Happy Birthday - Again!

So, this journey, this adoption journey, is not always easy.

 There are unknowns and there are unanswered questions and there are pieces of the puzzle that will simply never fall into place.

For our girls, this is particularly true in that there are memories locked away that may never be revealed...

there are memories locked away that the Lord made certain would not be revisited...

there are parts to their childhood and of their very beginnings that may not ever be made known.

Imagine not knowing why you can not control your movements or speak clearly.

Imagine not knowing why your "legs don't work so good."

Imagine not knowing why you have this huge whole in your soul that just never seems to get filled up.

Imagine never knowing where you were born or who gave birth to you or the actual day that you were born...

your birthday...

or...

 even your age.

That has been one of our struggles with Maggie and Lucy...

their age.

We have good reason to suspect that Maggie is not 10 going on 11 and Lucy did not turn 9 in April.

It is hard...

trying to determine your child's age... 

and with Maggie and Lucy, there are other factors, like they both have cerebral palsy and they both, never went to school and they are both terribly behind socially and emotionally and developmentally... 

but is that due to the CP or to the circumstances in which they lived or because they are younger than their files tell us they are??

hard to know...

so...

when people ask the girls how old they are, in their wonderfully innocent, trusting and "no biggie" kind of way...

they will reply, "I don't know...  maybe 7 or 8 or 9!"

Have I told you how much I love these girls!

We have been honest with them and they both understand that we are trying to figure all that out but that in the end, it really does not matter cause they are home and they are loved and that will not change no matter what - no matter what age they are.

Now, according to Maggie's file, the birthday given to her by the orphanage was in December...

 so we celebrated in December...

 and then we started thinking that if we are going to change her age eventually anyway, why don't we change the month as well...

cause let's face it, with 7 kids, we are crazy busy during this wonderful month!

I don't need a birthday added in to the mix and then we started thinking that as long as we were going to eventually change her birthday month...

 we might as well give her my sweet Daddy's birthday!

I think he would approve and Maggie...

well, all it took was telling her that she could have a pool party in July and she was all in...

cause that is just how sweet Maggie rolls y'all!

So off we went to JuJu's house pool and we had ourselves a pool party...

and Maggie got to swim...

and Maggie got ice cream cake...

and Maggie got a swimming Ariel doll...

and Maggie was tickled pink and once again I find myself in awe of my children...

in awe of their ability to heal...

in awe of their trust...

in awe of their happiness...

and in awe of their capacity to love.

Happy Birthday again my sweet Maggie!

 We will love you and celebrate you every chance we get!