Sentimental

I’ve been feeling rather sentimental lately. I have been working on a couple of projects which have kept me from much computer time, and especially from blogging, but they have allowed me some time to reflect on the last year. It was a year ago Thursday that I learned that I finally had travel arrangements. The joy of hearing that was overwhelming. I attached a sign to my door at work with a photo of a jet in flight with a post-it note of how many days remaining until travel. I was so excited and scared and overwhelmed and that feeling didn’t disappear until I finally held my son.

I can’t believe I have been a mother for nearly a year. The things that I thought would make me crazy, haven’t fazed me a bit, and the things I never expected take my breath away. On Friday evening I finally got a night out. Michael and I dropped him off at my friend Laura’s house. I could tell he was unsure. He looked around, the expression on his face tugged at my heart and I told Michael later that if he had cried I would never have been able to leave.

I’ve been looking at photos from last year in Vietnam. It saddens me that it has already been a year because it still feels like yesterday, despite how much he is growing.

This photo was taken the day after our G&R. I will be forever grateful to Chennie for being there that week to record those first moments. I wish we had the opportunity to see her more frequently! When Duc met me for the first time, he placed his chubby little hands on each of my cheeks and held my face and giggled. Those first few days together he would just stare at me and I knew he was memorizing my face, “imprinting” as my mother said. Even now he still holds my face like this when he wants to tell me something important (well, important in his mind, I still can’t understand half of what he says).