Firsts...

This week, we celebrate a few more "firsts". We had the fun of watching Junia "perform" in her first preschool Christmas show. Sitting there staring at my child through a camera lens with my husband in a parallel position next to me armed with a video camera (and Eden on his lap) while Junia waved during the song and yelled "Hi, Mommy! Hi, Daddy! Where's Eden?" felt very "parental" to say the least.



We also made Christmas cookies for the first time. It was a stretch for Type A Mommy (see previous post about this problem!) to just let the cookies look like kids made them, but I am proud to say that I kept myself from redoing them before we put them in the oven. We also got our first professional family pictures taken by a sweet friend of ours. The girls look beyond gorgeous - as usual. It must be my great genes! I can't wait to post these in a few days.



Another first was discovering, after Junia's first dentist appointment this week, that she will need to have a baby root canal (!) because of how worn and decayed the enamel is on one of her back teeth. Apparently, weakening of the enamel is a fairly common problem in kids that have been malnourished. This was something that I never even thought about - particularly because the girls are both doing so well physically now that they are home. It made me really sad to think about how many other children in Africa (and across the globe) have teeth that are literally rotting away because of lack of proper nutrition and dental care. For what we spent at Toys-R-Us this Christmas (thank God for good dental insurance), we will get her tooth fixed. But she is just one of so many - so many who need a Mommy and a Daddy to make sure they have warm coats and clean teeth and maybe even a tricycle. As always, I come back to the troubling question "But what about those who remain?" After having seen what we did in Africa, it is still so hard sometimes to just walk through the mall with cheezy Christmas muzak blasting in the background as I try to battle the crowds with my arms "burdened" with a few packages, toddler on one hip and green tea from Starbucks in my hand. It's hard not to feel shamed by the extravagence of what is my "normal" life here in the United States. As I think about Junia's tooth decay, in some ways it reminds me that our girls will always carry some "scars" from their past, some we see now and others we don't but may see later. It's hard as a parent to accept scars in your children's lives because they are physical evidence of hardships and adversity they may have faced. And yet, as one author pointed out, scars are reminders that you are one of the ones who lived...one of the survivors. Scars only form on bodies that are alive. And so, even a decaying tooth, is a reminder to me that my daughters are some of the brave children who have survived orphanhood and who march forward boldly (very boldly most days!) into each new day. And for that, I have great respect for my courageous little ladies and much gratitude to the God and selfless family who entrusted them to me.