Friday wrap-up

This has been a truly strange week. Very weird at work, knowing my job is changing and my hours being cut the first of the month.

Today we had to call two ambulances for patients to be transported to the hospital. That's a record. It's always disturbing to me.

Excited - as we're going on vacation a week from tomorrow!!!! w00t! I love that my kids' school is closed the entire last week of February.

Letters...I have to write letters.

One is fun: the child I'm now sponsoring through Compassion International. That's a good one.

Another is interesting: I'm writing to Loren Maazel of the New York Philharmonic. He studied under one of my uncles, and I'm going to ask him if he has any memories or anecdotes.

And the last one is easy. No, hard. Let's say confusing, okay? I got a phone call the other day from our local adoptive parent liaison. My daughter's birth mother showed up at CPS looking for information. She wanted to know if I'd write a letter and send photos.

Of course I will. She must think of my little princess every day. Wondering how she is, what she looks like, if she knows about her. It's the least I can do as a mother to reassure her. To let her know our little girl is happy, and healthy, and loved beyond measure.

I'm kind of freaked out about sending pictures. I never met the princess' mother; I don't know what she looks like. She lives here in town. I'm a bit worried that we might run into her at Walmart or something and she'd catch us off guard. But that's not too big a worry....I could deal with it.

Part of me wants to say this: Yes, she is happy. She loves to dance and sing, to read, to swim. She's healthy - rarely gets a cold or flu, and has only had one serious illness. But she does have challenges that you can't see. She struggles with learning, with coordination, with focus, with impulse control. She has horrible teeth, and got her first three fillings at the age of three. She had six months of hideously painful physical therapy when she was only an infant. And all these things happened for two reasons, interrelated.

Because my daughter's birthmother used meth throughout her entire pregnancy, and therefore received absolutely no prenatal care (because, of course, she was afraid of getting caught).

But I'll tell her that she's learning to do handstands, loves the color pink and all kinds of berries. That she eats tomatoes as though they were candy.

And that we pray for her birthmother nearly every night.