we took a lunching-walk through the neighborhood yesterday, my littlest fellow and i, the sky cool and thick with the feel of coming rain. he nattered on about sunglasses and birthdays, clutched his peanut butter sandwich and my hand. the rain held off till we'd almost circled home, and we raced the drops indoors to shrug off damp jackets, little em flushed silly and me feeling like a drought had lifted. (ever since todd and i arrived home from georgia, we were back to square one with little em's behavior. so after three weeks of barely acknowledging the mister or me, he's finally relocating his chattery, semi-cooperative ways, hallelujah.)
also of grave importance, i'd been dreaming of chocolate chip cookies for six days straight: crisped edges, cakey middles, milk chocolate that coats your teeth. the unfortunate thing about being a so-called grown up is that one is responsible for making one's own cookie dreams come true. equally unfortunate is that usually we've eleventy thousand things to do, and cookie making falls somewhere in the late 10,900's.
however.
monday night at 9pm i overruled the priority list and baked up a happy batch (and have been thanking myself ever since for such a fine decision).
so. may is now upon us. on the off-chance you're still ferreting out an uncommon mother's day gift, here are a few handmade/vintage items from the good ol' planet of etsy.
[pop on over here for clickable links]
and lastly: ten months ago today, little em and i trudged bleary-eyed through
laguardia's jfk's* passport control and changed our family's trajectory for good. things started hard, and they quickly morphed from immature-behavior-hard to deliberate-defiance-hard. ignoring our better judgment, todd and i operated according to the pervasive theory that any and all difficult behavior has its roots in adoption issues. but we knew little em is very much his own person, and with an unusual background, so after eight months of no change in rebellion levels, we finally opted to employ our common sense: this was strong-willed child stuff, possibly
complicated by adoption issues. tackled from this angle, we're suddenly seeing all sorts of growth and progress.
all this to say, adoption experts likely give sound advice for most children and most families, most of the time. but moms, dads, don't be afraid to consult your own noggin and heart. when it comes to your child, you out-expert the experts, and your instinct + love may very well trump theory every time.
*clearly i have no clue what airport we flew into. given the lack of sleep + crazy, i'm still pleasantly surprised we showed up in north america.