Thankful

Last Thanksgiving, we had no idea how long our wait to adopt would be. We had just applied to the Waiting Child program for children with special needs and knew it could be weeks or months or years before we received a referral. In our case, it was 10 days. It will come as no surprise that this year we are thankful for our happy, healthy monkey. I am also thankful for a Thanksgiving that involves 20 pounds of meat and my complete immediate family, college basketball, the machine in the doctor's lounge that makes a mean cup of hot chocolate and the fact that winter should be over in about 6 months.

Happy Turkey Day!

Thanks, Alexa!

Not that I actually believe anyone checks this blog for anything other than pictures of David, but here are a few pictures from the wedding courtesy of Alexa.

Elizabeth and her dad. A very blustery ceremony. Elizabeth and Jay.

I have known most of these girls longer than I've known how to add: Jennifer, Leila, Elizabeth, Priya, Alexa, me and Rebecca.

Elizabeth and Jay

This weekend, David and I headed to South Carolina once again. This time, it was for my friend Elizabeth's wedding. Our trip got off to a bumpy start. We left the house around 9:30am to drop off the beasts at doggy daycare and head to O'Hare. We definitely could have left later as we made it through security with 2 hours until departure, but between unpredictable traffic and toddler travel, I like to give myself plenty of time when travelling sans Kevin. We were delayed 45 minutes leaving O'Hare, but the fun really started around 5:00 when we should have been landing in Columbia. I was wondering why were nowhere near the ground when our pilot announced that due to weather conditions in Columbia (fog, I think), we were being diverted to Charleston, almost 2 hours away by car. Ideal. So David and I got to kill some time in the Charleston airport while my parents drove all the way there to get us. A great time was had by all. We finally made it home around 9:30 and were very happy to be joined a couple hours later by Kevin, who flew in from Baltimore to sneak in some quality David time between business trips.

Here is David trying to get this mess sorted out on the phone and then watching planes during our wait.

Saturday morning we headed to--where else?--the zoo. We got to see lots of animals including 5 lion cubs--so cute and yet so likely to eat us if we got anywhere near them. We also made a point of stopping by lemur island for obvious reasons, and David got to help Kevin feed a giraffe.

After lunching at Chick-fil-a (I highly recommend the new peppermint chocolate chip milkshake), it was time to get ready for the wedding. Unfortunately, I am not particularly bright and left my camera behind when I left for the wedding, so you only get my lame description of the main event and this picture of David watching football with my dad while I was gone.

The wedding was at Folly Beach, about 2 hours from my parents' house. I had the great pleasure of riding down with my second set of parents, the lovely and always entertaining Oscar and Marynell Wooten, which was much more fun than making that drive by myself. (Thanks again!) The temperature was great for an outdoor November wedding (in the 60s), but it started to rain about 10 minutes before the ceremony. After some delays and flip flopping about going ahead on the beach vs. moving the wedding to the little shelter where the reception was, Elizabeth and Jay opted to exchange their vows on the beach as planned, and it was absolutely beautiful. That's what you're supposed to say about weddings, but it truly was. Any time you can get a bunch of southerners out in the wind and rain when the temperature is below 75, you know you are loved. I've known Elizabeth since the first grade, and I got to spend the evening with some of my very best friends for the last 25 years (that makes me old) and see some other acquaintances and parents of people I grew up with whom I haven't seen since high school. It was a really fantastic time.

We are now safe and sound at home. It started to snow this afternoon, and it looks like it's sticking. Just a dusting so far. So in summary, yesterday I was at a wedding on the beach, and now I'm home in the snow.

One more picture of David. This is at the Columbia airport today. The chocolate covered pretzels were not the smartest choice for a snack.

A boy and his dog

Snoopy is a bad dog. She eats things she's not supposed to. From on top of our mantle and from inside closed rooms that she really shouldn't be able to get into. She barks for attention every waking minute. She brings a never ending trail of dirt and dog hair into our house that I will never ever get clean. But she loves her boy, and her boy loves her. Here she is helping me get David to sleep tonight.

6 months!

It's been six months since Gotcha Day. Here is our monkey then and now...

And tonight, celebrating 6 months with some Chinese food...

Hangin' with Oprah

As many of you know, wherever 100,000 or more are gathered together in Chicago, Kevin feels the need to be in their midst, so we went to the Obama rally in Grant Park last night. I am not a lover of large crowds like he is, but it was an amazing time and actually much less chaotic than I had expected. Tuesday is my late night at work, but I managed to get home by 7:30 or so. We read stories and got David to sleep. Uncle Dave held down the fort (thanks, Dave!), and we headed for the L. We had parked the car and were about to walk into the station when Kevin pulled his driver's license from his pocket and it snapped in half. Weird. Since a photo ID was required to get into the rally (the tickets were issued in Kevin's name) and we weren't sure if the Secret Service would accept half a driver's license as identification, we had to go back to the house and grab his passport. Eventually we made it downtown and found our way through the 3 security checks into the rally. Surprisingly, we were nowhere near Oprah.
The walk to Grant Park was an experience in and of itself. There were people everywhere selling Obama gear. Lots of people, including Kevin, were checking their phones for updates and celebrating every time a state turned blue. We got to Grant Park around 9:15, in plenty of time to see Virginia called for Obama and count down (literally) until the polls closed in California and he was officially the president-elect. Clearly after 12 years, Kevin is rubbing off on me because I have to say that Chicago looked amazing. The weather was uncharacteristically lovely (20 degrees above average). The buildings were lit up red, white and blue. Everywhere you looked, there was a sea of very happy people. We watched the speech on the jumbotron (Obama himself was teeny tiny and far far away) and stayed until the whole thing was over. We made it home by 12:30ish, much earlier than I had anticipated. We were very tired this morning, but definitely worth it to have been there for such an historic moment for our country. Way cool.

Kevin (and lots of other people) at the rally. Our view of the big screen.

Fuzzy shots of the skyline. News trucks as far as the eye could see.

Over the river and through the woods

David and I left for South Carolina on Tuesday, but before we flew out, David had his three month follow up assessment with Illinois' early intervention program. As we suspected, he is doing very well with both his language and motor now testing as age appropriate or very close to it. Because of both his cleft and his relatively short exposure to English, we'll follow up again in 6 months to make sure he's still on track.
After the therapists left, I threw David, Pete and Snoopy in the car. We dropped the dogs off to be boarded and headed for O'Hare. (I could make an entire post about what an ordeal it is to drive downtown with those two insane mutts and a toddler and then get the three of them out of the car and the dogs safely deposited inside.) We got to O'Hare in plenty of time to enjoy all that it has to offer--McDonald's, large crowds and huge windows with lots of planes and trucks to view--and our flight actually arrived early in Columbia.
We had a very special visitor on Wednesday morning: Mason-Kate (who is even cuter in person) and her mom Beth. MK is just two weeks older than David and from the same orphanage in China. It took a few minutes for both kids to warm up, but they eventually shared some (an entire container) of sweet potato puffs and a nice hug. It was great to finally meet them, and hopefully next time we can get everyone in both families together. Here are a few pictures of David and MK's reunion.


David playing in a tunnel originally intended for canine use.


Thursday brought tough times for David. We took him to visit Cedric, who has cut all the LaBordes' hair including mine from the time I was 3 until I moved to Chicago. David was not pleased that I decided to incorporate a haircut into his vacation. Later that night, I left him in the capable hands of my parents to go out with 4 of my girlfriends. I am embarassed to say that we drove up to Charlotte for the New Kids on the Block (who are apparently now calling themselves "The Block" as if that's going to fool anyone) concert. We had a fantastic time. The concert was straight out of 1989--no new clothes, no new dance moves. One of my friends described it as awesomely bad, and I think that sums it up.
David getting his hair chopped. Me with my friends Leila, Alexa, Jennifer and Elizabeth.


Friday morning we went to the state museum where David got to crawl through tunnels, play with giant Legos, explore a fire truck and, his personal favorite, going shopping in a mini-grocery store. We went to a park in the afternoon where David ignored the equipment to spend an hour rearranging sand with a stick.


David made it to one house on Halloween before he fell asleep. He was out by the time we were at the bottom of Aunt Judy's driveway, and he stayed that way through our other two stops and for an hour or so after we got home.


Finally on Saturday, we spent the morning with Jennifer, Kevin and their two girls then returned to help granddaddy with some chores around the house before we had to leave. As always, highlights of our trip included playing with the grandparents and eating a lot.
David testing Haley's patience by not playing correctly. Putting a license plate on granddaddy's truck.


Playing with the grandparents and stuffing his face with their delicious food.


David had a 30 minute meltdown on the flight back to Chicago which I believe to be related to minimal napping and the pilot's refusal to turn the seatbelt sign off for the entire flight. Kevin was waiting at the baggage claim when we got there, and David was so happy to see him, he actually got a tear in his little eye.

Weekend with Dad

I'm behind on my posts. Kevin has been in Switzerland trying to help European schools make better use of their floor space all week, so David and I skipped town to spend some time with my parents in South Carolina. Before Kevin left on Monday, we tried to squeeze in as much family fun as we could.
On Saturday morning, we went to Boo at the Zoo. (Yes, we do go to the zoo about twice a week.) This was David's first chance to sport his lemur costume. (For the two people out there who are curious as to why I picked a lemur instead of something normal, it's because the costume is cute and because lemurs were a running joke during my college years. The largest population of lemurs outside of their native Madagascar is at the Duke Primate Center, and I figured if nothing else, my college friends would be amused. Plus I am a complete nerd, and I loved picking such an obscure animal.) David was less impressed with his costume than we were and was initially pretty irate that we wanted him to wear it. Eventually he tolerated it, and we had fun at the zoo. We capped off Saturday night with a pre-bedtime trip to Oberweiss with David in his pj's.

David in various stages of accepting his costume. Elephants enjoying a traditional meal of pumpkin.



A picture for Katie, since the thank you note for this beautiful sweater she brought David from Peru is sitting in on our kitchen counter.


David enjoying spaghetti and, later that same night, ice cream in his pj's.


We went to church Sunday morning where David spent 90% of his time playing with the toys in the back and 10% running up and down the ramp outside. In the afternoon, we went to Navy Pier and nearly froze to death on the ferris wheel and then headed to Greek town for dinner. David is a great eater and will eat almost anything you put in front of him, so I guess I shouldn't have been surprised by the way he shovelled saganaki into his mouth.

David and I in the early stages of hypothermia. David and Kevin at Navy Pier. David throwing down his saganaki.


For our grand finale, we visited Shedd Aquarium on Monday morning. David absolutely loved it. He went from tank to tank, pointing at all the creatures. At one point he got so excited that he just started running full speed back and forth across one of the exhibits, throwing himself on the floor and laughing hysterically from time to time for emphasis. He wore himself out and slept all the way home on the train.