The Sum of Our Knowledge

I have one of those bright, yellow, ruler like growth charts. It came in a group stuff inside a "memory box" activity thing that someone gave us for Christmas. I got that thing out tonight and I thought "oh this is just bright paper, why oh why did I never get one of those beautiful fabric ones" So I went about rounding up prior heights on Ev and I started marking them down. Half way through, I remembered why I never had one of those things. There is a huge gap in our knowledge of her beginnings.

The hits just keep coming I guess.

I was NOT going to do another "oh we have issues" post but here it is.

We have issues.

I can sum up in one small paragraph, the information that we have concerning her first 10 months. I know where she was found, what they named her, that she had a "note", that she was ruddy, that, at some point she went to the hospital for "diarrhea" and had an IV placed in her scalp- though I have no idea how long she stayed or if anyone was with her, I have one set of measurements. I have 6 pictures of her ( 2 referral, 2 post referral, a picture taken for her adoption paperwork before we met her and I have her finding ad picture). That's it. Oh I have the " she sleeps...she eats.... she poops...." stuff but nothing that will help fill in the real blanks for her later. When she was handed to me, she came with the clothes on her back, and an old, scratched up bottle- nothing else. No more pictures, no special toy, no further stories.

So that big old growth chart? That is entirely blank -until her 4 mos info at 58 cm. I thought oh , well, 4 mos, that not too bad a gap. Then I looked at that distance and realized how small she was to be in the world alone. 58 cm and on her own for several more centimeters. I was too silly to write down her length on Gotcha Day- it is recorded on our video so I will look that up. That is what I know from her China days.

The sum of my knowledge of her since they put her in my arms? THAT information is written in my blood, in my bones, in my soul, in my heart. It is too much information to ever comprehensibly write down. It is love and smiles and warm breezes shared, it's kites on the beach and tickles from Papa whiskers, it is Christmas mornings and Birthdays too hot to tolerate, it's the way she looks in the morning, the way she laughs, her generosity, her faithfulness, her imagination, her particular ways, certain turns of her head, all of her food preferences and all of those million things that make up a single day- let alone 4 years of joy that we have had with her. I know when she walked for the first time, it was from Leslie to me in our living room, I know her first English words, I vividly remember her first tantrum.

The knowledge that counts, really counts for us as family and our future together?

Our love and respect for her. My soul crushing, breath taking love for that tiny brown body, those snapping dark eyes, that shiny hair, that tinkling laugh.

In then end, for us, her parents- not a bad trade. I just hope that we can fill up the rest of her centimeters with enough love to make up for the ones we missed.