Our bedtime reading became hours of youtube adoption stories in those months before we adopted Eden and Caleb. We were hooked on home-spliced, three-minute life snapshots of forlorn children — who had a slight sparkle return to their eye as strangers became their parents overnight. We couldn’t watch without imagining what that would be like when it was finally us.
In mid-July of 2009 we walked through those double doors on the other side of US Customs to signs and balloons and shouting and tears as these two little ones dug their newly-cleaned nails into our arms. This was adoption, wasn’t it?
“She called you Mommy!” declared a friend as she witnessed me helping Eden wash her hands in the bathroom.
Little did I know, then, that this name — “Mommy” — and the dozens of youtube videos I watched before she ever said it, would only be a small portion of the real story. [Continue reading over here —>]
