Photos courtesy Karen

My sweet friend, Karen, took these amazing photos of Grace and her daughter, whom Grace has not stopped talking about since our visit with them.

Read it, Mommy

Grace's has 2 favorite books right now and many times a day she bring them to me and says, "Read it, Mommy" (I then look down my nose a bit and she remembers to attach the please to her most uttered phrase). Before every nap and bedtime and often several other times during the day we read "A Mother for Choco" and "Shaoey and Dot" (thanks to cyber-Aunt Sara for this one). Both of these are popular adoption theme books and interestingly, Grace has always been drawn to them. Grace has always loved books and has many, many of them but I'm so curious why this book is her favorite right now.

Does she really identify or does she just like the story or pictures? I'd love to hear from other out there. How early did your children begin to pick up on things related to their adoption? Grace already spots every brown person in books and on TV and says emphatically, "That's me!" And one book I read said she wouldn't notice a difference in her skin color for another year.

Okay, adoptive parents, what do you think? Does she sense something? Have you experienced anything like this? I'd love to hear about it.

Easter

It was a glorious Easter weekend filled with egg hunts, candy, scuffles over wagons, pretty clothes, the joy of worshipping a risen Savior and the abundant life his sacrifice affords us.

Spring!

Heirloom

It's not exactly an heirloom, but this is a dress that I made for Avery about a decade ago. Now, I'm not a saver of things, so when Grace came along, the only thing left in our house that even hinted at the fact we had ever had a couple babies before her was one box of handmade dresses. I am also not a Southern girl at all (not only do I not like sweet tea, I do not even know how to make it), but I did fall in love with the art of smocking while we lived in Montgomery, Alabama. And I have so enjoyed putting Grace in the dresses Avery once wore and dwelling on Grace's new heritage. I hope her children can enjoy these family heirlooms someday.

High Speed

No, it's not your eyes. These pictures are blurry. They are meant to illustrate the point I made in my last post. Grace moves at very high speeds. In her actions, in her thoughts (I thought she had a stuttering problem but she really just can't get the words out fast enough), in her emotions, in her words. She can even tell a knock, knock joke in 3.2 seconds, including the punchline and the laugh. Consider these "A Day in the Life of Grace" photos. In fact, if that second picture had audio, you would hear her telling me that she was going to Target, Church and Trader Joe's.

Grace gets a boo-boo

Grace is reckless. And reckless at high speed. The last few weeks her usual speed and inaccuracy at walking/running/playing etc. has dramatically increased. On Saturday I remarked to Scotty, "Get ready for an ER visit soon. This girl has had too many near misses. Her time is coming."

The very next day, we were headed to the ER. Good thing I don't believe in "jinxing" things or I would have thought I caused it.

Grace tripped and fell forehead first into the corner of a cinder block wall. It wasn't pretty. So it was off to the ER to get her glued back together. After swaddling her in a pillowcase, the professionals derma-bonded her back up and we headed home. Unfortunately, we discovered many days later after taking the bandage off that the cut had opened back up at some point. So we are healing it up and plan to invest in some serious mederma in the future.

And true to her nature, it didn't slow her down one bit.