I'm mama to this bundle of joy and energy.
His gift to me this Mother's Day
is his presence in my life
every day
for the rest of forever

(and a 9:30 wake-up this morning).

I am blessed beyond measure

Hanging out with the boys...

Wonder what kind of baby to baby advise is being shared in this one?

Imagine

This...
and this...together...

by the way,
I'm finding that with a mobile baby comes quite a bit of this...

Thanks to the generosity of my school's staff I took the wee guy out for a beach time shopping spree...

what fun!

3 more...

3 families saw their Hai Duong baby faces for the first time yesterday. 3 more families have been blessed. Here is the road I traveled...may theirs be as joyful.

A special congratulations to my very dedicated "Waiting Grandma" reader who has just seen her delicious grandson's face for the first time. I got a peek as well and know she must just be bursting with excitement!

A bit of reminiscing

June 24th,

A peek, a glance...
at the baby that may be Benjaminh...
probably is Benjaminh
but so much about this process was unpredictable
trying not to get attached for months was impossible
I was in love within seconds.
---------------------------------------------------------------

I remember this day so well.
September 2nd.
First day back at school.
Waiting all day for the phone to ring...
referrals make it real
-----------------------------------------------
December 16th
an email
"I am thrilled to let you know your Letters of Invitation have just arrived.
We can now book your travel."
20 words that changed my life forever.
I cried like a baby
when I should have been concentrating
on dressing the Oompa Loompas for the school play.
no photos available...
--------------------------------------------------

No words required.
Finally, I met my son.
January 8th, 2009
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Together Forever
January 9th

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January 23rd
We are home
You might want to invite this photo mama extraordinaire
to your airport arrival...

Pho on the Phace

We took a little trip into the big town for walking shoes...and I swear the boy walks way better now than he did before the trip.


I'm thinking of taking them back. (he was a size 4 by the way...)


The shoe store of choice is right beside a Vietnamese Restaurant so I picked up some Pho.To celebrate.

Life.

And sweet little Molly.
Baby KT has finally shown her face
and such a pretty little face it is
Pho was a phitting tribute I thought.

Shared the pho with my phavourite guy to mark the occasion.







With yogurt for desert...thickened of course with oatmeal cereal. Eaten with chopsticks. Isn't this how everyone eats yogurt?

5 families 6 girls (Read to the end for BIG Ben news)

6 baby girls (1 set of twins) joined 5 Canadian families in Hai Duong while we slept last night.

6 baby girls who waited longer than they should have for paperwork to be completed had their G+R 2 days before scheduled.

Seems only fair that after waiting nearly 10 months since hearing of their daughters this last leg of the family building process should be smooth, quick and bump free.

Now, VN passport, translation, Canadian Embassy, wait, come home.

Sweet Benjaminh Manh is anxiously awaiting a play date with his Hai Duong buddies.

While he waits he has been hanging out in the garden with his best friend...
doing a bit of this...with no one helping cause mama was holding the camera...
yikes.
Looks like 11 months might bring some changes to the world of Ben.

eleven

The little Manh is eleven months old today. Yikes. So very close to being one that it makes me more than a little sad to be honest.

In honour of this moment in time I'm going to start his adoption video this week. I'd like to have it ready by this time next month, his first birthday...wish me luck.

Click Here to see his little referral video that I made back in September...


Here's a little update on the fella (I'm going to add more pictures later...I never got around to posting 10 months because I didn't have pictures ready and then couldn't figure out how to back date it correctly)...

He is waving bye-bye and pointing at everything these days, sort of in a "what's that" manner. His point is most often a full hand reach and is being misinterpreted by others as reaching to be held which does not always go over well with the little guy or with his mama...

He is loving the outdoors, sticks, leaves, sand, rocks, tooling around on the grass pushing his little walking cart or crawling through the dirt, riding in the stroller pointing at the buds on the tress and the flowers in neighbourhood gardens. He loves to swing at the park. I love bringing him home dirty at the end of the day.

My sweet Benjaminh is sleeping through the night on a fairly consistent basis since starting a mild reflux medication a week and a half ago. I feel blessed. His bedtime is between 7 and 8:30 and he gets up between 6 and 7:30. Not too bad. If we stay home for the day (with no sleep inducing car rides) he naps from 10 to 11:30 and again from 3ish until 4:30ish. Sometimes the afternoon nap starts late and bedtime gets shifted later as well.

He eats his 3 meals per day eagerly, especially enjoying the whole "play in the food in hopes I might some day find my mouth". Mama likes when it is warm enough to do the whole food play thing practically naked.

Benjaminh drinks his thickened formula less eagerly but he is certainly gagging, aspirating, coughing, vomiting, choking, turning bright red and bursting blood vessels on his face while he drinks...well almost never! There is joy in the land. I don't think the volume of liquid drank each day is high enough but I'm working on that...

and there seems to be a digestive issue at the diaper end of things but I"m monitoring that...thinking wheat perhaps is not sitting well in the baby's gut but I'll get back to this in a few days.

This past week his receptive language has really taken off and he is understanding so much of what I say. Simple directions like "put it in" and "take it out", "Where's Boomer?" , "Get the block", "More?", "Finished?", "Can mama have a kiss?". You get the idea. He certainly understands and dislikes the word no which he hears when he gets a bit "slap happy" or bites. He consistently says Mama and Woof (for Boomer obviously...) but I don't notice any other consistent words in his considerable babbling.

Loves chasing the dog in his walker, playing at his Leap Frog music table, jumping in his Graco jumper which hangs in his bedroom door, playing "tap tap" with is stacking cups, beating on pots with tablespoons. Loves the bath and post bath cuddles and massages. Loves his dog beyond reason but pats a bit vigorously...

Such a sweet boy. So much personality in a teeny tiny body (well, not by VN standards...even with poor growth for nearly 3 months he still sits at the top of the top curve at 11 months and nearly 9.5 kg). I hope he is slimming down and stretching up and not just slimming down.

He is the light of my life.