The Laird Lowdown: April 2008

Sunday, April 13, 2008

How I spent my Spring Break, Part 2

I said I'd have it done this weekend. Not only did I finish it, but I finished it on Saturday, so that we were able to move it upstairs on Sunday and load it up. We went through our clothes as well, making up 3 big Goodwill bags, and now we can walk into our closet without hunching over or stepping over baskets!

Friday, April 11, 2008

Mom out of retirement? Never thought it would happen!

Well I guess my hiatus has ended. Tim has been such a great blogger in my absence it almost makes me want to go back into retirement, but alas, I think I will blog instead.

So where have I been since... holy cow... October? Well I have been sick, taking care of Kaylee, sick, taking care of Nana, sick, taking care of Kaylee... and yes you guessed it... sick! It's been a hard winter here in, what I like to term it, the house of plagues! I have been sick for quite a bit of the time this winter and when I have any time left, I've been busy with work, Kaylee, and more work.

Ordering season has started again which is always an awful time at work. We get really busy the end of March and it doesn't quit until August. This of course brings stress on the Mama and then sickness ensues. Anyway, I'm feeling good and looking great in my new haircut and glasses.

Speaking of haircuts... as Tim had said Kaylee got her first haircut about a week ago from Auntie Elaine. Elaine has been cutting my hair since I was about 11 and even came to the house on my wedding day to do my hair. She has been a great beautician and friend! We love Elaine!

During our adoption process, she offered to cut the household's hair for free that way we could save money! The only stipulation being that our child's first haircut had to be done by her. Of course it wouldn't have been any other way!

So about a week ago, we went and got our hair cut. Kaylee was of course squirmy and sat on her own for about 1/3 of the haircut. Then she got to sit on Mama's lap the rest of the time. She was not as good as her cousin Ethan (see http://hurfordfamilynews.blogspot.com/) as Kaylee squirmed, squirmed, and squirmed some more. At one point Elaine had to cut her hair upside down. (No Elaine, we didn't get a picture of that and you can thank me later!)

Anyway, Kaylee's hair is now a bit shorter, as she had a lot of dead and split ends. Now if you let her hair go, it looks like one big, round fro. It's very cute, but not as cute as the "Kramer" hair style she sported back when she was first born. My hair got cut quite a bit shorter too, and I'm sure you'll see it in a picture soon.

Tonight, one of the nice ladies from daycare is coming over to do Kaylee's hair in braids and beads. I'll get a picture of it and put it out on the blog for all to see. I'm sure she'll be really cute! The ladies at daycare are very nice to me. They do Kaylee's hair when Tim or I are not able to get to it. They also taught and still teach this "very white" mama to do Kaylee's African American hair. This is quite a feat for me and I am proud to say I am getting the hang of it.

Miss Daphne, one of the ladies who does Kaylee's hair so perfectly gave me the best complement I could have been given. She said one day, "Oooooo Mama, her hair looks so good today. It looks as if I had done it myself!" I was floored and very flattered. We love all the ladies at daycare, but Miss Daphne and Miss Megan, will always have a special place in our Hall of Fame!

So, now that I've posted at 4-5am since I couldn't sleep, I think I will go get ready for work and then head off to do more... Yes, I'm going to say it... gulp... Orders!

Hope this post gives, all of you who are addicted to all things Kaylee, your fix for a while, because who knows when Mama will go back into retirement! Oh, and top of the morning to you! I will leave you with a picture of Kaylee and I (pre-haircut) on St. Patrick's day!

Thursday, April 10, 2008

How I spent my Spring Break

It's spring break week here, so the office has been pretty quite. I decided to take Wednesday off and spend some time working on a project I've had going for quite a while.

I hope to get it finished this weekend; we've been in our bedroom for almost 2 years now, and we still live out of laundery baskets. It'll be nice to finally have a dresser. And to keep a sense of symmetry, the dresser is made out of floorboards recycled from our attic from before I started on converting it to a master bedroom suite.

Oh, and Kaylee got her hair cut last week (maybe Mom can come out of Blog Retirement and share a little more about it. :) )

Our Adoption Story

Everyone always wants to know our adoption story. It is a long and complicated affair, but the short of it goes like this:

Tim and I decided after long discussion to build a family through adoption. Any children we adopted would be ours but just not have his eyes, or my hair… Anyway, we started our adoption journey on September 11, 2003 in an international program to Thailand.

In late February of 2005 we received word that the Thai government had turned down our request. We were devastated. We began looking into other options. We turned to domestic adoption.

A girl at Aquinas, where I work, had a friend who was looking to find an adoptive home for her baby. We decided to go ahead and find out more about her. We then got news that she was pregnant with twin boys. Oh my… what to do? So after talking and praying we decided if that was what God meant for us, then that was great.

So we talked with her and it was progressing toward us having twins. Unfortunately, the mother went into premature labor and one of the boys was still born and the other boy was very sick. The mother wanted to keep him, which was fine with us, since to voluntarily give up a child is one thing, but to have one taken from you is another.

After much sorrow, we again started over. We had our portfolio looked at by a bunch of birth parents, but nothing came of it, so we waited… and waited… and waited. Until one day I was getting out of a meeting and my telephone rang at work. It was the social worker calling about a birth family. Finally we had been chosen. That was Tuesday, September 19th, 2006

The only downside was the baby would be here any minute, literally. The birth mother had come in on her due date to make an adoption plan… oh my, again! We said that yes of course we’d take the baby, so in a mad dash, we finished paperwork, bought out Babies R Us, and made many phone calls to parents, siblings, grandparents, friends, and the list went on.

It was Tuesday when we got the call and by Sunday, September 24th, we were a wreck, so we went to church. After church we had to do a little more shopping to get ready and so we stopped for lunch at Taco Bell. A familiar face jumped out of the crowd at Tim, it was the pregnancy counselor, Emily. He saw that she was talking on her phone and said, “Wouldn’t it be funny if she was talking about our baby?” I think I answered that it would be “scary, not funny.” So he went over to say hi. Well, it turns out he was right. She was talking to the birth mother; she had just gone into labor.

At around 7pm that evening we got to meet our little miracle, our Kaylee. Two days later we got to take her home to a house that was full of people waiting to hold her and even more people waiting to come over to the house to hold her. On, June 13, 2007, Kaylee Raquel Elaina Laird became officially ours and we are so happy to finally have an “official” complete family.