Addise in 21 Seconds

Our daughter is a HOOT! Her dramatic, expressive, full on personality make us laugh all day, and occasionally drives us mad. Daddy got this video of her a couple weeks ago. We couldn't stop laughing at how "Addise" these 21 seconds are...

Addise's First Birthday

Here are a few pictures from Addise's first birthday. It was a wee bit anti-climatic because all four of us were in various stages of a 2 week cold/sinus infection. The day was pretty low key yet on the forefront of our minds was that 1 year ago today our lives changed forever. We just didn't know it yet.

Addise's first outfit on her birthday. It's hard to get this girl to sit still! Her shirt said, "Grandma's Love Bug" in honor of her Grandma Getz coming out to celebrate.

Needless to say, the sugar changed everything...I would like to brag that I made the cupcakes. I didn't buy them. I made them. From a box. It's what I do.

Before - she had no idea what was about to hit her!

Before - Judah was very excited it was Addise's first birthday,

for purely selfish reasons!

During - being introduced to her cupcake!

After - she LOVED her cupcake.

After - the sugar coma before the freak out. This was our worst night with Judah to date. He was awake until almost 10pm.

After - a bath was required.

For those who have 10 minutes to spend, this video of their first experience with this amount of sugar will be sure to have you laughing!! [Sorry for the microphone and filming mistakes. This was my first time doing a long video on my iPhone]



Flowers for her birthday. There are a bunch of asters in the bouquet in celebration of her name: Addise Aster Tarike Diaz. Her name means "new life and flowers". Endlessly true of who she is!
Happy Birthday, Baby Girl! We love you.

Injera

Since we've been home, yummy meals been delivered most days of the week. Friends have dropped off bags of groceries - food we need and food they hope J&A will like, too. "Helpful" doesn't sum up how I feel about these meals and groceries. Without argument cannot imagine making food for our family right now. It feels like too much just to brush my teeth more than once a day, much less make 3 meals a day for 4 people.

On Sunday our friends, the Baran's, brought us Ethiopian food from a local Ethiopian owned restaurant. We thought that especially Judah might really need a taste from home after nearly 3 weeks of not having any familiar food. A couple necessary Target bags in stow, the Baran family showed up with Doro Wat, Beef Tibs, and Injera for our family dinner.

What happened next surprised this exhausted and overwhelmed momma to tears [my first tears since getting J&A]...



The entire time Judah was consumed with his food. He couldn't take his eyes off it. He ate more than we'd ever seen. He literally tasted home that night for the first time in a long time. My heart exploded when I became emotionally connection [again!] to how much transition this little 2 1/2 year old has been through in the past month. New language. New caregivers. New food. New bed to sleep in. New clothes to wear. New environment to explore. New boundaries. New weather. NEW NAME! New, New, New! So much to grieve and learn.

People say kids are resilient. And they are. But grieving is still necessary. Saying "goodbye" to everything that you knew is still hard. Learning a completely new way of life is still enormously challenging, especially when communicating is so difficult.

Parenting Judah these past few weeks has been extraordinarily difficult. Parenting an infant like Addise is a piece of cake compared to a toddler. But their are moments like eating injera and taking baths that solidify that we are supposed to be Judah's parents.