A Glorious Thanksgiving

Getting to know her Uncle Larry. My brother is so sweet and gentle with her.

A typical morning except this time, I have my wonderful family joining in.

My fabulous and precocious niece, Gwennie.



Francesca, our mischievous and oh-so-lovable 4-year old niece.


Enjoying Aunt Kiki's lap.

Our little home, my wonderful family. Jasmine couldn't be happier and ate with vigor and enthusiasm.

We finally pulled the host card and my family came for a visit and a feast. The day started out with spectacular sunshine and a walk to our little, shrinking pond. A favorite spot for my morning outings, we are always content to invite family to join in. The never-ending summer-like days are still with us, and while we had our wood-burning stove lit, the day temperatures are intoxicatingly warm. I am anxious for the rains to arrive; we've had a few teaser storms but as evidenced by the pictures, our pond is desperate to be filled back up. Jasmine was in heaven with her cousins here for 2 whole days and for us, sharing our first Thanksgiving as a family of 3 was an answer to our dreams. Jasmine made sure to connect with every member of the family. She was definitely sad when she woke up on Saturday and found her extended family had left. She looked around the house but alas, there were no children to be found.

A Sunday afternoon

Some of you may remember the pictures of Jasmine helping me collect walnuts. Here is the next step in the process, which is not nearly as fun as collecting but critical in actually getting to consume them. We spent some time shelling walnuts out on the driveway and Jasmine did her best to help out. It's kind of confusing--some things are OK to put in my mouth and some things aren't.

It can be hard to figure out what goes in each bowl.


Ok, this makes sense. I can play while Mama figures out what goes in each bowl.


Maybe it would be helpful if I put my toy in the box of walnuts?

Shelling walnuts is actually kind of boring. Here's Zami's kennel! I wonder what it's like in there?

It's a perfect fit!

A really big kennel!

This is too much fun.
With the spectacular fall weather, we spent a lot of time outdoors this weekend. Jasmine loves the outdoors. Sometimes she stands at the front door and bangs on it, anxious to get outside. She loves our morning outings, not concerned what we do, just that we do it. So the mornings are all about Mama and Jasmine time, running in the stroller, walking in the backpack and always having our Zami-girl by our side. We live in the forest. Our walks and runs are in the tall oaks, pines and cedars, on trails and road, with singing, silence and solitude, depending on our moods. Sometimes Jasmine wants to interact but more often, she wants to enjoy the great outdoors and watch Zami run ahead of us, and just take it all in. I can imagine the world from her perspective, the colors and scents and crunching of big leaves under my feet. It's so inviting and invigorating. She is refreshed and renewed when we get home.

A day in the life...

Here we are at the Mandarin festival. Auburn is legitimately famous for it's extraordinary crop of mandarins, a sweet, delicious morsel of autumnal heaven. Peel it, pop it in your mouth, repeat several times.



Jasmine upon release from her stroller. Again, it's her inquisitiveness that stands out the most. She must first take it all in, then it's off to explore everything.
Today is our 3 month anniversary of Gotcha Day. As usual, I become reflective on anniversaries so I will expound. I would say the last month of growth has been all about bonding in an entirely new way. We're not trying to figure each other out any more; we are a family. Jasmine no longer prefers mama over baba and Shane has grown in leaps and bounds. He steps in to feed her when she won't eat for me and tells me when she's thirsty. Jasmine's strong personality continues to delight, amuse and, at times, exhaust us. We love it all. I still can't believe how rich our lives have become and how unbelievably LUCKY we are that Jasmine is OUR LITTLE GIRL.

Music together

We have been doing music together classes for several weeks. Jasmine loves it! She is different from the other kids in class. She walks around the circle, making eye contact with every adult in the room and often will stand in front of teacher Pam and watch her play and sing. As the weeks have passed, she seeks out my lap more frequently. I find myself completely tuned into her during class--"I only have eyes for you..."






Jasmine, Jasmine, Jasmine. How can I describe the true nature of this independent, curious, mischievous little imp? She has such a strong will, fiercely angry when she doesn't get her way and heart-wrenchingly loving when so inclined. A hug from her is intoxicating and when she laughs and chortles it is impossible to keep a straight face. She fills up our little home with her charisma and charm. But when she is mad, look out. Last night I came home from a long day away and she had a nice relaxing day at home with her Baba. As expected, when I arrived home from work she was snoozing away on her Baba's lap and so I snuck around the house, getting changed and fixing dinner. I was so eagerly looking forward to her smile and hug, but lo and behold, that is not what she had in mind. She was MAD. About what, we are still not sure, but no matter. She screamed and hollered and kicked and hit for 45 minutes, without reprieve. There was no comforting her. When it was all over, she agreed to take a bath with me and we reconnected in the tub and had a late dinner. Shane is still not convinced of this but my theory is that she was just plain mad at me for leaving her for so long. Fortunately with my schedule, I always get mornings with Jasmine and we play, walk or run, go to music class and eat breakfast before she goes to daycare. I know what some might say,that it wasn't my fault, but by Wednesday we've had a long 3 days of running around and time away from parents. I can hardly wait for Friday to arrive when it's my turn to spend 3 full days with our daughter.This particular morning I snuck out early to go to yoga class. I used to do yoga in the evenings but I just don't feel good about being away during dinner. Was she mad that I left her so early? Was she constipated (another theory)? Or did she just wake up on the wrong side of the lap?

The kindness of others

Here is the play area at Shriner's. It's lovely and spacious and full of light with a wall of windows surrounding the space.



Jasmine in the waiting room, checking things out.

Her new favorite toy.

Shane spends Thursdays home with Jasmine and my day is Friday. Typically when I get home from work, this is what I find. I can NEVER get Jasmine to fall asleep on me.
Today we had our first appointment at Shriner's hospital. We have been looking forward to this appointment for some time but what was unexpected was the emotional experience of being in a facility like that. Funded by an endowment, Shriner's requires little but a diagnosis to accept a child for surgery. Our Doctor spent a lot of time explaining the course of action for her palate surgery and anticipates that we may be able to get scheduled in 3-4 weeks. This is great news! He also discussed Jasmine's lip and nose revision, and confirmed that we don't have to wait until Jasmine is a teenager to touch up her nostril. Thanks to everyone else who informed us of this, we were quite hopeful that Dr. Maguina would agree. The facility is beautiful and well-staffed. We found our way to the 2nd floor, where we saw some burn victims in various stages of recovery. It is almost too much to think about, having to deal with your child recovering from a severe and catastrophic burn. I would love to volunteer my services to this great organization and do play therapy with some of the children. What a humbling experience that would be.

On the mend

I love these pictures of Shane and Jasmine. We are at the American River confluence, a place where we have spent many, many hours over the years running, riding and less often, hiking. We were happy to finally be there with our daughter.



We desperately needed more storage for Jasmine's unmanageable toy collection, so we schlepped ourselves to Target and found this useful storage shelf. Jasmine clearly prefers it's alternative uses.

This weekend Shane, Jasmine and I went out for a hike. I didn't get as many pictures as I would have liked because once we hit the trails we had a different focus. I'll have to get some pictures of Jasmine in her backpack. We all love the backpack and on the mornings when I don't run her in the jogger I put her in the backpack. She's outgrown the baby bjorn already, at least on my 5'1" frame.

Auburn, CA is known as the "Endurance Capital of the World". This self-titled accolade cracks me up! Growing up in Colorado and living in Boulder, I KNOW where the endurance capital is, and it's not here. But, Auburn needed to define itself and because there are a couple of world-class and one-of-a-kind events that's the title that was chosen. Auburn hosts 2 historic events, the Western States 100 miles trail run and the Tevis cup(www.auburn-ca.com) Both cover 100 miles in 1 day, one on foot and one on horseback. We are very lucky to have the trails and the energy that goes into trail maintenance in our own backyard. The trail system is extensive as is the running community. Shane and I spent many days and nights before Jasmine arrived, reflecting on how Jasmine would become part of our outdoor lives. We knew that we would need to support each other and be creative about our time outdoors so this weekend we did just that. We hiked together for awhile, and then Shane told me to go run on my own and it was delicious. I loved being back on the trails, no jogger in front of me, just Zami (our pooch) and me, enjoying the autumn leaves and nicely moist trails. After the first couple of rains, all the dust and burnt vegetation disappear and for a few precious months, it is a new and inviting landscape.

Shane's day, while enjoyable, was a bit less liberating as he had a squirmy 15 month old shifting back and forth in a backpack and mama was off running, her pack carrying snacks and a sippy cup. OOPS. We are still ironing out the details of our family outings.

Sick baby

Jasmine and Baba stayed home from daycare this week because she's been sick (read more about it below). Shane is generally more up on housework than I am, and this is what the 2 of them got into. Jasmine is helping vacuum.

No surprise that Jasmine would eventually end up in the dryer.



But on top of the dryer?

Someday we hope that Jasmine will know what to do with clothes that are in a laundry basket (besides throwing them all over her room).

This has been a tough week with a sick baby. Wow, does that ever throw things out of wack! We had so much fun being with family over the weekend but I blame myself for Jasmine catching a very bad cold. She was not bundled up adequately when outdoors and I learned my lesson the hard way. It started with a wheeziness that progressed into a scary cough. We also had a surgery consult on Monday morning AND a hearing test. I think she got a little worn out. By Tuesday she was pretty miserable and we were not going to take her to daycare. We certainly learned this week what it's like to have to adjust our schedules when she's sick. Because my schedule is so tightly packed in with my practice Shane offered to stay home with her. Wednesday she was much worse and we were really concerned that she might have bronchitis or some respiratory infection so back to the doctor where she had her ear cleaned and a breathing treatment done. She was FURIOUS. Poor thing, already feeling badly and getting the work-up at Kaiser. Shane again stayed home with her and I went on to work but let me say I have been exhausted. Thankfully she was much better by yesterday but we were pretty worn out. And this is just with a cold! Her pediatrician also thought she may have asthma, given that she has some wheeziness. We hope not but we'll just have to wait and see. Since coming home, Jasmine has been to medical appointments 8 times! That's pretty much once a week, whether it's to have her blood drawn (twice since they needed so much), ears cleaned or immunizations updated.

We were also disappointed in our surgical consult in that the surgeon said that Jasmine wouldn't have her nose fixed until she is 15 or 16, and that the visible scar along her nose may never be repaired. I was shocked. I did not think she would have to go through her schooling years with her flattened nostril. I look forward to our appointment next week at Shriners and hope that we may get a different opinion. I also don't know how so many parents manage to get their kid's surgeries done so quickly. I have worked really hard to get all these appointments, none of which I could set up before our trip, and we still may not get it done before January. Again, we hope that Shriners offers us some other perspective.

Cousins!

Uncle Shane has always had a special relationship with Francesca.

Jasmine loves to be helpful and a personal favorite is unloading the dishwasher. She thought helping her Aunt Kiki might score her some brownie points for later (when the real brownies appeared!).

It is very tough to catch Jasmine in a full-on laugh, even though it happens all the time. She is as changeable as the weather in the Colorado Rockies.

Lovin' her sweet cousin Frenchie!

The girls are getting reacquainted. They haven't seen each other since the arrival from China.

Jasmine is loving her big cousin, Gwennie, and spending time with her nagymama.

Shane has ridden his REAL bike 1X since returning from China. I wonder if he'll put this ride in his training diary?

Jasmine wanted to ride like the big people and we had a hard time getting her off this trike.

Baba loved to play football in Ireland during his childhood; Jasmine was a willing participant in kicking the ball around.



November is National Adoption Month and I have been thinking a lot about what it means to be an adoptive parent. Jasmine has taught us how to love in a whole new way. She just keeps pulling us deeper and deeper into love with her and it is the easiest and surest feeling that I've ever experienced. She brings immeasurable joy and delight into our lives. I think often about her biological parents, who they are and what their lives are like. I cannot ever thank them enough for courageously giving up their precious daughter to hope beyond hope that she might have a better life. There is no way for them to know that this remarkable little baby is now loved beyond measure by two devoted parents. We cannot thank them enough.

Being an adoptive parent is liberating. I can love with abandon and rejoice in who this little person is and what she is becoming. It is not about me! Or us! We are involved, yes, but more so we are witnesses to the unfolding of her personhood. She is truly her very own person and I feel as if I am merely loving her as she blossoms into her Self. I don't have any expectations that she will be like me in this way or have Shane's certain qualities in another. So in this way, as difficult as it is to put it into words, it is truly freeing to be privileged enough to adopt a child.

We are thrilled that on the tails of Jasmine becoming our daughter, an African-American is becoming president of the USA. We celebrate the opportunities that lie ahead for her.