes her time picking out her PJs and brushing her teeth.  She needs a story and a devotion, then it's time for Andrew to leave but not before they kiss and rub noses.  I've been assigned, against my will, as the parent that stays for the remainder of the night's festivities.

We move on to a slightly off pitch (me, not her) rendition of Somewhere Over The Rainbow while I rub her back hard, but not too hard.  I can't even think about leaving before our "Honk Shoos" and whispers.

Then there's prayers.

Josie used to be scared to pray out loud and now she seems to be practicing for the Olympics with the length of her prayers.  Nothing is immune from needing to have thanks given.  I'm probably breaking a Commandment by complaining about it, but around the time she starts thanking God for socks and the button she found on the sidewalk three days earlier I tell her it's time to wrap it up.

She adds to her routine every few months.  And although I'm afraid I'll never have time to oblige Gabriel's impending nighttime requests, I just can't tell the child no at bedtime.  I want her last thoughts to be of sweet Mother Daughter Moments so I sing and fake snore and fulfill every request to hear the story of the night she came home.  Seriously, how could I say no to that?

A few weeks ago, in the middle of a story, she looked at Andrew and said, "you loved me before you loved Mommy."  


"Well, not really.  I loved Mommy first.  You weren't born yet when I started loving Mommy."

This answer was not what she wanted to hear.  "Daddy, PLEASE say you loved me first."


I couldn't help but smile.  Her desire to want to be loved.  To be constantly on our minds, in our hearts.  To be chosen and wanted.

She is starting to piece together what being adopted means.

It's a touchy subject for me.  I want her to just let it be, for her to know that we are her parents and nothing else matters.  I'm learning what she needs and how she is going to process it all as we go.

For the most part, she seems to feel like she is a member of an elite club.  Her parents chose her.  She feels bad for people that aren't adopted and shares parts of her story with strangers.

But there's starting to be a glimpse into a different side of it.  Not that she's sad or worried, more that she wants confirmation that she belongs.  It has to be a strange thought to know there was another mother out there somewhere that, for whatever reason, didn't keep her.

"Tell me the story about the night I came home."

And so I do.

I retell it with big tears of thankfulness and wonder in my eyes.  It's my fairytale.  My happy ending.  My white horse was a little red sports car.  My knight in shining armor was a chubby cheeked baby in tiny Nikes.

I retell that night with just as much emotion as I felt that day.  I get nervous when I talk about waiting for her to get here.  I can feel the weight of her in my arms when I talk about the first moment I held her.  I see Andrew, red eyed and half way in shock, when I tell about him meeting her.

And somewhere between the part where Missy brought us a carseat and the part about the mass of friends and family that met us at Walmart at 9 PM to meet her, it hits me.

She's right.

I did love her first.

I loved her when I was five and I played house for the first time.  I loved her every time I pretended I was the Mom when I babysat.  Every negative pregnancy test and every unanswered prayer.  She was there, in my heart.  And I loved her.

First.

Adventure

I've spent my first 30 years being an over planner.  

A slightly less vocal Nervous Nelly.  A trip to hike through a park to wade in knee deep rivers required hours of packing.  

Sunscreen?  Check.  Extra clothes?  Check.  Lunch?  Water?  Bug spray and shoes?  Check, check, check.  

In my mind, preparation equaled a good day.

But lately, I feel a change deep inside that is edging me to reinvent my type A ways.  I hear a far off voice crying for adventure and realize it's my voice calling.

I want to watch the sun set and maybe even get up in time to see it make it's daily debut above the horizon line.

I want dirt in my shoes and snarls in my hair.  Tangible evidence of a day well lived.

I'm dreaming of long drives to explore new caves and paths, to see the backside of a waterfall.  The thought of camping in a tent, in the woods, without my beloved fan to lull me to sleep isn't sounding half bad anymore.

I always thought I'd be increasingly more cautious after becoming a mom.

Surely growing older would make me see how fragile life is, the need to protect my young.  But I'm learning that it isn't one or the other.  I can teach them to be careful while teaching them to be fearless, to grab life by the horns and squeeze every tiny adventure out of it that they can.  I can cradle them close and kiss dirt covered cheeks just as easily as clean ones.

Yup.  I feel a deep change stirring.

And while I'm sure I'll still pack sunscreen, water, and extra bug spray, it will become second nature.  Bags set by the door, anticipating our next adventure.

We will live our days and live them well.

Butterfly School

egg carton caterpillars; paper towel butterflies; butterfly worksheets; color volcanos;
footprint butterfly art; mirrored art butterfly; butterfly feeders

Josie is doing a curriculum for math, reading, and writing.  These posts show our theme work.

Getting Gabe

Sometimes, right in the middle of vacation, God surprises you with something you didn't know you needed.

It's been two years since we got the call that changed our family.  We were at the beach celebrating our 8th anniversary when, surprise, we have a new baby!

Andrew calls him our souvenir.

I grumbled and complained.  I secretly told Amber I didn't want to cut our trip short.  My stomach did flips the entire drive home.  I thought our family was already so perfect.  What on Earth were we getting into?

Somewhere down in my gut, I was faintly aware that, whoever this child was, he needed me.

What I didn't know was how much I needed him.

First Night Home

When we got Gabe, he was strictly a foster placement.

We tried so hard to keep a guard up, to remember that his dimpled knuckles and wonky toes were only here for a little while.  I succeeded for almost four months.  Then I woke up one morning and realized he had flooded my heart.  Every piece of him was suddenly a piece of me and he was my baby.  My perfect baby.

We spent the next year and a half fighting for him.

For his rights to be heard, for the truth to be told, for him to be ours forever.

First Family Picture

I love how Gabe has changed me.

He didn't make me a mother, but he did teach me that hearts can grow.  That areas you thought were occupied with really important things are actually just a hoarders paradise, filled with the old, unneeded, unused.  He taught me that sometimes a life needs a good interrupting.

He taught me that perfection doesn't alway require, well, perfection.

He brings out a side of me that was buried before.  I go slower, look harder, feel deeper.  The boy loves his Mama and I'm pretty into him too. 

We are celebrating Gabriel's Gotcha Day by joining up with The American Heart Association for the Heart Walk.  

The actual walk isn't until September but we need people to join Team Gabriel by signing up to walk with us and by donating.  You can visit Team Gabriel's Page to donate or sign up to walk.  Word on the street is there may be some pretty awesome t-shirts in the works.

Gabriel has Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome, which means he was born with only half of his heart.  15 years ago, he wouldn't have lived more then a couple of days.  My boy is alive today because of the research of organizations like the American Heart Association.

His beautiful scar is an outward reminder of an internal victory.

We need the research to continue so that we can have many more Gotcha Days.  Will you join us?

Help Team Gabe by visiting our American Heart Association Page!

Happy Gotcha Day Sweet Gabriel.  

You're My Favorite Souvenir.

Want some good reads on Gabriel?

Gabe's Gotcha Day Post
Gabe's Adoption Day Post
Gabe's Heart Post

Bugs

I have this dream of being a Master Gardener.

In my dream, my garden is in neat rows.  There's always something ready to harvest in my organic dream garden and my kids can have their pick of fresh from the Earth produce any time they want.  I have dirt under my nails as I carry my bucket full of veggies inside where I will can and freeze and store enough food for us to eat all winter.

I want a big garden.  Like really big.

In reality, I over planted and now my plants are getting really crowded.  Except for the sole okra plant I put in.  It has plenty of room and is on target to produce exactly two okras.

My organic garden dreams are leading to tiny weird holes in my peppers and squash bugs all over my yellow squash plant.

Ah, I was not aware that gross bugs would be eating my food before me.

And yesterday, when I went to check on the billion cucumbers that need to be picked everyday, an entire pepper plant wasn't there.  Like, it was just gone.

Who took my pepper plant?!?!

I spent a good chunk of time hunched over the squash plant, scooping the ugly pests into a jar of soapy water and burning the eggs.  Not exactly my original Sunday night plan.

Deep down I know there's a lesson in hard work here.  

I'm trying to remember that it takes years to really figure out how to grow food the right way.  I'm letting Google be my teacher.  If anyone has any expert tips, I'm all ears.

I'm also all cucumbers.

It's like a sick joke that the one vegetable that we can't store is the one going wild.  A girl can only eat so many pickles.  And Josie just told me that my homemade pickles are gross and to, "please just get the kind with the bird on the jar."  

She's not helping my pride.

A Decade

Yesterday, Andrew and I celebrated ten years of marriage.

Seriously.

Ten Years.

I feel the need to declare that I was a mere baby when we got hitched at the Fayetteville Courthouse, but I'm sure that math is obvious.

Had you been there that day, you'd remember me as the girl with a pixie cut sitting alone on a bench in a white dress.  I drove myself there while Andrew picked up my Mom from the airport and waited nervously worried that nobody, including Andrew, would show up.

Slowly, family started pouring in and we filled that little courtroom up with people we'd known all our lives.  I'm sure 99.9% of them thought the wedding was a bad idea.  I'd say 100%, but there were some children 5 and under that had no clue what we were even doing there.

10 years later, I can look back and think, "what the heck were we thinking?!?!"

I see 19 year olds now and am sure they are entirely too young to even own a car let alone bind their life to someone else's for all of eternity.  We both admit that we probably should have waited a bit longer if for no other reason then to not have to buy our own groceries quite so soon.

It wasn't the wedding of my dreams, but then again, I've never really dreamed of my wedding so I had nothing to compare it to.

Married at the courthouse, pictures at a dried up waterfall, lunch at an all you can eat chicken place, and a homemade cake with frosting completely missing from the back side.  The entire day was completely amateur.  I look at my friend's weddings and think I should probably be at least a little embarrassed of my big day or lack thereof.

But the day was us.

It was the start of the hardest and most exciting ten years of my life.  Being married to a man with as much passion and drive as Andrew is never boring.  He keeps me on my toes and gets me to try things that this Nervous Nelly would never do on my own.  We have made colossal mistakes that we are still paying for, but we've made some unbelievably amazing decisions too.

Starting with that hot May night when we decided the day didn't matter.  It was the life that followed that we would invest in.  We didn't need a year long engagement in order to sort out all of the little details.

We needed to belong to each other and that was enough.

It still is.

This marriage has been my greatest adventure.

Andrew is my home base.  My rock.  He is insane and goofy and eats entire watermelons in bed, on our white sheets, at 11 PM.  He has the ability to drive me completely insane and get me to laugh at all my idiosyncrasies.

I tell him when his big ideas get a little too big and keep his socks clean.

We've got a good thing going here.  I'm sure it's as cleshay as it gets, but the years have flown by.  How on Earth did we go from 19 year olds who could spend all day driving aimlessly to 30 year olds with a mortgage and two little people?

I'm so glad for that little courthouse and everything that came after.

Maybe we weren't as crazy as everyone thought we were.

It's always been you

Andrew and I are celebrating 10 awesome, wonderful, completely amazing years of marriage today.

In this day and age, I think it's quite an accomplishment that not only have we made it ten years, but I honest to God love the man more today then I did the day I said, "I do."  I can't even begin to imagine what my life would be like without his crazy self right beside me.   I laugh a lot about how, even on our worst days, it's really never been bad between us.  Not everyone gets either of us, but we get each other and it's good.  

It's so, so incredibly good. 

We aren't doing anything extravagant like I had hoped we would.  But I've decided that's ok.  We celebrate in the everyday.  In the constant support and dependability.  In the laughs and inside jokes.  We celebrate every chance we get and spread all those little moments of joy out and I think we've had a pretty wild and crazy celebration already.

Here's to the next ten.

Me & Her

I spent the last two days playing a watered down version of Toddlers and Tiarras.

Josie had a photo shoot up on the North side of Atlanta.  Sunday night, she told Andrew she wouldn't be home much because she had a "gig".  Where did she hear the word gig and who told her what it meant?

Beats me.

But she did and she wasn't.  Sad for Andrew and Gabriel, happy for me.

It was two long days with a lot of driving and outfit changing.  I've applied lipgloss and combed out her snarly hair more times then I can count.  I'm totally exhausted.

On our way up Monday morning I questioned my sanity of doing the shoot.  Now, as I'm laying here in bed ready for a quiet few days at home, I'm so happy that we did it.  Sure the pictures will be stunning,  the photographer is a genius and Josie had so much fun with all the girls, but it was the time in-between the clicks that made it all worth it.

I loved getting 26 hours of pure Josie Time.  Just me and her.

She's growing into such a little lady and has these thoughts and opinions and questions that make me giggle and wonder where she gets such a deep soul.  I left all my to do lists behind and decided to just focus totally on her for those two days.

We had Starbucks dates and sang loud in the car.  We told jokes and took the long way home so we could stop for some much deserved dessert.  I listened to long, and I mean really long, stories about some dog and Old Baby and I'm honestly not sure what else.  She lost me around twist five of the story, but I listened anyways.  It was awesome.

I love being a mom.  I want to do a better job of showing my kids that they are important to me.  That I know how lucky I am to get to spend my days with them.  I keep trying to get them to slow down and give me time to perfect my Mothering before they are grown and all my chances slip away.

Josie's the first child.  She's my guinea pig, the one I test all my parenting theories and ideas on.  And quite honestly, I get a lot wrong with her.

But these couple of days?

I got them right.

Wanna see Josie in action?  Click here to see all her photoshoot pictures.  

I know I'm biased, but the child is stunning.

The Hooch

I had Father's Day all planned out.

We were going to go to church and take a glorious family nap before heading to Andrew's parent's house for a cook out that was going to include steaks and homemade peach ice cream.

But lately I've been craving adventure and while my planned day would be nice and relaxing, it would be average and I just wasn't feeling up for average.

So after a couple shots of caffeine, we decided to load up the car and drive until we found something that could bring us more excitement then a family nap.

We ended up at the Chattahoochee River National Recreational Area, just north of Atlanta.  We celebrated Andrew by hiking and wading and getting completely filthy until we were all so incredibly content.  Exhausted, but content.

Nature does that for me.

I fight it.  I busy myself inside my air conditioned house and find superficial contentment in a crossed off to do list.  But this feeling of gratitude and oneness with my family and the Earth can only come from worn out calf muscles and sun kissed skin.

When we had climbed our last rocks and we all smelled like river rats, we headed back to our side of town.  We wrapped up the day flying kits and eating that homemade peach ice cream with Andrew's parents.

I laid down after a hot shower and soaked in the day.  

I felt so balanced.  Like we had really squeezed everything we could out of the day.  I'm already craving our next adventure (and more peach ice cream).  It was so good for me, for all of us. 

I can't wait to see what snake infested, bug ridden day we think up next!