June 2, 2003

We didn't know it at the time, but June 2, 2003 was one of the biggest days of our lives. That was the day Merete was born (or at least the date we were given as his birth day). I was reading another adoptive family's blog and they were reminiscing about what they were doing the day their new child was born, I thought it might be fun to do the same. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of calendar events for that day, so we'll go with the week of his birth...

June 2003. Elijah was 2.5 and still at his first preschool. We were in the same jobs at UF, more or less. I was the Senior Behavior Analyst in Gainesville, Han was the same in Ocala. We had just bought our first house in early May. By early June we had just gotten back from ABA in Chicago. Elijah loved the city! ABA was in Chicago again this year, and he didn't remember much from his first trip. We stayed at the same hotel, right across the street from a great park. He had vague memories of riding a bus (which we had), but we hadn't done much sight seeing that year (unlike this year, when we tried to hit all the major kid-friendly museums).


Back at home Elijah enjoyed swimming in his new pool in the back yard. That pool quickly became dirty and I seem to recall a certain dog named Beau deflating it with a swift swipe of his oh so sharp nails. Whatever the reason, it's history and I don't believe we ever got another one!

Elijah, apparently, also enjoyed putting stickers all over himself. These days he picks out certain pieces of paper and fills it with stickers he collects. He also loves to give stickers to others (hm, I wonder if Merete will become his new "sticker pad"!)


As for us adult, I think we were just working at work and working on the house. I was taking violin lessons at the time. I hadn't started karate yet (not for another year) and was physically a lazy bum. Except for the summer long painting of the house and furniture, tilling, etc. We were trying to have another child, but we were going down the biological route at the time. I wouldn't be for some months (over a year) before we started talking about adoption.

It's really amazing to me that halfway around the world, this child was born and neither his family or ours had any ideas how our lives would cross and change forever 3 years later. It really makes me wonder what else might be happening, right now, that will change the course of our lives down the road...