A Baby Boy!

Everybody keeps acting like this foster-adopt process is emotionally brutal and wondering how we can do it. It's definitely an emotional roller-coaster, but I also find some comfort in these kinds of situations where things are completely beyond your control. It's like you just let go and try to have faith that the right thing will happen -- there's really no ability to try and control the outcome.

Case in point: we felt a great deal of sadness about losing Deshon, but we also understood why it happened. Then today we received a call about a 4-day-old baby boy. We heard a few basics and we had five minutes to call the social worker back with an answer. It only took me two minutes to track Tori down and call the guy back with a big "yes." Then we drove to Pasadena and picked him up, which was really fun. He still doesn't have a name yet, but we're working on it!

This time we feel pretty confident that we'll get to keep him. Of course, being a foster parent means you never know until you work your way to the point of adoption, but we hope and think this is going to work out.

Baby Boy Kuykendall, we are very happy to have you in our home. We have been holding you non-stop since we got you and at this very moment Tori is holding you and you are doing some cute little half-asleep grins. I know everyone says babies don't smile until six weeks and it's just gas, but it sure seems like smiles. You have a big shock full of black hair, rosy cheeks, and perfect little red lips. You also have enormous feet! Best of all, you have a great temperament and have only cried when you really needed to tell us something (thank you for that!). But check back with me after our first night together -- we'll find out what kind of sleeper you are!

We feel very privileged to have you here and, in a stroke of good fortune, it just so happens that Grandma Linda was arriving tonight. She totally hogged you all night and loved holding you and talking to you.

Here's a video from when we went to pick you up at the hospital. Tori was actually the first person to hold you and rock you, but my camerawork on that video was pretty bad so I'm going to post this one. The nurse kept wanting us to handle paperwork and all we wanted to do was snuggle with you.

Deshon Is Gone

The judge ordered Deshon to return to his previous foster mom today. I stayed home today and got the call at about noon and had about 30 minutes to pack all of his things up and drive him to our adoption agency. I swung by the office so that Tori could say goodbye.

We are so sad and a bit blindsided since we expected this all to take around six months to a year to be resolved. You know when you sign up to be a foster parent that you're signing yourself up for an emotional roller coaster, but this was our first experience with that. When we first told about Deshon, his circumstances led us to believe that we were really going to get to keep him, but in the last week or so we saw a few signs that the judge might be going in a different direction.

As heartbreaking as it was to say goodbye to him today, I feel good about the home he's going back to and that's the most important thing. His previous foster mom was overjoyed and I could see that there is obviously a lot of love there. Deshon was smiling and giggling when he saw her, so that made me really happy. Also, I'm thankful that everything was resolved quickly. As hard as it was to say goodbye today, it would have been WAY harder to say goodbye after a year.

Those are all the logical reasons why I'm okay with Deshon leaving today, but the more emotional side is that he really is an incredibly good and sweet baby. Everyone who got to meet him really fell in love with him. Good things will come his way.

Today was really strange because for the last five days we were also babysitting two additional foster children -- an 8-month-old and a 4-year-old -- for a total of four kids. We were really wiped out last night when their parents came to get them at about 10pm. So it was weird today to go from a small house that was literally bursting with children all over the place back down to just one.

We loved every minute of Deshon and we will miss his adorable little smiles and screams!

Welcome, Deshon!

Yesterday our adoption agency called to ask us whether we would be interested in taking Deshon. We didn't have to learn too much about him before we said YES! Without getting too much into the nitty gritty of details, Deshon arrived at our home last night at 9:15pm. Tori and I were so excited for him to arrive that we had to play cards to pass the time and calm our nerves (we had already done all the cleaning we could do).

Deshon has big bright eyes and is full of smiles and funny babbles. He didn't seem to have any trouble adjusting to our home, although as it got later and later we were unsure of how to get him to sleep. But once Tori got him to sleep, he slept for 9 hours straight!

We are thrilled to have Deshon here and hope that we get to keep him forever and ever. But, part of the reality of being a foster parent is that we really don't know what will happen. So we're just trying to take deep breaths and hope that Deshon ends up in the best place possible.

Here's a video of Zadie and Deshon together. Zadie is very curious about him, but also likes to stake out her territory with regards to the attention she gets from her moms. She always wants to be held by the person holding Deshon.

Size 23s

Here's Zadie wearing Shaquille O'Neal's size 23 basketball shoes. Our friends Richard and Allard got these shoes years ago and were kind enough to let Zadie take them for a spin. Zadie's donor had a size 16 shoe, so hopefully this is not going to be a sign of things to come! When I was pregnant, Tori used to dream about me giving birth to an enormous foot. It will be interesting to see how big Zadie's feet will be.

Speaking of genetics, I think that Zadie looks a lot like me, but she also has some personality traits that are definitely not from me. For example, she is extremely mechanical. I can barely change a light bulb. She loves to put things together and one of her favorite toys is a set of keys because she tries to unlock everything imaginable (we have locks on one of our cabinets). Tori is also very mechanical, so it's a nice little fit. I, on the other hand, am very verbal -- thus far Zadie has not followed in that path. She is now 16 and a half months and she's only comfortable with a few words: wawa, ball, woofwoof, up, and mama (only when she's crying or really upset).

Despite the fact that Zadie has not made huge developmental strides in the verbal department -- and despite the fact that this weekend one of our family friends told us about a kid who knew all his letters by the age of one -- I am not worried. I just always remind myself about my dad. He didn't go to kindergarten and showed up to first grade not knowing any letters or numbers. As he says, "he was pure as the driven snow" (does that saying even make sense?). Anyway, he turned out to be quite successful, so I'm not going to worry about all this.

This isn't necessarily the best photo of Zadie, but I think it's really cute. Part of why I like it because she has this silly red bead necklace on, which she's been wearing for about two months straight. Normally she has two or three of these necklaces around her neck and I'm always afraid she's going to get so tangled up that she'll end up choking, but so far so good. We took her to a Peace Corps event where all the former volunteers had to wear these red bead necklaces and by the end of the night she had ripped them off quite a few people.

We just returned from a nice weekend in San Diego celebrating Nick's graduation. We're very proud of you, Nick! Nick and Austin are both very good cousins to Zadie and she finds Austin particularly amusing.

It's nice in some ways to be home, but in other ways our place doesn't quite measure up to being at the parents house. We had a great time in the pool all weekend and we should have taken a video of how excited Zadie gets in the water. Shoot!

Zadie Is Part Fish

So I got the new computer and I still haven't been posting. Instead of blaming my old computer this time I'll blame my dear mother because it took me a while to get all the great photos she took while Zadie was staying with them. It's been a few weeks now, but we left Zadie for three days and I think everyone involved had a ball (including Kate and Tori!).

Zadie got lots of time to play in the pool, which she loved. She would start wiggling and flopping around in your arms when she saw the pool -- "wawa" is one of her few words. She's a very good sport about being dunked, but she definitely doesn't get the concept of holding her breath. Her favorite thing to do is just to thrash around with no direction.

So enjoy the pool shots! Shoot, Mom, I wanted to post the pool shots with you and Nick, but somehow that didn't come across in the photos you emailed me. I think I got the first and third set, but not the middle set. Also missing the one of Zadie playing with her sink.

Zacation

Tori and I are on a zacation: a vacation from Zadie! We went to San Diego this weekend and had to come back a little early for a friend's wedding, but we left Zadie with her grandparents. They'll bring her back on Wednesday, but that means we have approximately 80 hours that will be Zadie-free. Last night we stayed out late at our friend's wedding and this morning we SLEPT IN! It was pretty nice, I must say.

But, of course, we do miss our little Zadie Zoo and we'll be very excited to see her again on Wednesday. I know that she's having a great time with her grandparents and she is totally obssessed with their swimming pool. Zadie calmly waved goodbye to us as we drove away -- she was in her grandma's arms and couldn't care less to see us go!

I included this photo because it's evidence of a very strange phenomenon. Zadie is a typical 15-month-old in that she is extremely busy and she doesn't like to stop and cuddle very much. Unless she hurts herself, it's very rare for her to want to be held very long at all. But this is all out the window with Grandma Denise. She holds onto my mom and rests her head on our chest for literally 45 minutes at a time. It's the weirdest thing! She does it when she first sees her, but she also does it when my mom goes to get her from a nap and at several points throughout the day. Of course, my mom eats it up and feels no guilt whatsoever about parading this affection in front of us!

Hopefully Zadie will be willing to return home to us. Between Grandma Denise and Granddaddy Hal, we're in trouble. Granddaddy Hal takes her swimming and sings her songs and lets her pretend to drive his car (when it's parked, of course!).