Happy Third Birthday!!!

For Rowan’s second birthday, we went to steak, seafood, salad, Sizzler. The place every little girl dreams of going. I went to the salad bar for my mom and sat her plate on the table.

“You didn’t get anything for the baby,” she stated.

I looked at her plate, stared at the spaghetti I had put on it for the baby, since she didn’t eat meat, then I looked back at her. “The spaghetti is for her.”

“How is she going to eat it?” Oma questioned.

What did she mean how was she going to eat it? You just - - oh wait. It hit me. Layla was my newly turned one-year-old with no teeth. She had been a recently turned eleven-month-old when placed in my arms and my third child, so I decided she was going to graduate early to table food like everyone else in her new family. My days of buying baby food were over. So from our first meal together, I would chew her food then give it to her. Until my mom asked how she was going to eat the spaghetti and meatballs, I hadn’t realized I was doing it.

There I was with this little baby I had only met twenty-four hours before, yet I had unknowingly started this intimate eating ritual with her. Yes, I know we had taken our relationship to the next level with the adoption. We were tied together for life, but our newly acquired eating habits were something else.

As a child, I was constantly under my mother, constantly touching her, but as I grew older I moved away from that. I remember not even wanting to hold Shane’s hand when we were out in public. He questioned me about it and I gave him an answer that firmly stamped me as my mother’s daughter. Yet years later here I was without even thinking about it engaged in this intimacy with this baby who was for all intents and purposes a stranger and I never gave it a second thought. I know intimacy is part of motherhood, Jory taught me that. It never dawned on me on how much I would see a penis until I had a son. Now that’s intimacy. Maybe by child number three, you’re not really aware of how quickly the closeness begins or the forms it will take.

A few days after Layla and I became mother and child, I told her I loved her. Was I truly in love with her? I don’t think so, I think love comes with knowledge and time. But I felt strong emotions for her because she was mine, all mine. No social worker or county worker lurking about. No judge who didn’t have her best interest in mind making decisions about her future. The absences of those things upped my growing feelings for her.

Maybe the eating closeness started so effortlessly because unbeknownst to us it spoke so clearly of our developing relationship. One where my insomnia in Vietnam had her crawling around the bed and playing with her toys that her mommy and Auntie Heather bought her until she collapsed in the early morning hours. One where if I get out of bed and she’s not in her REM sleep, she reaches out for me, cries for me, and as she’s gotten older says, “Go with you, Mommy.” One where from a young age, she held my face between her tiny hands and would kiss me. One where she seemingly has feet and legs, yet is permanently attached to my hip.

I sometimes look at her and wonder if I had held her when she was five-days-old like Jory or picked her up from the hospital like I did Willow, if our relationship would be closer or different. If she would be a different person. But in the end I realize, we gel so well because of that time apart. She was becoming the person she needed to be to become my baby girl and I was becoming the mommy she needed. And really I’m not sure if we could be any closer. I would be slightly afraid of what that would look like.

Being Layla’s mother has been a journey and is a journey. Strong willed is a nice term to describe her. She is funny and smart. My friend, Roxanne, was right when she said watch out when Layla starts walking. Layla is the child that when she’s quiet she’s up to something. Putting toothbrushes in the toilet or in her mind “rinsing” them. Or drinking water from the bathroom sink, a new favorite pastime. Playing with toys that she shouldn’t be. Playing with things that she shouldn’t even be touching. Saying things she shouldn’t be saying, “Oh my gosh!”

When you ask her what she’s doing with the look of angel, she replies, “Noteeng.”

“Then why are all the Memory game cards all over the floor?”

“Roro.”

“She wasn’t even in here.”

“Jory.”

“He wasn’t in here.”

She innocently shrugs her shoulders. Wasn’t aware one so young could throw their siblings under the bus. She is constantly teaching me new things, some days mostly about God’s boundless grace and unending love for us.

I love her to death, but this strong willed one makes me want to scream at times. And other times, I want to drown her in kisses and other times pound my head against the wall.

When Layla was younger, she would cross her arms when she was upset. The first time she did it, I thought I was seeing things. No, a not quite two-year-old didn’t know how to cross their arms. But I wasn’t and she was. So we had to have some discussions about her actions. After some time, she stopped doing it. Recently she has taken to putting her hands on her hips which I guess is her new way to show she’s upset since she has stopped saying, “You not come to my party.” We’re working on this one. But you can always count on Layla to make her feelings known.

And now with her third birthday upon us, we are traveling down this road of independence and babiness. There are some mornings when I all I hear is “I do it myself. Me do it.” And some mornings when I hear, “Help me,” aka brush my teeth for me, put my socks on, dress me. Some mornings looks have to be given for the commands, “Get my shoes. Get my socks.” Even with a “please” attached the tone is pure command. Maybe sometimes she thinks she’s the head honcho in the military. Hmm, maybe we’ve watched episodes of The Unit together to give her such ideas.

I think our future together is going to be interesting to say the least. And there will be more days where I will wonder if she’ll make it to eighteen or if she even wants to based on that attitude at times. And a lot more days when I remember what a true blessing she is and how her and her siblings are miracles, my greatest dreams come true.

Happy Birthday, Layla, and as I dress you with 30 Rock on in the background, I want you to know if you become the next Tina Fey, I would have succeeded as a parent.

I pray for the wisdom, strength, grace, compassion, and love to be the best parent I can be to you. I won’t always get it right because I am a faulty human, but I pray that you will be understanding and forgiving. For you my beautiful, baby girl, I pray for not happiness because that is fleeting, like sadness, but I pray that like Paul in Philippians 4:11b – 13, you can say firmly and confidently, “For I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength.”

Baby girl, you are my heart with arms and legs. I adore you. I love you endlessly. I love you forever. I like you for always, though I won’t always like what you do or say. As long as I’m living, my baby you’ll be.

One day, I pray your eyes and mind will be opened and the words of this Steven Curtis Chapman song ring true for you.

On the bank of the South China Sea
In a Vietnamese town
I drew my first breath one January day
And before my feet even touched the ground
With people gathered 'round
I started to dance
I started to dance

A little girl full of wide-eyed wonder
Footloose and fancy free
But it would happen, as it does for every dancer
That I'd stumble on a truth I couldn't see
And find a longing deep inside of me, it said...


I am the heart, I need the heartbeat
I am the eyes, I need the sight
I realize that I am just a body
I need the life
I move my feet, I go through the motions
But who'll give purpose to chance
I am the dancer
I need the Lord of the dance


And while the music of His love and mercy plays
I will fall down on my knees and I will pray
I am the heart, You are the heartbeat
I am the eyes, You are the sight
And I see clearly, I am just a body


You are the life
I move my feet, I go through the motions
But You give purpose to chance
I am the dancer
You are the Lord of the dance
I am the dancer
You are the Lord of the dance