Email from Sandra

I got the sweetest email from Sandra yesterday. She wrote that Pili hated having ink on her hands for those hand/foot prints. She didn't cry, but she stared at it and held her hands out to her as if to say "What is this?". She wanted it cleaned off right away and then checked her hands thoroughly to make sure they were completely clean.

She also wrote that she cried when she say the picture I sent of Lily holding hands with my dad. She wrote that someday it will be Pili in that photo walking away with her grandfather.

And that Pili "is identifying incredibly with Veronica" (the foster mom) and that she cries when she can not see her. I had asked in a previous email if she thought, based on Willow's personality, if it would terribly difficult for her to go with me. She said "I believe that the separation is going to be very hard for the two. I believe that for you also because she perhaps cry like he did him Lily. That good that acquired experience with Lily and he will know that to do and that finally she will be well. This calms me because itself that in the end Pili be on good terms with you." Understand there are translation problems because I use an online, free site that is sketchy at best. I can usually get the gist, which I'm sure is all she can do with what I send to her.

How can I dread the day that I am more excited about than anything else in the world? It's the strangest place to be. I ache for these people and for Willow - not that I wouldn't jump on the chance to get her TODAY if I could. But as long as I have no control, I don't mind that we're putting it off for her. I know. I know. It only gets harder for her as time goes on. It makes no sense - but what about mothering ever does?!

INTERVIEW DONE!!

My social worker emailed me this morning: The birth mother interview was completed yesterday and everything went fine. I don't know which I worried more about - the time this wait was adding to the process or the fear that her birth mother would change her mind. At any rate - it's over! Some families are approved a month after the interview is complete, some have been kicked out a few times before they're approved. There is no way to predict what will come next or how long we'll wait for whatever it is. All I know for sure is that I had NO chance of getting approved until this interview was done and now it is.

Camping and the Cabin

Still no news on the birth mother interview, so while we wait for an update, here are some shots of Lily to keep us on course. Thanks for sticking with this long, boring journey! All the kids love 4 wheeler rides with Papa at the cabin.

She'll cuddle up with this mayfly, but if there's so much as an ANT in our house she's hysterical. One of the many quirks of the mysterious Lily.

Tate and Lily are so "on" right now. They have been adoring each other! No fights, no squabbles, just games and silliness. I hope this lasts a while.

It's all fun and games 'til some one gets a leach. Once Lily had to deal with THAT unspeakable torture, she was done playing in the water. Thankfully it didn't happen 'til the day before we left the cabin.

Lily is officially a compulsive fisher-girl. She caught these walleye and had to throw one back because it was TOO BIG. After that every time papa got up she'd ask where he was going. She was devasted to wake up one morning with him already out on the lake without her. She had a line off the dock all weekend.

We went camping at Kamp Dels the weekend before we went up north. Lily LOVES to sleep in the tent.