One Year Anniversary of Gotcha Day

Gotcha Day Anniversary!!

One year ago today…

I cannot believe that I met my beautiful girl just one year ago today. Sometimes it seems like it has been longer and then other times I am amazed by how quickly the time has flown. When I was handed Molly, nothing seemed real. After the anxiety that built up over the wait, I could not believe that I was being handed this beautiful baby. It was weird, but I didn’t feel like it was real – I didn’t feel like a mother yet. Now I do! I’m not sure when I felt different, but now can’t remember when I didn’t feel like Molly’s mommy. My favorite time of the day now is walking into daycare and getting a huge smile and the biggest hug you could imagine! My patience has increased dramatically – I’m not sure I would have found a baby who had taken her diaper off and peed all over her crib as funny a year ago as I did last week! I’ve learned how to make dinner in less than 3 minutes and I’ve learned sitting watching Baby Einstein with Molly curled up in my lap is a great way to spend my evenings! Looking at the clothing and shoes that she has grown out of makes me cry and watching her make a mess eating her dinner makes me laugh! She has taken over all aspects of my life (although I do hope to one day have enough energy to date again – keep your fingers crossed that there are some nice, eligible men in TX!)

There is a lot of controversy over calling the day you meet your child “Gotcha Day.” This term has never bothered me because I associate it with one of the best days of my life. It is the day that I “got” Molly and the day she “got” me. Other people cringe when they hear someone say that an adopted child is “lucky.” Sometimes even me, especially when I feel that someone is implying that my act was selfless (it was not). Is Molly lucky? She was not lucky to be abandoned by her birthparents in China. She was not lucky to be born into a society where baby girls aren’t valued. She was not lucky that she was born into poverty. But she was lucky that her birthparents left her in a place where she was found (many other children sadly aren’t that “lucky”). She was lucky to be brought to a facility where she was well cared for. She was lucky that she was made available for adoption. And yes, she was lucky I adopted her. Could another family have cared for her and loved her like I do, probably. But I am lucky that I was fortunate enough to be chosen to be her mommy. We are both lucky in our own ways. Call it fate or call it luck (or destiny, or any other term you want), but the end result is that we have each other and we are both better off than the day before we met. But I will still cringe when someone calls Molly lucky – she lost a lot too.

I watched Molly’s Gotcha Day video recently. When we were in China, Molly seemed so happy and well adjusted, but now when I see the video, I see a child that was more reserved and was adjusting, but not adjusted. It is amazing to me to see how much she has changed. At the beginning, I was her caretaker – now I am her mommy.

I want to add video of her Gotcha Day to the blog – once I figure it out, I will add!

I wasn't expecting this...

I wasn’t expecting this…

On Saturday, Molly did not want to take a nap! But I know from my now vast “Mommy Experience” that she MUST have a nap or she is cranky which in turn makes mommy cranky!! So it was forced nap time!! I won the “nap” battle, but Molly got even and is winning the war!!

I let her fuss and complain until she fell asleep (took about ½ an hour). I looked in on her once to make sure her leg hadn’t gotten stuck in the crib rails or that no other tragedy had occurred and she was fine – just irritable! Finally, I sit back in my triumph of winning the “nap battle” and get rewarded with peace and quiet for almost 3 hours. I must be doing something right! After 3 hours I hear stirring in her room. She normally wakes up slowly and plays in her crib for about 10 minutes. I know that I don’t have much time until I need to get her up (I’ve also learned from my vast “Mommy Experience” that she needs to wake up slowly so I never rush in to get her). After a few minutes, I go in to get her up and notice that she has thrown all her stuffed animals out of the crib, along with her blanket. Last weekend, she had done the same, but had also removed her crib sheet. This Saturday, she had obviously tried to remove the crib sheet and failed – it was still intact in 3 corners. So I go over to check on her – she is bouncing up and down in the crib all excited to see me. I start talking to her saying something like “why are Pooh and Cookie Monster on the floor?” Then I notice that her crib sheet is wet (a perfectly round little puddle). So I assume that the diaper leaked – which has only happened once before. I now take a better look at Molly who is no longer jumping up and down and notice that she does not have a diaper on! Somehow she took it off!! She had been wearing shorts before her nap, but when I changed her diaper just before her nap I decided to just leave the shorts off – big mistake! So now I’m asking her “where is your diaper?” She puts her hands up in the air and shrugs her shoulders and then proceeds to “help” me look. I find it tossed over the side of her crib – perfectly dry! I’m laughing at her and her little naked butt – which makes her jump up and down in the crib again! The next day,, I did not make the same mistake – she wore her shorts over the diaper. She did try and take the diaper off again – when she got up from her nap the diaper was undone, but the shorts held the diaper up! I’m going to need to get much more creative to make sure the diaper stays ON during naps!

Pictures: 1st: Molly strikes a pose 2nd: Molly was playing at a play area in the mall – she is in a giant spoon. I love the look of joy on her face! Oh, to be a child again!!