Chúc mừng sinh nhật, Buon Compleanno

Happy, Happy 1st Birthday Matteo! I love you more than words can express!

This is a picture of Matteo playing just before his party begins.



This is a picture of one of Matteo's referral photos with his one year old birthday cake. Matteo was born in the year of the tiger, hence the choice for the tigger cake.



This is a picture of my parents on the wine and hot food table. Felt my dad would appreciate the wine and my mom the hot food. They were with us in spirit.



A few more balloons in Matteo's play area.



Cutting the cake with Matteo having a taste of the icing. Matteo is wearing the same ducky outfit he wore at his G&R.



Matteo enjoying his yummy birthday cake!!

So excited with his party balloons!!!!

a loooonnnnnnnng weekend....

I'm sitting on my deck as I did last summer and am remembering what an awful time it was last May. (You can see the 4 posts here.) It was awful mostly because I had not had a referral yet. I was told it was to have happened by the end of February 2010, but it was not to be and as it turns out my little boy had not entered the world just yet though he had been conceived. This year it is a very different time. I am enjoying some peace and quiet on the deck (except for that lurking cat again who scared my cats)....while my little boy naps....

...It is a long weekend here but this weekend for us was never really about the actual holiday but instead it was more about the fact that my mother's birthday which would have been May 24, mostly fell on this weekend so we always celebrated it in some way. This weekend has been quiet, had a visit on Saturday with Max and Vanh and Samantha and Matteo's new caregiver Woody after having done some clean up at home. On Sunday my friend Shelley and her daughter Marybelle were here from Fredericton at a Feis (Irish dancing) competition in Orleans....so we got to spend some of the day with them. Today have more cleanup to do and my lists to finalize in preparation for Matteo's first birthday party which is taking place next saturday. His birthday is actually on the 30th but we will celebrate with family and friends on Saturday and then Matteo and I will celebrate on our own on the Monday....I am so glad Matteo's birthday falls in the month of May, the same month as my mom's and a very special aunt (and my godmother), whose birthday also was in May. I have written about these connections and feel somehow they are connected to how blessed I feel to have Matteo as my son as it also ties me to them in an additional way.

...I'm sure Matteo won't remember the party, but hopefully we'll get some good pictures and I'll be able to share them with him at some point. My emotions on Matteo's adoption seem to be all over the place. I continue to think a lot of Vietnam and our time there, and of Matteo's story. Yeseterday (our 6 month anniversary as a family) I was organizing the paperwork from the time in Vietnam (which had been sitting in a pile on my desk in my office) the G&R the Adoption papers etc...and of course I reread his story and looked at the documents again. This of course intensified the feelings that continue to hover. I want to try to write more about that, how I feel about the adoption, the journey, but of course may not be able to do that on this blog....this is also my journey to being a mother and finding out the kind of mother I want to be and building my confidence in that. I am finding more and more that I am disagreeing with some issues related to how to raise a child who has been adopted.

I do not want Matteo to be defined by his adoption. It is one facet of his life, but it is not all that he is. I of course remember very clearly that he is adopted but am very much just treating him as my son, my little boy, and am trying to trust my instincts on how I feel it is best to raise him. So when he does something, I don't first think, how do the books tell me I need to deal with it, I just deal with it as his mom in what I think is best. The books I actually find more useful are just the baby books etc...that help me to understand the various developmental stages and what I can do at each stage etc..

As I talked to S. on Saturday, she reminded me how important it is to normalize the adoption journey and it is definitely something I do, in a matter of fact way with Matteo. I am always talking to him about Vietnam and remember when we did this and that. Even at his young age, he loves looking at photos of himself. Yesterday while putting away the paperwork I showed him a picture of us at the G&R and he laughed.. . and this is where our story together begins, even though it began much before that day. However when it comes to other things, Matteo is a little boy, a willful, demanding, strong, curious, creative, happy, courageous, vulnerable little boy and my challenge is to channel all of his energy and most of mine into continuing to help him learn and grow and find his place in the world....

Matteo, Marybelle and Shelley with the soft bear they brought him for his birthday....it is almost bigger than he is!!



Matteo and Marybelle playing with her hair.

My boy's first steps with a bit of assistance.....

Such an emotional day today!!...Started off with a trip to CHEO for Matteo's audiology appt....he passed as pretty normal, so that was great!!...then off to Shopper's to get Matteo's 6 month progress report photos printed, then home to a quiet afternoon, or so I thought. When I put usually put Matteo down I put him on his feet but near enough something that he can either grab onto, or pull himself down to the floor. Well this time he just stood up for what seem a long time. I could see his small legs balancing himself and it was amazing. Then I thought I'd try the wooden toy that I brought from Vietnam which I hadn't tried in a few weeks. Well to my amazement he started to walk and it almost seemed like running.....This is a video of him walking across his play area for the 3rd time... I was so emotional I couldn't manage to get my phone in proper video mode so missed the first two and only took pictures. This was just before his nap and though I tried to get him to walk again so i could get a better clip, he just sat down and started to cry that he wanted to sleep, so sleep he did!. We celebrated this almost milestone with an afternoon walk around the neighbourhood and then we dropped into Art is In Bakery for Happy Hour. Bought some bread and a couple of croissants and discovered that Matteo loves croissants. He was in such an amazing mood afterwards, laughing and flirting with everyone he saw. At home he was ever so playful! A wonderful day and one that I won't ever forget.

First Tulip Festival visit

Precious videos of my boy...

First Mother's day together

This photo was taken the night before Mother's day but for me it will be a record of our first mother's day together.

"I love you like crazy cakes"

I started this post a couple of weeks ago but never finished it so will try to restart it here and hopefully post it before the day is out. It has been a challenging week. Matteo celebrated 11 months a week ago but I have not been able to do the usual candles and dessert to celebrate. Still hope I will be able to, however his 1 year birthday is also just around the corner too!.

Matteo's godmother Isa (my dearest childhood friend) had to go back into the hospital again to have another operation that cut into her head....as I mentioned in a previous post, she had a tumour removed which thankfully was benign, however something was damaged as the result of the surgery and /or caused by the tumour. They tried to fix it without surgery but were not very hopeful so the surgery was done again 3.5 weeks after the first one. It was a very difficult week, lots of pain, nausea, vomiting....I visited with her as often as I could at the hospital and was grateful that one of Matteo's babysitters was available. Additionally I started work on a contract that required some attention so all I managed to do was make sure Matteo's needs were met, visit with Isa, get the contract started and try to get some groceries inbetween.

Today is mother's day and somehow it is less important than the fact that Matteo has been with me for all this time, that Isa isa doing much much much better and they feel the second surgery fixed the problem. I am missing my mom but somehow feel she is more alive now that I am a mom too and don't miss her as much as I did last year. So perhaps that is the most special thing about mother's day that in a spiritual sense it has brought me even closer to my mom.

There is another mother that I have been thinking a lot more about for a while now...and it was the reason I began the earlier post related to this children's book "I love you like crazy cakes." As Matteo's personality blossoms more and more I am filled with awe and love and also sadness. I have had nothing to do with his personality and I wonder what his birthparents were like. They I hope would be overjoyed to see how well he is doing but I'm sure sad like I am that they could not be in his life. One day perhaps Matteo will meet them and perhaps understand things about his personality and traits that I do not share. I feel so blessed that he is my son and that he is doing so well in so many ways. Everytime I read "I love you like crazy cakes" (and I do it often) I always subsitute boy for girl and Vietnam for China, but when I get to the part that says....

"I held you tightly, kissed you softly, and cried. The tears were for your Vietnamese mother, who could not keep you. I wanted her to know that we would always remember her. And I hoped somehow that she knew you were safe and happy in the world."

I always cry too and moreso lately and especially today. So Happy Mother's day especially to Matteo's birth mother wherever you are. Your gift of choice has given me the greatest gift in my life. I pray that you are safe and happy in the world and know that I will continue to love and cherish and care for Matteo to the best of my ability. We will always remember you as we will always remember my own mother who is also only with us in spirit. Ngay cua Me