Mama, Papa tell me again 'bout when I was born...

This is the phrase the Bean uses when she wants us to tell her something about our trip to China to get her. We have this book with that title written by Jamie Lee Curtis. The book is good and Bean requests it frequently. Though in the book, there is a domestic adoption and things are a bit different form our story, it's still relevant to us and I read it whenever she asks for it.
Lately though, she will just say that line and the wait to see what we will tell her. Leslie usually lets me so the telling because he says that he never really knows what she wants to hear ( I think that it's just a bit harder for him to vocalize the emotions of that time ), he always participates and adds little facts in too. The other night she said this to us right in the middle of cooking dinner, she was at the table chatting away while we were working on dinner together...so we stopped what we were doing and looked at her. Honestly though, for the first time I was at a complete blank as to what to tell her, so I said "I don't know Les, what should we tell her", he goes, "tell her about how you lubed her all up with her lotion that first night". So that's what I told her about. I told her how we snatched her up and took her down the long hallway in the hotel to our room and locked the door to keep her in and keep her safe. I told her how I just couldn't believe that she was mine. I told her how beautiful I thought she was and how little she was. Then I told her about getting her lotion out and starting to rub it on her and how she was like " hey lady you are touching me" at first and then how her whole tiny body just sort of softened out and relaxed and how she stared at my face the whole time, with that completely unreadable expression. I told her how I just kept using lotion so I could keep touching her. The whole time I was telling her this story, again she just watched my face the whole time, this time though, as she watched my face, a blind man could have read her expression- she was smiling from ear to ear and her face was glowing, she was all lit up and happy.
Les picked a good moment to tell her about because as I look back on it, those first moments of trust were the most precious gift I could have ever been given.


****Update I should mention that the photo up top is one taken on that first night, right after the lube down and a bottle. I always loved those polks dot jammies and still have them put up because I just couldn't part with them.

Love Without Boundaries

Well, the Love's Journey 2 book is out and they are taking pre-orders. This is important here for two reasons, all proceeds go directly to helping babies in China and Evelyn's photos, that I submitted were chosen to be in this issue.

http://www.lovewithoutboundaries.com/index.php

This is one of the pictures that I submitted, it was taken in China, Evelyn had been placed in our hot little hands less than 24 hours before. The paperwork is the receipt that I was given after paying the Orphanage Fee to a local judge. I remember those few moments as some of the scariest in China! I can hear some of you saying "what? it wasn't the scariest when you realized that this little person was YOUR responsibility now, or when you realized that she had Bronchitis and you had 2 weeks to go to get her home to a doctor or when you realized that your body was starting to shut down from lack of palatable food?????? NO, indeed, the scariest moment was sitting in a huge leather chair that dwarfed me, facing an inscrutable Chinese Official who was counting and re-counting the money and making sure that it was in good enough shape to accept, and all the while my agency appointed guide was standing there nervously, so I thought "why is HE nervous?",which made me just about break into hives. It wasn't until I was back in the bus, with my receipt in hand, that I started breathing again. I will never forget those few moments, as in reality that was the final transaction to take place that made Evelyn ours in the eyes of the Chinese Government.