Happy Welcome Home Day, Noah!

Happy Welcome Home Day, Noah!

I can't believe it's been two years since you officially joined our family. (You were in our hearts for much longer, little man!) Looking back, it's been an amazing experience... and we're still just getting started!

I can't believe how little you were (and we all thought you were so big!) You've gotten so big and learned so much and taught us so much in two short years.

Enjoy your cake today, even if you don't quite understand why you're getting it. (You're so much like your mother; never question chocolate, just devour it!) 

Happy Welcome Home Day, son! Mommy & Daddy love you more than you will ever know.

"It Must Be Genetic", Except that it Isn't

So my husband has always had difficulty keeping bugs, flies, bees, sand, (you name it!) out of his eyes and lungs. As a young man, it was exponentially worse than it is right now. Things would make their way into his eyes in the most unlikely ways.

One time he was riding his motorcycle (complete with full face helmet, vents CLOSED), when a bug somehow flew up under his chinstrap and got trapped in the helmet. The insect got mad and somehow buzzed its way into Kevin's eye. 

Another time he was out rollerblading and a bug (perhaps a small moth? We're not really sure) made it way into Kevin's mouth, down his windpipe, and into his lungs. I asked if he was rollerblading with his mouth open, and all I got was a filthy look. Apparently not.

The worst event happened out of the blue - quite literally, in fact. Kevin was walking up the driveway of our friends' house when a housefly flew directly into his eye. 

Yup. A housefly. After the attack, Kevin made his way to the front door, rang the bell, and waited for his friend to answer. I wasn't there to witness this one, but as the story goes, Kevin stumbled to the closest mirror, and tried desperately to remove the offending fly from his eye.

You'd think removing a housefly would be easy. It's not exactly tiny. But, no luck. The little bugger crawled up Kevin's eyeball and hid out way back in his eye socket. Kevin panicked. He could FEEL the fly squirming around in there, but could no longer SEE it and could definitely not reach it by himself.

I got a phone call about five minutes later from my friend Amanda. She was laughing hysterically and could barely spit out "Don't WORRY, but we're taking Kevin to the hospital!" I was momentarily panicked until she explained it was due to yet another fly-in-the-eye.

At the emergency room, the clerk at the registration desk laughed so hard she fell off her chair. The triage nurse accused him of abusing the medical system, but Kevin insisted on being seen.

Sparing you the gross details, suffice it to say it took an extra long q-tip and a very compassionate (although equally amused) emergency room doctor to remove the housefly from Kevin's eye.


You might be wondering... what on earth does this have to do with adoption? Actually, plenty. You see, it seems our son has somehow -- inexplicably -- inherited his father's predisposition for getting stuff caught in his eye. 

Kevin started it, of course. We were playing volleyball at Spanish Banks yesterday afternoon, with Noah merrily digging in the sand beside the courts. After a particularly nice dive, Kevin's hand flew up to his face... the culprit, this time, was a nice dose of sand in the eye.

The game was paused while Kevin went off in search of more water to rinse the offending grains out of his eye. Declining help (removing objects from his eye is routine business, you see), Noah and I stayed and played quietly in the sand. I looked up for one second before Noah let out a piercing howl.

"MOMMY! I got SAND in mine eye!" he cried. So, off to the car we went where I watched my two boys struggle at the same time with sand in their respective eyes.

"It must be genetic," someone laughed when we returned, eyes cleared, to the court. I laughed. Yup. It must be... except that it isn't!