Immeasurably More

Today we celebrate Riley's 2nd Gotcha Day! 2 years ago today he was carried off of a plane in Detroit and handed to us. Our lives have truly never been the same. Riley is a treasure and we cannot imagine our family without him. Today we are celebrating by making airplane cookies and then we are taking him to Chuck E Cheese for pizza and games.

I came across this on another adoptive mom's blog. It really sums up well the love we feel for our son. Below it is the link to the video we made for Riley's first birthday...we have posted it before but it really captures the essence of September 13th, 2 years ago!

We Are So Blessed
by Brenna Fay Rhodes
copyright 1997

We are so blessed. We have the opportunity to pray and wait and plan and hope and dream and work for our child. Circumstances don't allow us to take our child for granted ~ ever. We do all these things for so long and at such great emotional cost, that when our child is finally in our arms, we truly cherish every minute. Every second.

We are blessed to be in our child's life. We are blessed that God planned for us to be a family, and that we were given the opportunities that brought us together. We get to see all the best parts of mankind in our wonderful children. All the goodness and potential and innocence and ambition and confidence and love. And what a beautiful sight that is.

We are blessed to have run this race. It is long, and very often it is practically impossible to complete. But we run anyway, and believe in ourselves and our child enough to the do the impossible. We run, knowing that at the end of this great race, a child is waiting for a chance at a wonderful life. And we get to be the ones to give him that life. Wow.

We are blessed that when our child laughs, we are the ones to hear it. And when our child cries, we are the ones she looks for. When our child feels pain or joy or accomplishment or excitement, he shares it with us. We are needed and wanted. And we are blessed.

We are so blessed to have had the chance to see life from a different angle. To see that things don't always go as you planned them out in 5th grade ~ because there are better things in store. To be part of the few who feel constantly misunderstood. To be the one always on guard against the rude or ignorant comment. To feel the frustration of not having the perfect comeback to that comment until three hours later. Our kids can use those experiences and lessons we have learned. We are deeper, stronger, more compassionate people because of this journey. And the world our children live in is better, because we grow in those ways.

Our child is blessed. He is patted and hugged and nestled and rocked and kissed and squeezed and taught and tickled and corrected and praised. He is told he is precious in God's eyes. She is certain of her value in our eyes. And she never wonders if she will be cared for tomorrow or the next day. She sleeps comfortably at night, safe in our care.

We should tell our children we are proud. We saved and scrimped, prayed and begged, planned and schemed, worked and worried. We hoped endlessly for them. We dedicated years of our lives to finding them, followed God's path to them, waited in His time for them, then brought them home to their forever family. We gave our whole hearts to our child, even before we ever saw his precious face. Now that is love. And parents who adopt know all about that.

Click on this:RILEY'S HOMECOMING VIDEO