I”ve had a yucky sinus infection all week and haven’t felt much like blogging or doing anything except veg on the couch. Poor Daniel watched waaay too much TV this week. And when he tired of the “tube,” he did a great job entertaining himself by running laps around the kitchen island, up and down the hallway and terrorizing poor George. I did manage to take a few pics.

In spite of being scratched and bitten a few times, D still insists on “playing” with our resident sassy-cat. Each time George paws at him, D smiles big and “waves” back. We are constantly saying, “Daniel, the kitty doesn’t want to play.”

Look Mommy, he's waving at me!

Read me a story, kitty!

I decided to break out the beautiful blocks Auntie Deb gave D for Christmas.

These have got to be the coolest blocks I've ever seen.

My creation, pre-demolition.

I wonder what this tastes like?

Whadya mean I can't eat the blocks?

I don't like all these stinkin rules!

I'm off on my next adventure!

Today I’m feeling much better; just dealing with a lingering (and annoying) cough. We went to IHOP for brunch, then to the park to enjoy the beautiful weather (I promise, I really don’t mean to rub it in!).

My wild and crazy guy

We used the timer to take this one. It's amazing that he's looking at the camera!

This one cracks me up

Here we come! (I just realized that it looks like a dead bird on the ground, but it's just some tree bark.)

Our blog has a new look… and title. I chose 334 Days of Sunshine because that’s the average number of days of sunshine in Phoenix. And I thought it especially appropriate since Daniel brings so much sunshine into our lives. (awww…)

The blog’s not the only one with a new look. Lily got a haircut yesterday. The poor thing had to be shaved because her fur was so matted. I feel sooooo bad. It took the groomer 2.5 hours to de-matt her last night. I have been showering my little girl with kisses and treats, and I’ve promised her that I would not let that happen again. Bad mommy. Besides looking like a rat, she also refuses to go outside in the cold and rain. I decided to put her Christmas sweater on so she could go out to potty this morning. By the time I caught her and got her suited up, I discovered that she had already left a steaming pile in the hallway. Nice.

She seems to be taking it all in stride, though. She and Daniel have been playing together more.

There’s also one more change that even Brian hasn’t seen yet. Can you spot the differences in these pictures?

Boy, is Brian going to be surprised!

This post is inspired by the movie My Life as a Dog. I watched it on Netfl*x last night while Brian was out with “the boys” and Daniel was fast asleep. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it. I’ll try not to give too much of it away.

What a delightful movie. That’s a word I don’t use often (if ever – but I should!), but no other word seems to properly describe this flick. The underlying story is really kinda sad (told in a beautifully heartwarming way), and my life in no way parallels that part of it. The part that resonated with me is the little village where the entire population is pretty much nuts. It was kind of like a town full of people with toddler mentality. Each person had this incredible zest for life, a colorful, creative imagination, they didn’t take anything too seriously, and they seemed to love each other and care for each other unconditionally. The whole town was just plain silly. How could that be bad?

It made me think about these last three and a half months of my life as a mom. There is a whole lotta silliness in my life that wasn’t there before. Not that Brian and I ever needed an excuse to be silly, but having D in our lives has added a whole new dimension of fun. Now, we can make motorboat sounds in the bookstore and play racecar with the shopping cart in the grocery store without scaring the other customers. Now, a drink coaster is no longer a coaster, but a frisbee, a teether, a circle and a study in texture and color. A wire wisk is no longer a kitchen utensil but a versatile percussion instrument. And, a cardboard box no longer goes straight to the recycling bin. It turns into a rocket, a tunnel, a car, or in this case – a little cottage.

Every magazine picture tells a colorful story, every baby on tv is a new friend to squeal at, ambient music in places of business and commercial jingles are a great excuse to sing and dance. Every rock and blade of grass must be touched and tasted. Every Daddy and Grandpa is a potential jungle gym.

Climbing on Grampy

Every sneeze is a really funny joke. Every step is the beginning of a new dance, march or game of chase. Every chore is more fun with a song.

Having D around reminds me of all the wonderful, beautiful and silly things that make up life.

Here are just a few things that Daniel has taught me:

Not to take myself too seriously.

Smile more.

Laugh more.

Make funny faces whenever possible.

Just have FUN.

Daniel – thank you for being you. Thank you for the giggles and dances. Thank you for the smiles, hugs and kisses. Thank you for making me a mommy. I love you more than you know.

Sharing a smile with Grammy and Grampy

Normally, I look forward to Wordless Wednesdays, knowing that I can whip out one or more cute pics of D and be done with it. I had that same thought today, but I have such a backlog of pictures and events to write about, and D is napping – so I might as well take advantage of this moment and write a bit.

I’ll start with yesterday. It was a gorgeous day (high of 75, I think), and D was in shorts and a t-shirt. We walked across the street to our neighborhood park and played in the grass.

I know that most of the country is in the midst of a very cold winter, with icy roads and sidewalks, snow-packed driveways, fogged-up windows and snow in places that don’t usually see snow. Believe it or not, I would love to have a little of that weather. Just a little, though! I grew up in northern Arizona, where they actually have four seasons. Many people don’t realize that there are parts of Az with mountains, pine trees and snow. I have so many fond memories of snow days, making angels, skiing and sledding in the winter. Especially at Christmas. I LOVE white Christmases. One of my favorite family traditions was going out to get our Christmas tree on Thanksgiving. We would buy a permit to go out and cut down a tree in the surrounding forest. Sometimes it was in the snow. It was fun because these trees were not farmed to be special trees, so we would try to find one that naturally had that “triangle” shape that we treasure in our Christmas trees. Often, we would end up with an odd-shaped one. But, just like Charlie Brown’s tree, once it was decorated, it was perfect.

Here are some pics that show some of the odd-shaped trees we had. It’s also an excuse to admire the oh-so-smooth-70s style of my sister and cousin. I might be in trouble for posting these, but it’s so worth it!

 

Finding the perfect tree

 

My sis, me and cousin Lori. Sometimes, like here, it was hard to find a point on the tree to put the topper on!

 

 

Deb and me

Anyway, I’m missing the snow and cold right now. It’s true that the grass is always greener – although maybe not in a literal sense in this case. At least today is overcast, so I can put on a scarf, turn up the air conditioning, make hot cocoa and pretend… even though it’s really 74 outside.

Yesterday I also organized D’s room a little. Here are some pics of him playing a few days ago.

I just realized that his PJs are especially appropriate in these photos.

It seems I am always putting books away, only to have them strewn all over the floor again. It was cute the first time, but now not so much. I love the fact that he enjoys books, but many of these books are special to me, and I would hate to have them get torn or chewed on. Mostly, we read board books now anyway. So I moved all of the non-board books into the closet where D can’t reach them.

 

Ahh, much better

 

The only organized closet in the house.

Now he can play freely in his room like a proper 13-month-old, and I don’t have to worry about my special books getting ruined.

On Sunday, we went to a friend’s first birthday party in the park. The theme was Yo Gabba Gabba, and my friend C made all of the decorations. She is so crafty. I meant to take pics, but you’ll just have to take my word for it that everything looked awesome. D had fun playing on the swings, running around in the grass and dirt (I even had to take a rock out of his mouth… ugh) and eating birthday cake with blue frosting! Yum! By the end of the day, he was pooped (and extremely dirty). Can you tell?

 

Playing on the swings with Daddy

 

More cake, please!

 

Mmm... blue frosting!

 

 

 

Meet my new assistant. When he’s not clinging to my pant legs, he also enjoys unloading the dishwasher and inspecting the refrigerator contents. Interestingly enough, his “help” makes every chore take twice the time, and I keep finding toys in my dishwasher!

But, I guess I’ll keep him anyway.

Seriously? Don't let this face fool you. I had just put him down for a few minutes to give my poor arms a rest.

Somebody needs a nap.

Today was not a special day… just a plain old, ordinary day. And that makes me happy. Life for our family has been a bit of a whirlwind since the end of September. It seems like as soon as one thing was over, we were planning for the next.

Here’s a timeline of the big things:

9/24 – Travel Call

9/27 – On the plane to Seoul

10/1 – Forever Family Day

10/20 – My Mom’s Birthday

10/25 – Our wedding anniversary and agency’s Chusok celebration

10/31 – Halloween

11/8 – Our niece’s birthday (which we missed because D was sick)

11/14 – B’s Dad’s birthday party

11/26 – Thanksgiving

11/28 – B’s 40^th birthday

12/2 – D’s 1^st birthday

12/5 – D’s actual party

12/19 – Chanukah celebration

12/25 – Christmas

12/31 – New Year’s Eve Greek Party

1/4 – B went back to work after 1.5 weeks off.  :(

1/5 – Just an ordinary day!

Here are just a few random things about our ordinary day:

• We met Grammy for a cup of coffee this morning.
• We took the Greek costumes back to the costume shop. While we were there, D burped (which I didn’t even really notice) and the young girl behind the counter said, “Wow, that sounded really watery.” She looked between 17 and 24 – I know that’s a wide range, but it seems that the older I get, the harder it is to guess kids’/young adults’ ages. I replied with something like, “Yeah, I’m just glad nothing came out,” with a chuckle. I was the only one chuckling. I think we grossed her out. Cool.
• We stopped at the chiropractor’s office so I could get adjusted. She also adjusted my wrist, and it feels so much better. She suggested some ways to help it heal faster, too. While I was getting adjusted, D played with the doc’s daughter, who is much older than him (I think she said 27 months?), but also much smaller than D. And, I think she is considered tall for her age! I also got to see the doc’s new little boy, who is just a couple months old. Super cute!
• When we got home from the chiro, D was asleep in his carseat, and I successfully transferred him into his crib, where he slept for another 1.5 hours (yaaay!).
• After lunch, we took a long-overdue trip to the grocery store. D happily squealed and babbled the whole time. He was pretty good… he only knocked down one can of vegetables. In the check-out line, there was a huge football-player-type guy standing behind us. While I was unloading my cart onto the counter, of course D tried to engage him with lots of smiles, raspberries, and babbles. He also kept pointing to the balloons that were floating overhead. It was obvious that his guy was in no mood to smile or baby-talk. I had a lot of groceries, so I’m sure it must have felt pretty awkward (I’ve been in those anti-social moods before with some stranger’s child staring at me for a very long time and wishing I could crawl under a rock.). So, in an attempt to make it less awkward, I said, “I think he’s trying to talk you into getting a balloon down for him.” The guy fake-smiled and grunted politely, but it was no use. Oh well.
• We mailed Christmas cards! Finally…

D was super-smiley today and giving some awesome toothy smiles. I tried to get a picture of one, but I kept missing it, or he would have something in front of his mouth. He is a busy little dude. This is the best I could do as I followed him around the house:

Lily waiting for him to come back into the room.

Finally got one!

To commemorate 13 months since Daniel’s birth, I’ve come up with a list of 13 things about him:

1. He has only been home for three months, but it feels like he’s always been with us.
2. I’m not going to mention sleep stuff… I’ve learned my lesson.
3. He has been walking for about a month now, and now he’s experimenting with running! Yikes.
4. He is a total Daddy’s boy… all B has to do is look at him sideways, and he’s giggling and clapping for more.
5. He weighs about 25.5 pounds.
6. Because of #5, I think I have strained my right wrist so I’ve been wearing a support.
7. He is increasingly vocal. He says Dada like crazy (see #4), and he’s constantly babbling and coming up with new sounds.
8. Give this boy a balloon, and he’s in hog heaven.
9. He has never met a piece of food he didn’t like (see #5).
10. He’s mesmerized by all things Yo G@bba G@bba.
11. He has such a strong, joyful spirit. He’s seemingly fearless (which scares the heck out of me) and a great sense of humor.
12. He seriously lives every moment to the fullest.
13. He amazes me every. single. day.

Today, Daniel is 13 months old! I will do a proper 13-month update later today or tomorrow, but for now I wanted to post pics from our News Years fete at Grandma’s house. The decorations were amazing – I believe the credit goes to Brian’s uncle and cousin, and maybe Grandma Betty, too? The costumes were fabulous, too, as was the food.  On the menu was pita, gyro meat (lamb and chicken), tsaziki (sp?), hummus, this fabulous rice dish with raisins and pine nuts, and another tomato (and maybe eggplant?) dish that I didn’t catch the name of.

Brian was Zeus, I was Hera (Zeus’ wife AND older sister – yikes), and D was our son Hephaestus, the god of technology (one of his symbols is a hammer, which of course was high-tech back in the day!).

The beautiful and amazing hostess (far right) and her sisters.

Greek-a-boo with Grampy

Maybe in Greece, the grandparents used to eat their grandkids?

The greeklings admiring the Greek statue... we seriously have some artistic talent in this family!

Grammy, B's brother and family, D, Grampy

Grecian Mamas

Today is gonna be a looong day. I should be showering and getting ready, but I have too many thoughts rattling around in my head that I need to do a quick post.

Today marks the one-year anniversary of our first meeting with our agency. I don’t remember exactly when we decided to pursue adoption, but we had always played with the idea. Six years ago, though, when we got married and discussed family, we were both so excited to be parents and we imagined that we might have both bio and adopted kids. It turns out that having bio kids just wasn’t meant to be, so in 2009, we knew we weren’t getting any younger and and we agreed that it was our time to be parents.

After researching international adoption online (more about why we chose international adoption below), I was impressed by our agency’s website so we set up a meeting. Marsha, our social worker, was so sweet to offer to meet with us on a holiday – a day when she otherwise would not be at work. She made us feel instantly at ease, and by the end of our meeting we were ready to sign up. I remember getting choked up so many times during our meeting, so excited that we might be on the road to being parents. I’m not usually a huggy person (at least not with new acquaintances), but when we left the office I gave Marsha a big, emotional hug.

Why international adoption? This is a question people always ask, and I don’t have one specific reason -I guess it was just a gut feeling. Same for our decision to go with Korea. At the time I was researching adoption online, none of the domestic programs I found seemed right for us. I still don’t know much about domestic adoption, but the online info led me to believe (perhaps incorrectly) that we would have to foster first, and/or that it was difficult to adopt a baby. At the time, I was also afraid of the birth family changing their minds, something that had happened to a couple families close to us (including my parents). In addition, many of the agencies seemed to be affiliated with a specific church or faith – none of which seemed a good fit for us.

Anyway, after meeting with our social worker and learning about the history of the Korean program and its fairly established processes and regulations, we were hooked.

I was on Cloud 9 for the rest of the day. We drove to Tucson and spent New Year’s Eve at Brian’s 90+ year-old great-grandma’s house with family. This is when we announced to everyone that we were going to adopt.

Fast-forward to today: We are again going to Grandma B’s house for her annual New Year’s bash. Umm, I just have to say that this sassy 90+year-old is the ultimate party hostess. For the past few years, it’s been a themed costume party – this year it’s Greek. I’m so excited about our costumes… I will definitely post pics.

Tonight, D will meet some relatives from Ohio for the first time. He always does so great with new people, and he always loves a good party. This will also be our first overnight trip with D. I didn’t think packing would be a big deal, since we’re only staying overnight. Wow, was I wrong. D has his own suitcase, and it’s jammed full of stuff. I will probably have to put more of his stuff in our suitcase, and there’s a whole bag full of food/feeding stuff. I was so overwhelmed when I was packing last night that I had to make a checklist. I think I finally have it under control, but I can’t imagine packing for a few days, or even a week – yikes!

As I look back on our year, I still can’t believe that we are now a family of three. I know that our wait was much shorter than some, and for that I feel so lucky, but at the same time my heart aches for my friends that are still waiting. I wish the process didn’t vary so much from place to place, and I cannot wait for all of my friends to have their families together.

Every day, B and I marvel at OUR SON and how perfect he is for us. Oh, little Daniel… you are so loved.

I have also made some wonderful friends in 2009 – my dear blog buddies. Before this year, I never “got” the whole blog thing, or why people did it. Not only do I get it now, but I can’t imagine not having the friendship and support of all these amazing women.

Happy New Year!

From Our Family To Yours