Monday, December 15,

It's almost time to leave and there's a big part of me that still can't believe I'm actually here. I waited so long for this to happen. This journey started a year ago. December 30. It's so much easier looking back to see what His plan was for me. There's so many little things about this plan that if I tried to explain them, they wouldn't seem meaningful to anyone but me. But I get it now. I see why I needed to just have faith and come here and let Him show me which children are mine. It's like that reoccuring dream, Mom, that I told you about. Where I've just had a baby, and I'm getting discharged from the hospital and I'm told to go get my baby. There's a moving ramp that I stand on and all these bassinets are lined up. The "rule" is once you've moved past a baby you can't go back and get them. I'm terrified as I get onto the ramp that I won't recognize my baby. And I'm equally terrified that if I don't grab one, I'll go home without one. I've had that dream several times a year since before my first child was born 32 years ago. Well, I felt like I was living that dream as I came through this journey. I didn't know which child was mine. I thought it was Margarita and Katarina, but the ramp just took me on past. I just had to trust that God would bring me to my babies before the line up ended. And He did.
After 10 days of living with Myia and Molly I feel like we've always been together. Myia can read me like a book. It's so amazing how much she understands and with several things stacked against her being able to...her DS, the language issue to say nothing of just being 5 years old.
Today I took the girls a couple blocks away and bought Myia a pair of shoes. It was hilarious. First off, she doesn't know a stranger and the folks here don't smile at anyone, let alone a child with DS! But she wasn't discouraged she waved and babbled at length to everyone in the shoe store. She was so excited when she tried on the shoes! Then she wouldn't take them off and the woman who was helping us couldn't speak any English so she was trying to tell me that we needed to put the shoes back in the box and I was asking her if she could just wear them and Myia was bolting for the door in her new shoes. Finally the woman just gave up and tried to come at Myia with a pair of scissors to cut the tag off. Well, Myia must have thought she meant surgery, because she started to howl. The woman finally handed me the scissors so I could cut off the tags. I had to figure out a way to redirect Myia from bolting out the door so I gave her the bag and put her old boots in it. One of her favorite things to do is put everything she can in a bag and carry stuff to another corner of the apartment and then dump it out. She then puts them back in one by one and repeats te process. So the old boots in a bag worked fine and she was busy folding over the top of the bag and straightening out the boots inside so they lay just so. I think she walked taller heading back to the apartment in those new shoes, with her bag dragging behind her. When we got home she started a new game. Put the new shoes on, put on a hat, a scarf and tap me on the shoulder "ata" (goodbye) and then she would go into the bedroom and sing and then go back to the entry take everything off, fold it up, put it away and then put everything back on again.
There's a Christmas tree in our courtyard. It has shiny ornaments on it and at night they turn on the lights. She's happy to go with me now out to the garbage can so she can see the tree. She walks around it and says "oooohhhh" like it's the first time she's seen it.
The social worker comes for her last visit tomorrow at 3:30. This time I get to know when she's coming. I have no qualms that she will support this adoption. You'd have to be blind to not see that the three of us were meant to be together. it's like they've always been here.