so.....

...two rather monumental things have occurred in the last few days.

1. josh and i finally found a house to buy here in seymour. super excited! hopefully movin in by the end of the month. we'll miss the character of our little white farm house and the most wonderful landlords in the whole world (really- the WHOLE world. i'm not jokin)...but it'll be nice to have a place we can call our own.

2. yesterday, we met w/riley's birthfamily.

yep. we did.

i intended to write a blog beforehand. but that didn't happen. so now there isn't a before and after sort of comparison to read and interpret. oh well.

ya know, there are a lot of days when i don't even think about riley bein adopted. it's not quite like i've forgotten necessarily....it's just the dailiness of life sorta washes over the rocks of our journey....eroding the jagged edges a little. and then there will be moments in which the edges, even those that are eroded and smooth, stick up outta the water a little. sometimes it's while i'm filin stuff away in the desk and come across the adoption folder - bulging and semi-organized. sometimes it's when i'm checkin out at united and the friendly cashier asks how old my baby is and if i'm still nursin her. sometimes it's when people (friends and strangers alike) comment on how riley's appearance favors josh's or mine. sometimes, it's when i get a text from her birthmother.

we've texted w/her off and on since bringin riley home. we rarely, if ever, initiate the textin or emailin....but we answer her questions, tell her stories, email pictures. contact w/her has slowly diminished in frequency over the last 7+ months. she's kind and considerate... and still immature.

all of the books and articles and experts advise adoptive parents to make all sorts of decisions, short- and long-term, prior to meeting the birthfamily....and definitely prior to the hospital experience. and they're advice makes sense. they argue that the emotional gravity of the relationship and the weight of all that happens at the hospital can lead folks (generally on the adoptive side) to agree to things they don't feel comfortable with, things that they'll regret later on. so, we tried to be good students and had what felt like a hundred conversations about how much contact we were willing to have w/riley's birthmother...we talked about this before we were even matched, then we talked just before we met her, then we talked several times b/w meetin her and goin to the hospital.....and we communicated our expectations w/her. we were all on the same page - talk and text and email before the baby's birth....only pictures and occasional emails afterwards.

then we arrived at the hospital. it was like walkin thru a drought-stricken desert for six years, and in a matter of moments, walkin into a monsoon. so many things we thought we had so firmly decided, so many opinions we held...they were washed away. the birthmother wanted to see us in the hospital. so we walked next door. her mother wanted to be the carrier of the baby - carryin riley back and forth b/w our room and the birthmother's room. and we welcomed the gesture. the birthmother wanted us to come to her room to get riley that last time...and we did. we took a great big deep breath and walked into the room w/empty arms....and came out carryin our baby girl. the birthmother wanted to see us again....in the future....6-9 months down the road. josh and i looked at each other, our hearts melted again, and we agreed.

a person. a human being. that's who the birthmother is. not an idea. not a statistic. not a vehicle for our fulfillment. not a long string of adjectives like irresponsible and immature, etc.... a person. a young woman who got into a tight spot. a woman who loved her unborn baby so deeply that she was willing to place her into our arms, hearts, and lives. a woman who carried a baby for 9 months, kissed her, and said goodbye. josh and i will never understand the road she's taken, the grief she's experienced, or the questions she may always have.

we decided that we wanted to do what we could to help her.... help her grieve, help her heal. we can't do much, but we can assure her of the redemption of her decision. we can assure her riley is well and healthy. we can assure her that we absolutely adore the baby she carried and birthed.

so yesterday, we ate chinese food w/riley's birthfamily - mother, grandmother, aunt, and nephew. they held her, took pictures, asked questions. we laughed at riley's funny games and faces and habits. we told stories. we ate. then we left.

that was it. it was....anticlimactic. it was nice and not threatening and relatively brief. and then over.

before, i was anxious. edgy. a little fidgety. all sorts of jagged edges scrapin thru the waters w/in....and maybe i'll write about those some days.

all kinds of other questions will undoubtedly arise....it'll be messier than we'd prefer, i'm sure. we'll eventually have to decide about future visits....there will come a time when bein in contact w/riley's birthmother will be more about what's best for riley than what's helpful for her birthmother. i'd kinda rather decide today and not look back rather than wrestle w/it as we all grow and change and age....but i kinda don't think that's best.

we get funny looks from most folks when we tell them we're still in contact w/the birthmother. but that's okay. for now, it's worth it.

oh summer

the past 2 months have brought about lots of laughs. like this one - riley's first jaunt in the sprinkler.

while eatin, riley's showin more and more interest in the spoon...and i'm not real sure what to do about it. when she gets her little hand around the handle, and i try to reclaim in, food flies. when i let her hands flap about, they often hit the spoon, and food flies. when i give her her own spoon, she chews and chews, and when tryin to get it out of her squash-filled mouth, food flies in a catapulted fashion. and we laugh.

she's almost crawlin... she currently pulls herself w/her forearms on the ground, pushes w/her right leg, and drags her left leg. her poor little left knee stays red most of the time. she'll occasionally get up on all fours, rock back and forth, and seriously consider a different form of mobility....but as soon as she sets her sights on a rattle, her brush, my toes, or the stack of books we don't let her chew on, she flops down to her belly and army crawls at a pretty good pace...huffin and puffin like she's climbin uphill. and we laugh.

she plays a game....she tucks her chin down towards her chest and looks up at you w/a most serious look...and won't move until you make the same face. as soon as you return the favor, she lifts her sweet little face up and grins from ear to ear. and we laugh.

i could go on and on....the hundreds of things she does that melt us, capture us, still us...the few things she does that make us cringe (like this really high-pitched squeal thing)... she brings such joy and delight and peace to our lives. not only is it a joyful thing to watch her, love her, play w/her....it's also a joyful thing to become parents...to realize we're growin into these people we've talked about bein for so long.

even though it's a little late, a happy first father's day to joshua....a joy to have such a beautiful baby girl, a joy to parent w/him, a joy to watch him become a wonderfully strong, tender daddy.

thrilled

more often than not....well, actually, almost every moment of my days are filled with what i'd imagine most other new moms' days and thoughts are filled with. becomin a parent for the first time is unlike anything else in all the world. it's beautifully messy, awkward, mysterious, and surprisingly frustrating - and that's just the short list.

like probably every other parent out there, we think our baby girl rocks. she's just awesome. it's that simple.

one of the most recent new-parent discoveries is havin my heart swell w/pride. i've experienced what feels like a sea of emotion for our little one - gratitude, awe, adoration, joy, uncertainty, helplessness, overwhelmed-ness, stranger-ness and familiarity, celebration.... but until quite recently, i don't know that i would have included pride in that list. the trigger for this pride seems silly when i say it out loud or type it for all the world to see...but chances are, i'm not the only new mama who's felt this way.

as i wrote earlier, we tried the rice cereal thing a couple days ago. the first time went exceedingly well. tomorrow, it may be a disaster. a day might come when pureed peas don't go as smoothly. but the rice cereal, for about the last 60hrs, has been a huge success. each time we've set her in the high chair, strapped on the bib, and soaked up the sweetest moments of sharing our first meals together, a new but undefined wave has come over me....w/each feeding, the wave seemed stronger...and it was just a few hours ago that i realized the wave's name is pride. i'm so proud of her!! and bein proud of her for these seemingly tiny accomplishments far outweighs any pride i've had for my own feats. how marvelous is that?!

it's days like this.....sundays, when i deliberately slow down and attempt to rest and learn what sabbath is intended to be....that life is most beautiful. days when i put the to-do lists aside...let the dirty clothes stay scattered here and there...leave the tv off....and instead spend hour upon hour tellin riley all sorts of stories and listenin intently as she tells me her own....when i lay in the floor w/her and read books...walk outside w/her snug against my chest...and laugh and play and tickle and sing until i force myself to put her down for a nap.... days like this are what i've dreamed of for so long. i don't know that i've ever been more grateful.

all the fun things

all sorts of fun things are happenin around here lately...

riley tried and loved rice cereal! she's been eyein' us pretty closely as we shovel food into our mouths the last few weeks and seemed all too eager to have some shoveled into her own. it's so fun! she opens her mouth about as wide as the door of an airplane hanger. sometimes she smiles and laughs in the middle of tryin to get it off the spoon, so it goes anywhere but in her mouth. yesterday evenin, i was tryin to coax her a little (it was her windin down time). when i opened my mouth so she'd mimic me, she just smiled and laughed. now why she thinks it's hilarious for her mama to open her mouth like that is beyond me....and the years of 'my mom's weird looks' have already begun.

her skin's been understandably dry the last few weeks (similar to most of texas lands these days), so we've been givin her a bath every 2-3 days. well, needless to say, i haven't figured out how to keep the cereal out of various crevices... last nite, for instance, she got it b/w her toes, in her left ear, both nostrils, and right thigh fold. how that happened is beyond me... i mean, she hasn't even really found her toes yet, so they were never close to her mouth. i don't know. but we had a blast!

she's also diggin her wonderbug. she especially likes the parts she can grab, pull her way, and cram into her mouth. makes sense, i suppose, since her first 2 teeth are already in!! she's rollin and wigglin all over the place. the blanket that we lay her on used to be so big...and now? we can hardly keep her on it for more than a couple minutes w/o havin to reposition her.

we were SO happy to meet riley's newest cousins - silas and lydia sims. they were en route from kentucky to levelland, and we were glad to offer a rest stop. it's funny seein babies that are younger and smaller than your own - it made riley seem like a beast!

well, it's sunday mornin, and i was just tryin to get in a quick catch up blog before church. better get goin...

snapshot

it's saturday nite. i should be packin for our trip home tomorrow. it takes exponentially longer to pack when a baby is involved. riley's sound asleep in her room. josh is out workin. and i'm sittin here in our rockin chair.

a couple hours ago, i was sittin here rockin our sweet baby girl. she was takin her last little nap of the day. one of the sweetest time of the day for us right now - we hold her during that last nap, and it's one of the only times she'll fall asleep in our arms these days. i looked around the room...my ever-present need to pick up and clean and attempt to keep things tidy gnawin at me, as usual. shoes, thanks you cards, throw pillows, baby books, a kleenex box, blankets, and baby clothes all strewn about. and then, i looked right across the room at the couch. the far end of it had this random and somehow acutely expressive assortment of items.

a foam dart that josh shot out of a nerf gun. (a gun, by the way, that i bought for myself a few months ago at the urging of a dear friend.) a journal i'm keepin for riley. teething gel. a rattle. a teething ring. and a wooden stackable ring set...that's not stacked evenly b/c josh and riley were playin w/it last. when i'm the last one to play w/it, it's obvious - the colors and sizes are all stacked exactly as they should be :)

and when i saw the cushion's display, a wave of sweet gratitude swept thru me and settled the gnawin w/in. then i looked around the room, and rather than seein a list of odds and ends that needed to be put away, i saw a dozen other snapshots of our lives... the blanket, singing lamb, green outfit, and baby books in the middle of the floor...cap, car magazine, sunflower seeds, and tennis shoes...baby monitor, pledge, journal, glass of water...

tonite, it's good. i'm glad that it's obvious that we live here. in high school, a good friend of mine and the family's (and also a frequent guest) said "your house isn't messy, it's just well lived in." :) kinda funny....kinda euphemism-ish...but also kinda endearing.

i'm so deeply thankful that there's a snapshot of our lives sittin on the couch...and that it's a snapshot of the squishable beauty that's overtaken us in the last 4 1/2 months.

fabulous

fabulous.

my first mother's day was fabulous!

not really b/c any extraordinary happened on sunday, may 8, 2011.... oh, a few funny things happened. we went to church. riley was great...just spit up...a lot. we went thru 2 burp rags, a handful of paper towels (used to clean the splattered mess on the floor), and a bib. it was all over her pretty dress, down my arm, on josh's boot, and squished b/w the bottom of my foot and the sandal i was wearin. yep. sunday mornin spit up. she also burped loud enough to cause several people in the congregation to gasp, out loud. that's my girl! ... and then of course, i had to spend the majority of the day studyin...but our cute as pie little girl was just sweet as she could be and talkative and served mostly to distract me for hours on end :)

so nothin spectacular happened on mother's day....except that it was finally a day i could celebrate. i wasn't any of the things i was for so many mother's days before now...sad, longing, confused, frustrated, shadowy, tearful... nope. finally, i could celebrate...i could be glad and joyful from the top of my head to the tips of my toes - and i was!

typically, i'm not a good celebrator. christmas is weird...it's a confusing crossover holiday w/a mix of materialistic gift giving and 'reason for the season' jargon. i should note that i'm not opposed to either one. i don't have a problem w/gift giving as an expression of relationship. i love tryin to find gifts people will enjoy, appreciate, laugh at. and i love Jesus, and i'm very glad He was born.... but how or why the two realms have become so controversially intertwined is beyond me, and it makes for annual confusion and stress. also, i'm not an over-the-top birthday-er. one of the biggest fights josh and i got in while we were engaged was over his birthday...but that's another blog for another time :). i don't know why birthdays aren't a huge deal to me....maybe it's b/c i had a wonderful family who has always acknowledged it (even if the parties and cakes and presents were months late - it's a donnell thing). so maybe i'm just spoiled and take birthdays for granted. or maybe it's just b/c i've had a birthday since the beginning of my time. regardless, i'm admittedly not a good birthday-er.

but mother's day? now this is somethin i can celebrate! and it's liberating to be gratefully celebratory.

so it was wonderful. a sincere thanks to friends and family who sent texts, made phone calls, wrote emails, or left facebook messages for me. every one made me smile...and want to do a jig.

a couple other updates....

thanks for fb suggestions about nighttime diapers. we're currently tryin the next size up, and it seems to be doin the trick.

we received riley's new birth certificate in the mail and few days ago, and i went to the social security office in town to apply for a new number for her. after that's completed, we'll be about as officially finished w/the adoption process as you can be.

riley's neck is much better. the picture above (my favorite picture at the moment!) really shows how her little head was leanin....but we're workin w/her in lots of little ways throughout the day, and it's improving.

she's back to sleepin thru the nite. she's in her own room, and she's puttin herself to sleep at nite! woo-hoo!

school's over...at least for a couple weeks. (hence the long blog this mornin.) i'm so excited, i don't know what i want to do first....read a book? frame pictures? paint the swing???? oh - i know - take a nap!

well, i guess that's probably more than enough for now. if you haven't had a chance, read the most recent blog - josh wrote one and posted a few pictures and a video. cuteness!

Mothers Day

Today is a big day in the McCrary household. It is Lens' first mother day. This is our girl on her first mothers day. She is without clothes because she spit up all over them at church today. Being married to lens, I never thought I would see her glow as much as I saw her today showing her little girl off and pronouncing that it is mothers day, as tho, I might forget. It could only have been better if she wouldn't have had to spend all evening studing for her final tomorrow.

Speaking of studing, my sister graduated from law school today!!! WOW. Mendi, I am really proud of you and am glad that Riley has an Aunt like you.

Well Im not one for many words, so I am going to try to upload a video, maybe it will work.