Meet My First-Born Son. And Meet My Other.

Sometimes I get a good chuckle when I consider that I am the mother of two first-born sons. Come again? What's the likelihood of that?

You know the common stereotypes about birth order: Child #1 is motivated and bossy. #2 is both conciliatory and competetive, perhaps a rebel. #3 alternates between being an even-keeled crusader and an insecure left-out. #4 is a risk-taking dreamer who may be spoiled.

According to an article in Time Magazine, some additional distinctives of first born children include greater intelligence, an increase in height, better healthcare, and higher salaries than their subsequent siblings. Considering the unusual circumstance of both being firstborn, I wonder how much Andrew and William's firstborn identities will have an impact. To what extent will biology trump environment?

I tend to think that most of the birthorder stereotypes are environmentally driven rather than the result of genetics. Already, I find that I expect much more of Andrew simply because he is older and "should know better." Could my expectations eventually motivate him to grow into a leader? Perhaps. Will I go lax on William because he is the youngest child whom I'll want to baby continually? I hope not, but I've seen it happen repeatedly in families I've observed and realize I am not immune to the weaker tendencies of the human heart.

(Incidentally, William's adoptive status may also make me want to spoil him. According to research, many adoptive parents tend to lavish just a bit more attention on their children than biological parents. After waiting so long for their kids - in some cases, enduring the agony of infertility - and after pursuing the adoption with such purpose and having to make such proactive efforts to forge a bond, spoiling can sometimes be a side effect.)

For now, stereotypes be dashed. William appears to be going toe for toe with Andrew when it comes to both smarts and height at his age. He may even be a little taller than Andrew was at one year old. Considering he has a very tall birthgrandmother whom he resembles, he may eventually win that race. As for motivation, well, it can be hard to stop William from going after what he wants, especially when that something is food that has fallen on the floor. (Ask me sometime about the pasta salad that I spilled all over the floor this afternoon.) And as for being wealthier? If the fortune cookies have anything to do with it, Andrew will be asking William for a loan one day.

So, nature or nurture? In the end, only time will tell. I surely can't.

Death by Peekaboo and Other Tales

Here's a sample of what's been going on in William World lately:

- William has begun cruising along furniture. It's slow going, but it's a start towards walking. He is also beginning to get the hang of walking when held by one hand.

- Sadly, he has also figured out how to climb stairs and is drawn to them like a pig to mud. We've now got so many gates by our stairs that getting upstairs to grab that one thing we forgot is harder than trying to break and enter the Oval Office.

- It's all Mommy Dearest lately. I'm trying to take it as a sign of healthy attachment that William has a strong preference for me nowadays. Other people can hold him, but woe if he sees me. It's his cue to stretch those chubby arms outwards, to screw up his little face, and to begin the pleading whine. Ergo baby carrier, work your magic!

- Just 5 more days and William turns 1 year old! Wahhh... I can't technically call him a baby anymore.

- And finally, oh, that peekaboo... Andrew received a Cranium fort builder set for his birthday (on clearance now at Toys 'R Us for $21.00!). Not only does it keep Gege happily occupied, it provides an excellent place for Didi to play his favorite game. If you never thought a round of peekaboo could kill someone with laughter, you haven't met William. I thought I was going to have to call 911 the first couple of times. He's not cracking up anywhere as hard as he initially was, but you get the idea in the video below.

The First Decade

Today marks our tenth wedding anniversary. On July 11, 1998, Craig and I said "I do" in New York City and locked ourselves into a lifelong commitment to love, serve, and protect the other.

In an era of rocky relationships and uncertain marriages, I am especially thankful to have married a man who remains as mature, dependable, funny, and integrous as he did ten years ago. Here's to many, many more years, Bear. Together, may we wind up wizened and wheezy as we creak away on our front porch rocking chairs.

(By the way, I Googled "traditional wedding gifts" and found that one decade of marriage only garners a gift of tin. Tin? As ceremony goes, it's just one level up from a chunk of concrete. That being said, you may now send your scraps of tin to the following address...)

Addendum: Thanks to everyone for the well-wishes. I did not receive a gift of tin, thankfully. What I did receive was much more sparkly, heh, heh, heh.

As Craig and I were leaving to go out for a dinner date, Andrew wished me a "Happy Universary!" and told me, "You look nice in your costume." (I was wearing a black dress with pearls). I'll take this to mean I need to dress up more often.

Monkey Turns 5

The best big brother in the world turns 5 years old today. We love you, Andrew, and thank God for the blessing you are. We admire your gentle heart, your matchless exuberance, your super silliness, and lately, the love you have expressed for Jesus. Happy birthday, Special Monkey.

Good News Worth Getting Locked Out For

Having been locked outside of our home for one hot, muggy hour today with two young children, I was relieved to come inside and be deluged with good news from several St. Lucy's families.

Jackie, Lucy's mom, just received word that her daughter's adoption case is finally on the verge of entering the court system. In a unique and trying twist, they waited 9 1/2 months for closure on Lucy's guardianship case. Their whole family deserves a medal for tremendous endurance.

Tiffanie received a first decree on the adoption of her daughter, Gracyn and will likely receive a travel date soon. At this rate, Gracyn should be home to celebrate her second birthday.

After 5 weeks of uncertainty, Sarah W. and K.B. finally received approval from St. Lucy's to adopt their children, Hannah Claire and Andrew. Their cases will soon enter the courts for what will hopefully be a shorter wait than the typical 3-6 months.

All of this comes on top of Marina and Lora's big news. They finally met their daughters, Sarah and Allie this week at St. Lucy's.

Need I say it's fantastic to see so many of William's roomates making such great progress towards coming home?

One Year Old and All Is Well

We've been a bit occupied here in the K. household. Free time, which constitutes the hours of 8:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m., has been occupied with pulling together an update package for William's birthmom. We plan to send it shortly after his first birthday on July 19th.

Although she only requested a pictorial update on each birthday, I want to do everything I humanly can to fill in the gaps for her and to reassure her that William is happy, thriving, and well-cared for. In short, I'm doing what I'd want someone else to do for me if I had just permanently handed over my baby to a family I didn't know. Considering the overwhelming emotional toll she has had to endure, something tells me that my best efforts will always fall short of satisfying her need for assurance.

Nonetheless, I've tried. There is first and foremost the very long letter. I stuck my poor parents with the gnarly task of translating all four, single-spaced pages. On them are details on everything imaginable. There are the mundane facts about his food preferences and sleeping habits to anecdotes about his peeing on the doctor and how the sound of flip flops slapping on the ground makes him laugh hysterically. Hopefully she'll read the letter and see glimpses of herself in the child he has become. Hopefully those connections will bring a smile to her face.

I've also compiled a photobook for her that currently has 55 pages of pictures. I'm not finished yet. (You can never have too many photos, right?) The pages will span the period from when she first held William at St. Lucy's all the way up to his first birthday party and baptism, to be celebrated on July 26th and 27th respectively. If I can get my act together in time, I'm also planning on including a short video.

Finally, we'll be sending over a set of questions we hope she will answer. While we did get responses from her to the first set of questions we sent last December, we have no answers for the second set we sent over soon before we traveled to Taiwan. She had made her last visit to St. Lucy's just a week before the questions arrived.

Needless to say, we really hope to get some responses this time. I fear that the answers may be harder to obtain as more time passes. While we really hope that William's birthmom will want to keep in contact with him throughout his life - if he also desires contact - we know this is something we can't necessarily expect.

For now, it's up to us to keep the trail of information "hot" on his behalf. We have what appears to be her address and phone number and it would be so easy and tempting to just pick up the phone and call her... but to do so would be to breach her privacy in a very serious way. We are then left with the tin can telephone route of contacting each other through St. Lucy's, then through our agency, which is better than nothing. At the end of the day, we have to be grateful that a) William still has a birthmother and b) unlike in many international adoption cases, we could probably contact her if the situation warranted it.

But I digress. St. Lucy's staff, if you're out there in cyberspace and reading this, please be on the lookout for a package from us. It comes with all of our fondest wishes, respect, and gratitude for William's birthmom, as well as a big hug and kiss for her from everyone's favorite one year-old-to-be.

Walk on the Wild Side

"Hey, Babe... Take a walk on the wild side."

Lou Reed's words echoed in my head as the boys and I meandered through a local zoo yesterday morning. William was very interested in gazing at all the animals, or at least what he could see of them through the wire and wooden barriers. He even got to feed a piece of an ice cream cone (provided by the zoo) to a goat in the petting barn.

Unfortunately, I didn't get many good pictures of him next to the animals except for this one of him trying to grab at a prickly, miniature hedgehog. There's a reason the handler is wearing thick gloves, dear child.