Party 'til you puke!

No kids' birthday party is complete unless someone gets sick. And my youngest granddaughter didn't disappoint last night.

Little Eve turned one yesterday, and just before we were to sit down to dinner she decided to hurl all over my husband, (his precious Canucks jersey!), the blankets, the floor, herself, the cat...And it was a doozy! So disgusting. And her Dad has just walked in the door in time to see the performance. What a show!

When their first daughter, Nevaeh was born 4 1/2 years ago, Mike would dry heave just at the thought of changing a wet diaper. Literally dry heave. But he has come so far - I'm so impressed. He was there cleaning up the floor, taking all the smelly disgusting laundry down to the washer (and actually putting it in washer and starting the load!). The transformation for him has been amazing.

Our kids do that to us. Things we never thought we would be able to do, we manage to do for our children. Before my first daughter was born, I had never changed a poopy diaper in my life. Yes, even as a teenager who babysat tons of kids, I never had the "joy" of changing a poopy diaper. Yet when I first held my daughter at 5 days old, and I discovered all kinds of weird things that can come out of many different places on a baby, and it never ever bothered me.

Something else I never thought I could do was to be such a strong advocate for my kids. I always was the one in the back of the room hoping no one would notice me. That changes dramatically when we adopted a child of colour. No more blending in with the crowd of white parents with white kids who resemble each other. Especially in our small community we stood out. We had the "luxury" of adopting an infant and the time to get used to all of the looks, stares, comments, etc. before she was aware of what was happening.

I always knew I would do whatever it takes for my children, but as with all parenting, you never really know what is required of you until you're in the middle of it. "Whatever it takes" sounds easy when you're not yet a parent who has had to go through the years of infertility, waiting, getting permission from strangers to become a parent, etc. (You know - "you did it the easy way you adopted") Something about this process makes us adoptive parents even more determined than your average parent to not let anyone or anything stand between us and getting what our kids need. Don't get in our way, cause we'll take you DOWN!

And we will.