Lilliana Turns 9

How does that even happen?! Blink the child is 9. Wow. How? When? But here it is. In the day and age of Facebook I don't blog at all anymore. But like every birthday eve for Lily I find myself thinking of her birth mom. Which brings me here tonight. Chris and I have chosen not to search. Still don't know how I feel about that, but Chris is adamant about it. I get and understand why he worries about it, as a mother I still don't know how to feel about it. So I will leave in the we-don't-have-the-money-for-it-now-anyway world.  For now on her 9th birthday eve, I will make a list (I truly have a God given gift for it) of what I would tell 'A' if I could.

1) Lilliana is beautiful, not just a superficial beauty, but this child has a truly beautiful soul.

2) She is meant for great things. I know all parents think this, but there is something more to Lilliana.  There is a light to her.

3) She is roller coaster loving, rock climbing, jumping in with two feet fearless girl.

4) She loves you. Deeply. God knows how she longs to meet you one day. She has been talking about you very often, again. We let her talk about you however it comes. Even when it is painful for her and us to feel/hear it.

5) She knows a lot about Guatemala. She loves to do Power point presentations about it.

6)  Lily is a great big sister. She has recently become the little big sister. Something she finds pretty funny. Her little sister thinks that she hung the moon.

7) Lily struggles. I don't want to sugar coat it. It breaks my heart. Her Daddy and I chose to start an anti-anxiety medication this past November. She also goes to therapy once a week. Honestly I don't see much improvement with the medication, in fact it has made somethings worse. She has an alphabet soup of diagnoses right now. I don't know if it has anything to do with her adoption, or if the doctors are right and she is just 'hard wired' this way. Please know that her Daddy and I are doing everything we can to help her. We would walk to the end of the Earth for this child.

8) She has an operation coming up very soon. She has problems draining her ears so the ENT wants to put tubes in her ears and also take out her adenoids. It will sometime in the early new year.

9) Lilliana is a very loved little girl. By us, her Grandparents, GG's, Aunt's, Uncle's, cousins. She and her sister just light up entire our world.

10)  She has a wonderful laugh. When she laughs she makes all of us crack up just laughing at her laughing.

11) She has started playing the violin this year at school. She is really seeming to like it. She just had her first winter concert and did a fantastic job.

12) Tomorrow for the first time ever she is going to go ice skating! We told her today and she is thrilled!

I could really go on and on, hopefully one day I will be able to sit with you and tell you in person how incredible our daughter is. From the very bottom of my heart thank you, for trusting in us to parent this amazing child.