Gotcha!

Yesterday was my youngest daughters "Gotcha!" day.  In fact, it was our family's very first Gotcha day.  Most people celebrate birthdays, (which we do anyway) but this time we celebrate the day that we got to take Arya home for the first time!  Being the wonderful, organized and attentive mother that I am...

I totally forgot.

Eating cake like a boss!

My husband calls me on the way home from work.  He's already a half hour late in leaving, my kids are screaming for food but refuse to get out of the kitchen long enough for me to prepare anything of substance without burning someone and I answer the phone.


"Hey hun, you want me to stop and get a cake?"
"A cake?  What for?  I want you to come home so you don't have to have me commit."
"Hello?  It's Arya's "Gotcha" I thought we could celebrate with cake!"

Mommy fail.

"Oh, right!  Yes, cake will be fine.  Just get home will ya?"

So, that night, after taco night we celebrated the day that our family became five with chocolate cake.  Because It's not a party without cake.  It made me realize how far we've come as a family and how much we've had to over come.

Halloween

I remember getting the phone call from our agency at 10pm and the excitement of thinking, this might be it!  I remember how everything was a whirlwind.  How we spoke with the birth mother over the phone and how she asked if we would be willing to raise her baby girl as our own.  I remember how surreal it was to meet this little family we only saw in pictures and how big Arya's family would look in just a few days time.

I remember feeling anxious when leaving her mostly because my oldest was so distraught on discovering that we were not bringing her baby sister home with us that day.  I remember making an emergency run to Ikea to get basic things like a high chair, because her big brother was still using it and a big girl bed for my oldest so the newest member of the family could use the crib.

I remember strapping the newest carseat into the van next to the other two and wondering if I was ready for this.  I remember driving almost two hours away to meet with the birth mother for the last time and praying with everything in me that she would actually show up.  I remember my oldest being more excited then any of us to bring home her baby sister that she had waited so long for. (Three days is an eternity for a toddler)

I remember making it into the office before the birth mother and waiting with a sinking feeling that she might not show up with our newest family member after all.  I remember talking with the birth mother for the first time and asking if there was anything that she wanted her child to know about her and her family as she grew up.

"Just reminder her that her name means song, because she will always be the song of my heart."

Christmas!

I remember her placing Arya in my arms for the last time and the look of relief, guilt and immense sorrow that was etched into her face as she finally broke eye contact and quickly left before the tears started to fall.

I remember walking out as a family of five and getting used to strapping in a third one year old into the car.  I remember driving back the whole way home with my oldest talking non stop to her baby sister and all the things they were going to do when they got home as I just sat in complete shock and bewilderment that this was really happening.

She was so new, so young, so different.  She was already a year old.  Her own person with her own likes and dislike and ways of communicating, eating, sleeping.  We had to learn a whole new person without any back story or 9 months of planning.  She had some health issues, some social issues, so learning issues.  She screamed in her sleep.  She threw continuously from not being able to breath properly and she hoarded food.  She was so foreign...

Its true what they say though, it only takes a year to adjust to a new baby in the house.  When you first bring them home, whether they were born to you as an infant or you are bringing home an older child, a year still seems like a really long time.

It's not.  It's been a year and I almost forgot!  Because now I just take for granted all the wet kisses, the constant cries for mommy, the days of chasing three children instead of two and all the little plates and forks I have to clean after dinner.

I take it for granted because this is my family...

because it turns out, that it was always supposed to be this way.

Antenella