Settling In

This is the first time we saw Dessi. Abdissa and his wife pulled up to the HIlton, we were waiting outside, and she had Dessi in her arms and then another little boy laid next to her on the backseat. (a la Africa.) She got out of the car holding Dessi. Eric and I just stared at her for God knows how long; I don't know what Eric was thinking, and actually I don't remember what I was thinking, either. Probably something like "oh my God oh my God oh my God." Then I picked her up and Eric took this photo. I sort of remember it, sort of not. It was very emotional.

We've had Dessi for 10 days now. She is expressing herself intimately -- reaching for our faces and gazing into our eyes, and she is full of smiles not only for us but for the new faces of our visiting friends. We thought maybe yesterday she was on Visiting Friend Overload, and so today is an us-only affair, the three of us just hanging out and smiling at each other.



She is making great strides in development, reaching for things, bearing all her weight on her legs, and sitting up on her own quite often. She doesn't seem to know her name at all yet, but that's probably at least partially because we keep calling her 'Cricket' in honor of the sweet clicking/sucking noise she makes as she's drifting off to sleep -- somehow she sounds like the crickets I used to catch and keep cupped in my hands when I was young.

One thing I have been reflecting a lot on. Dessi is the perfect baby for us in every blissful little way imaginable. And yet it was so RANDOM, the way we were all put together. Just, she was the next baby available and we were the next parents on the list, so, voila! You're a family! In a very strange an funny way, I almost feel panicky when I think how close we came to missing each other. If one piece of paperwork had not been delayed, or if the Montana I-171 processor guy hadn't just quit the week we submitted our application (and slowed our approval by a few weeks), if the homestudy social worker had been a little more on task ... we wouldn't have Cricket!

Cricket, by the way, is asleep upstairs, and I miss her. I am thinking about waking her up now so I we can play, but that would be very childish and unmotherly-like of me, so I probably will not do that exactly, but I may just go up and watch her breathe for a while. Probably.

L