My Little Man

As many of you know, we had a foster placement of a 2Y girl a week or so ago. She is a beautiful child and transitioned so well into our home and lives. N8 is so excited to have a sibling that lives with us. They get along so well together and are only about 10 months apart in age. She adores N8 and gets upset when she's separated from him. However, she is fine at daycare. She took right to it and loves her teacher. She turns 3 at the end of next month and will move into the same room as N8. They'll be together for about 3 months or so. we learned last week that we will be able to adopt her in about 6 months. We are all very happy about this. Since she joined our family, I can see such maturing in N8. He's very protective of her, but also good about helping her follow house rules and learn her boundaries. I was so moved when he reached out to her when I put her into the van for our first ride home and he held her hand the whole way. He really made her feel welcome and she just loves him. Of course, there is the general sibling rivalry regarding toys, etc. I'm not sure if some of this is because I can compare him to another child or not, but there certainly is no mistaking my little man is growing up. I love him so, but I also really like him. He's one of my very best friends and seeing how much heart he has makes me love him all the more.

Olympics

Nate really enjoyed watching the Olympics - we all did. We'd really get into rooting for the American athletes - especially Shawn Johnson since she's a hometown girl and goes to the same high school I did. Of course...Michael Phelps too. Nate learned to recognize the American flag and now points it out everywhere we go. I discovered he also recognized something else. I don't think he'd ever noticed race or color before - people were just people - which is beautiful. But he must have noticed the differences of all the people on TV and because it was in China, he heard and saw a lot about the Chinese. Well, the other day we ordered Chinese food and when the doorbell rang, Nate ran to the door with Daddy. As the door opened and Nate caught a glimpse of the delivery man, he said, "He's from Chinese! Go USA!" The delivery man smiled and said, "Yes! Go USA!"

Good Thinking

We had been talking about adopting another child. It is different now because of Nate. We have to really take his feelings into consideration. He has really been wanting a sibling that lives with us. So I was talking with him about it the other night and was asking him some open-ended questions. I asked him what he thought would be good about having a brother or sister. He thought for quite awhile then said they could play with me. I agreed that would be good. Then he said, "Hey, I know - they could pick up my toys!" Now that's pretty good thinking!

Second Language

We were watching TV the other day and a commercial for Muzzy's Kids came on. It's the one about teaching kids foreign languages by watching videos of a cartoon character. I commented that I would like N8 to learn a second or third language. Of course, he knows how to count to ten in Spanish and he knows a few sign language gestures, but nothing fluent. Matt said he thought it would be a good idea too. N8 didn't say anything, but got up and as he was walking out of the room retorted over his shoulder, "ixnay". I thought I was going to wet my pants I was laughing so hard. He has such comedic timing! I told him in no uncertain terms that Pig Latin was not going to be an option!

God knew your name

I was putting Nate to bed last night and I glanced up at his wall and saw his baptism picture. The theme for his baptism was "Before the light of day shined on your little face, God knew your name." That got me thinking about the project Nate brought home from school about how he got his name. Parents need to write down how their child got their name. The funny thing is that Matt & I can make it a quick sentence that says it's the name he came with. Kinda like the pre-named dolls you buy in a store. But, that wouldn't be the whole story and it wouldn't be fair to Nate if we didn't write about how special his name really is. True, he did come with the name Nathan. It's not a name we we had on our baby name list when we were trying to conceive a child, but we actually liked it and it fit him. Plus, after calling him Nathan for 2 years we thought it would be confusing to suddenly change his name after his adoption. Of course, it was awesome that his last name was now the same as ours, but where does the special come in? You guessed it...his middle name. There was a lot of love that went into his middle name. While we were picking out names - before the light of day shined on his little face - we were at a loss how we could name a child after 2 special grandmas. Matt was very close to his Grandma Nonny, whose name was Valborg and my Grandma whose name was Edna. Surprise - not 2 names you would normally bestow on a child. My Grandma always said to please not name a child after her because she hated her own name. However, in my heart I knew it would mean the world to her and I had said I would even just consider using the middle initial of E only & she would know. Several months before she died, she said to me that she had been thinking about it and thought she had come up with a name that would work for either gender and would encompass both Grandma's names. She said Valdane. Val for Valborg and Dane for Edna - same letters, just scrambled. I liked it and so did Matt. A few months later she passed - 1/6/05. Little did I know at her viewing, 1/10/05 that the light of day had shined on my son's face. I didn't know him, but God did and he already knew his name. Yes this still makes me cry too - so if tears are rolling down your face while you read this, know you are not alone. So, 6 months later Nate was placed with us. After learning he was born that day and feeling like he was so connected with her, how could we not give him the name Valdane? It seemed so fitting. Grandma had been asking if I knew about the baby or if Matt knew about the baby days before she died and it will always make me wonder if she didn't know already. So, his name is Nathan Valdane. His initials are NVS - which makes me smile because is sounds like envious...and wouldn't any child be envious to have a name as special as his? God really knew his name before the light of day shined on his little face and he moved quite a few people to make sure that became his name on Earth.