Happy 1st Birthday!!

Today is Ellie's first birthday. I was hoping that we would be in China with her on her big day, but we know adoption well enough now to not be too surprised by the delays. We will see her soon, and, I believe, meet her at the right time. We celebrated her birthday last night (a night early since John has to work late tonight) for two reasons: first, we wish she were here and wanted to mark her birthday; and second, so we can show her the pictures later. So we can show her how excited we all were for her to come home. To show her that she did have a first birthday party.

I have reluctantly become an avid record-keeper and photographer in the last few years. John will attest to the fact that I used to resist stopping 'the flow of the moment' to break out the camcorder or camera. But I now realize how important it is to preserve these memories for all of our kids, but especially for my adopted children. When there is such a dramatic break from the past, as there is for kids adopted internationally, pictures and mementos become that much more significant. The pictures that I have of Nicholas from when he lived in China and from our time together there mean so much to him. He studies them intently and asks lots of questions. It's like he is trying to remember, or perhaps trying to hold on to the memories. While I believe international adoption is wonderful in a lot of ways, there is also something fundamentally sad about it: children have experienced a lot of loss - loss of loved ones, loss of familiarity, and loss of homeland.

For this reason, I will cherish every photo we receive of Ellie's life in China, which unfortunately, will be very few. And I will try to make up for the lack of baby pictures with as many pictures as I can possibly take myself. I chose to focus today not on her absence at her own 1st birthday party, but on how blessed I am to be the one behind the camera in all the days to come: her first Christmas home, her first day of school, the ballet recital.