Two years ago, we were given an amazing gift. It was the day we became parents to the sweetest little girl. When Lexie was placed into my arms for the first time, I felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. All of the frustrations and disappointments were in the past and finally this journey had come to an end. Everything that we've endured lead us to Lexie. She was waiting for us and I knew this was meant to be.
For six months, we stared at pictures wondering what Lexie sounded like when she laughed. How her little fingers would feel in our hands. It seemed like forever before we were finally holding her in our arms. The first few days and even months weren't all smooth sailing. We were adjusting to being parents for the first time and we knew that Lexie was also learning to trust us, after all she was just taken away from her nanny, whom she loved.
In two years, she has grown into a little person that is overflowing with personality.
It took some time for her to show any love or affection. She hugged and kissed her stuffed animals a million times before she gave us any loving. I remember riding on the trolley last Christmas and that was the first time Lexie ever hugged me and said "I love you, mommy" totally on her own. That day is stamped in my heart forever.
Lexie is a chatterbug, but she says the sweetest things. We were riding in the car and she was babbling away, but what she said just brought tears to our eyes. "I love mommy, I love daddy, I love Maxx, I love Gogo, I love my trees, I love my fence, I love my outside, I love my house." And she kept going on and describing everything that she loved.
It's on days like these that I think of the sacrifice that Lexie's birth mom made when she trusted us to take care of her precious daughter. We never got to meet her in Taiwan but I hope she knows that we are taking care of her little girl and that we are so grateful that we were chosen to love Lexie. She has been a blessing to our lives.
Lexie's loves to tell us, "I want my favorite snack." Well, she has lots of favorite snacks like any kind of fruit, brown bears (teddy grahams), strawberry yogurt and granola, chex mix and the list goes on. She is definitely a snacker!
Lexie had her surgery six months ago to patch the hole in her heart. During that time, we had to limit her activities. She just visited the cardiologist and she was given the all clear, so now we will be signing her up for gymnastics and dance classes. She is a monkey and climbs, jumps, and runs around everything and anything. She has taken an interest in dancing and will do ballet moves by twirling around and balancing on one leg. She just watched "Lilo and Stitch" and is now doing the hula on command.
Several times when Eric and I have been talking, Lexie will tell us to "stop talking" and listen to her. We're trying to teach her indoor and outdoor voices. Her voice seems to be stuck on very loud.
Lexie has over 20 pairs of shoes. When we're in the yard, she will change her footwear several times. Sometimes she likes to walk around with just one shoe on. Her favorites are boots. Grandpa got her rain boots and cowboy boots, which she loves. She also likes to wear socks. Even on the hottest days, she will walk around the house in socks. I always tease her that she has stinky feet and she'll say to me, "Mommy, smell my stinky feet!"
Lexie has great fine motor skills. She loves to paint and color. I got her books so she can do some pre-writing practice where she has to draw lines around objects. She just amazes me at how controlled she is as she maneuvers the crayon around the page. She knows almost all capital and lower case letters, so we're working on the sounds. She counts up to 20 and recognizes numbers 0-10. She's learning to count backwards.
Lexie has learned her address and can say almost all of the numbers in my phone number. She knows our names and likes to know what everything is called. Sometimes she'll say, "What's the tree's name?" And I'll say, "Tree." and she'll just start laughing hysterically. She is hilarious when she laughs at jokes.
It's hard to believe it's been two years. We waited so long for you, yet these two years flew by in an instant. You make our heart super happy! Life is quite chaotic being your mommy and daddy, but we wouldn't have it any other way.
She is truly what the holidays is all about. This was her year of loving pumpkin pie and she ate the turkey for the first time.
