Today, a good friend of ours and her daughter (also a transracial adoptive family) were walking down the street in their neighborhood, and a random stranger made a racist comment towards their three year old daughter. When I heard about it, my heart sunk, my eyes filled with tears and my guts roiled. It was such a visceral reaction because I saw my own future...and that of my own small child.

There will come a time when my little girl hears something ugly directed at her. There will come a day when I have to sit with her and explain racism. There will come a day when my sweet girl loses that innocence and learns that there are people in the world who hate her for something beyond her control. And I will want to rip and tear at that person until they're a puddle of glop on the floor. I'll want to hurl nasty words at their heads and I'll want to hurt them to their very core.

But I won't do these things. I'll hold my baby by her hand and I'll walk away. I'll keep my mouth shut and I'll keep my rage inside. And when we get home, I'll tell her that you simply can't reason with ugliness and stupidity. I'll tell her that you can't waste your time with people like that, because nothing you do or say will convince them that they're wrong...and how wrong they truly are. You can't force someone to like you. You can't ask someone so rotted inside to look at you and see who you truly are. Someone like that will never know the absolute beauty of my child, inside and out. They will dismiss her, and they'll miss her humor, her sweetness, her intelligence, her sunny nature.

And she'll be better off for missing out on them.

I thought it had been forever since I last posted. Not so. Only a couple of months. Not too bad for a tired mommy of a busy toddler! Yep, toddler. This kid is FAST!!!

Edith is still not talking, but she really wants to. She's still saying "dig dig dig" and "dug dug dug" and "mamamamama" and "dadadadada", and of course, she's still barking, but we have no actual words yet. I'm not worried. She's clearly smart and she's clearly observant, but I think she's too busy running around to learn words. Plus, Einstein didn't learn to talk till he was like four, so whatevs.

We went to the Morton Arboretum the other day with Jeremy's parents (AKA Grannie and Papa) and we had an amazing time. We spent most of our time in the Children's Garden, which is amazing. Edith did a lot of playing in whatever water she could find, and a lot of running. It was so fun to watch her! I bought her three books in the gift shop and Grannie bought her a cool book that was made from recycled materials, and then on our tour of the shrubs, Edith fell FAST asleep!

We ended our trip with a ride around the Arboretum on the Acorn Express tram...it was really fun, and we learned a lot and took some cool pictures.

We have travelled a bit - went to my HS reunion August 8th, then visited family in Kansas City - both were wonderful! And in early September, we're going to Seattle to see Jeremy's cousin get married! We're hoping the plane trip goes well, because we're planning a trip to Cancun in January, and we don't want the plane ride to suck!

We've been talking about baby #2, and we have decided to wait till Edith turns two before we start the process. We have a lot to do - we need to completely gut our guest room to make a big girl room for Edith, and we want to replace the carpeting upstairs and downstairs...the house is one big, unending project. I can't wait to finish, and get the heck out of this house :)

Okay. I've been a little busy...Edith learned to walk just before her first birthday and she hasn't slowed down. We still don't have any actual words, but she speaks really well in her own language. She also dances to ANYTHING...especially bluegrass and 80s punk.

Here she is doing The Bartman:

That's all I have now...I hope to get back here before the summer is over :)

Hey all...here we are again! Nice to see you :)

In no time at all, our beloved daughter will be celebrating her first birthday. Nope, I can't believe it either, and sometimes when I think about it, it brings tears to my eyes. My baby - my tiny little girl - isn't going to be a baby anymore. She's already cruising behind push toys and she laughs whenever you do (because SOMETHING is funny and she is NOT going to be left out). She is fascinated with the dog, daddy, mommy, and her friends, and she is well on her way to being a seasoned traveller.

We're in the throes of planning her first birthday party (if you weren't invited, I swear it was an oversight...please let me know that you want to come and I'll pass along the details) and I have been shopping and planning for about a week now. It's bittersweet. I have always been excited to plan and execute birthday parties for my kids, and here I am at the first one. I had hoped that this year would go by a little slower, but it seems that the happier I am, the faster it goes!

Only a day late!!!

1. Everyone has been sick in this house in the last couple of weeks. I seriously cannot wait till Spring when I can open the windows.

2. In Chicagoland, Spring happens when the temp is over 50 degrees. I love that time...people are out with shorts on :)

3. Jeremy and I have been looking at the things we need to do to our house to get it marketable. We want to move before we adopt again, and we need to do some fixing up to our house to be able to sell. The house across the street sold in less than 2 months, so we have hope for ours since theirs wasn't updated at all.

4. I have already found my dream house...it's beautiful, not too far from where we are now, and in our price range (and not even at the top!). I would move tomorrow if we could swing it.

5. We have a lot of vacations coming up this year...the first of which is next week already! We are going to the Kansas City area to see my brother and his wife and our chosen cousins and their families.

6. Edith is firmly ensconsed in her "big girl" carseat...still facing backwards, but this one goes up to 40 lbs and is quite nice. We like Graco as a brand and we love the GracoPedic foam because it is cushy and we believe will last through Edith and Kid #2.

7. Jeremy and I talked about names for Kid #2, and decided on a girl name and a boy name, but I am not making the mistake I made with Edith's name and we are keeping our choices to ourselves. No one with any tact or class says they hate the name you chose after it is attached to the kid.

8. Again, we have chosen classic names that aren't currently being overused. I love that people haven't heard Edith's name in a long time, and I love that she will most likely be the only Edith in her class, and probably her school...unless she has a teacher with the same name.

9. I have been enjoying my newest job of babysitting my friend's daughter...she is a delight! She and Edith are fascinated with each other and they are enjoying having someone to "converse" with. What a hoot.

10. Lucy went to the groomer last Saturday and she still has the bows in her hair...she usually has them out by the time we get home, but this time she managed to keep them in. She's awfully cute with bows in her hair :)