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Sunday, March 6, 2016

"Gotcha" and I am never letting you go

Eight years ago today, Grace was officially ours in Guatemala.  We picked up a 9 1/2 month old baby, moved to a different hotel, and started being a "forever family".

We don't make a big deal of this day other than to remind Grace how much she is loved - by her first family, by her foster family, and by her forever family.  I told her "I gotcha and I am never letting you go" as I hugged her a lot this morning.  The stories of other adoptive families remind me to tread carefully around this day.  I try to see what Grace wants to talk about and let her take the lead.


This morning Grace looked through the album of photos from the first year.  It is full of photos from the adoption agency that kept me going from month to month while we were waiting.  Since Grace can read now, she read some of the entries on the pages aloud to me and asked me questions.  Today, she compared her almost 9-year old hands and feet to the prints my mom and I made when she was 4 months old and I told her the story of how she cried when we painted her feet.  I told her she didn't like it one bit but we did it anyway and now we can remember how tiny she was.


Early March in Northeast Ohio is grey.  Today is a perfect example...yuck!


Today was also Grace's third year participating in the Ohio Music Teachers Association Ribbon Festival.  She memorizes a piece of music - this year it was "Rainbow Song"  - and then plays it for a judge without looking at the music.


Grace has been practicing a lot, so we were not worried about how she would do.  Her piano teacher uses the feedback to plan what areas Grace needs to work on for the coming year.  She was very brave going into a room alone with two judges.  Kyle and I both admitted we couldn't do that when we were eight!



After she played for the judges, Grace found a room at the Steinway dealership where the digital pianos had headphones attached to them.  She was like Goldilocks, moving from piano to piano to try them out!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Remember the day well! It was fun watching Grace in the pool with the daisy float. Grace loved music from the very start. She looks amazing on this special day. All dressed in that great dress.