A post dedicated to my son...

Who is now officially a one year old!

Happy Birthday, my sweet and beautiful boy, you turned one yesterday and I can hardly believe it.

You like to eat soy meatballs, and bean and cheese quesadillas, and lots of vegetables (baby food style only!) but you have ventured out and tried some edamame and even some green peas. You did NOT, however, like your birthday cookie. We are saving the cake for the actual party but alas, I have a feeling you will not like it much either. That's ok, there will be plenty of time for sweets in this family. You are walking behind a walker and can stand on your own for a few seconds but you can crawl faster than I ever could have imagined. You are happy and laugh easily. You will not, however, say Mama no matter how much begging I do. You like to smother me with very wet kisses and when we play, you check in for a cuddle at least once every five minutes. I adore it.

Your birthday is a happy but complicated day. Other adoptive mothers will get this. I grieve for myself that I did not know you on this day one year ago, that you were on the other side of the world and your birth was surrounded with complicated emotions. I grieve for your birth family. But yet I know you were loved tremendously. And I know you still are. And while that is not the only thing the matters, I think it is what matters the most. Which is why this mother did get her feathers ruffled when some comments on my 'Lucky' post insinuated I might actually raise my children under a dark cloud of being unlucky. Puhleeze give me more credit than that.

But nevertheless Happy Birthday! You didn't want to look at the camera, but that's ok. Do you see the smile on my face?

You put it there.