So, it was pointed out to us (thanks Greg) that we’re incredibly lax on the updates of late. Our apologies on that one. Somewhere in the middle of the daily life of searching for pacifiers, mixing bottles of formula, throwing yet another load of spewed on laundry in the washer, and generally collapsing in exhaustion when we finally get both kids settled in for the night, we forget that there is a world of people outside these four walls that care about us (apparently) and about knowing how we’re doing and how the adoption is going.

It really isn’t as bad as that paragraph makes it sound. We’ve just been through a rather hard week (which capped off a rather difficult month) in which we have been taking turns getting sick. The 24-hour bug hit us this past week… and this was after we have been struggling with various colds and stomach bugs from Dante for the past several months. Hopefully, the worst is now behind us and with spring coming and the ability to open up the house just around the corner, we’ll be able to defeat these germs.

As for the adoption: well, the petition for a court date is filed and now we continue to wait. Sometime in the next couple months we can expect a Thursday in court to mark the finalization of the adoption of our sweet little daughter. We don’t have a date yet, but when we get it, we’ll let you all know.

The little angel is now four months old and growing so fast. She rolled over for the first time last night all by herself. She has recently started exploring a world of flavors (I thought it was early too, but doc said go for it!), and seems to like bananas just fine, but the jury’s still out on carrots. Much to our surprise, it looks like she may be working on a tooth or two already. She’s drooling and chomping on her fist non-stop and she seems really bothered by random pain from time to time.

The kids are both great linguists already. The little man is using 4 and 5 syllable words with alarming regularity and recently read a Peanuts cartoon to Nana (with the word imagine in it and no hesitation –!–). He reads whatever he can get his hands on and lately has started making up his own words, telling me he is singing in various languages (including “gerpanese” which I can only assume to be a cross between Japanese and German). He is learning sign language and Spanish and one of his best friend’s mothers is from Ecuador so he loves listening to her talk. Zoë is babbling incessantly as well, and I can only assume that she is trying to keep up with her brother (and mother for that matter — poor daddy will never get a word in edgewise). She’s developing several new syllables in her vocabulary as well.

So, it looks like it’s a good thing that I’ve decided to take a month’s leave from work. A chance to work on the great “Burkholder Ultimate Reorganization Project” or “BURP” as Jeff calls it. 🙂 A chance to catch up on the things about life that I love — which includes my family and my creative sides… I just hope a month is enough time to catch up! 😀

–Nean