Celebrations and Drama!

It's been quite a whirlwind the past several weeks: planned and had Sahara's 5th Princess Birthday Party, started Kindergarten [not me...Sahara], got word that Ayantu was moved to a different branch of the orphanage she is in [she's now under full care and control with our adoption agency], planning for a special Birthday party/1 year Cancer free celebration for my Mom, and last but not least just heard from our agency that a very important document for our case will expire soon [nothing that endangers our case...just more drama and work to get the document renewed].

Whew!

I would never be able to do justice at summarizing Sahara's 5th Birthday party. Thanks to our friend, the 1eyedmonkee, we don't have to. I'm going to leave this post with a copy of our friends post to her blog processing the big event...it's hilarious...and all true! :)

"We arrived fashionably late and missed the Grand Entrance. She was already seated front and center, adorned in full Princess Aurora attire (i.e. Sleeping Beauty). It was obvious by the look on her face, she was having an out of body experience. She WAS Princess Aurora and we all just happened to be gathered on a lovely end-of-summer evening to celebrate her life.

As she sat enthroned in a balloon laden patio chair, her grandmother-acting as a minion- presented her with each bedazzled gift. Being the well-bred princess that she is, her eyes would scan the crowd for each gift giver, making eye contact and thanking them with a nod of her chin and a slow lowering of the eyelashes.

Just when it seemed that nothing else could phase her, the phone rang. We chattering woodland creatures were hushed by a wave of her hand. On the speaker phone we heard the voice of one of her other sister sovereigns (Snow White to be exact) wishing her a Happy Birthday and calling her by name. Her incredulous face and back-of-the-hand-pressed-to-the-forehead gesture was more than I could take. It was true…there is still magic.

Five years ago when she was born she had to spend some tenuous time in the neonatal unit. When we went up to the hospital to give her mom and dad a hug, I remember feeling sick to my stomach as we stepped on to that particular elevator. Just 1 year earlier, it had been the same elevator we had used to get to the floor where Best Boy lay fighting for his life.

Multiple times a day as I would go up and down, I’d share that space with new parents whose babies were just entering the fray of life. Some where having a time of it and it was obvious by the dark circles and deep wrinkles around sleepless eyes. My mind was always always asking the question, “Is it better to struggle at the beginning of life or is it harder when you’d conquered all the childhood diseases, you had 22 years of smooth sailing behind you and suddenly found yourself perched on the precipice between life and death?” There is no answer for that question. As parents I’m not sure we are ever prepared for watching our kids struggle physically or emotionally.

Watching the eyes of her grandfather sparkle as she ran over to wrap her arms around him, thanking him for the gift of swimming lessons – she turned to the crowd and in very un-princessly fashion gave a double handed fist pump. The well oiled, time proven Disney machine doing what it does so well. Making us step out of the muck of life for a few short minutes to be whisked away to lands where dreams do come true. Now 6 years later – I feel the magic again in so many ways. There she is living the Disney dream for just a day while Best Boy is embarking on his own version of “happily ever after” in LA and we are just weeks away from welcoming our 1st gbaby.

Some of birthday girl’s magic rubbed off on the Dr. for sure. We were asked to register our guess of how many circus peanuts (haven’t seen those in YEARS) were in the jar. He whispered, “64″ and I said, “Can’t be…see how there are 20 on this side alone and the jar has 4 sides…so at least 80.” So he asked that I register his official guess as 84. Guess who won the Starbucks’ gift card!! His only lament was that he’d used all the good juju on a free cup of coffee and now I’d never win the Megamillions.

But alas, I choose another path. One where I don’t stop believin’…good things can happen, dreams come true and drummers in rock bands don’t dress like this anymore. To Journey…"