Last Year on July 19...

Last year on July 19 I had a very hard day.  The next day my baby girl was turning three.  Another birthday in an orphanage without a family.  I remember so well how my heart hurt at the thought!

This is what I wrote then:

Its the first birthday that little ones really get. With all of our children its always this huge deal. We count the days on the calendar. We make a paper count down chain. Its like a month long celebration and finally the day arrives and they are just sure they are actually bigger and stronger and faster because they are now three.


But what about when your baby is on the other side of the world in an orphanage? She doesn't know her birthday is coming. No one is counting the days with her. She can't tear a link off the chain every evening. She won't even know to feel bigger and stronger and faster. She won't know that now she is three.

What a difference a year makes!  We have already had two birthday parties.  I don't think she actually understands, but she does love the Happy Birthday song! 

Tomorrow we plan to go to New York City.  We will go to visit the people at Gladney who helped us bring her home.  In the evening we will meet Pat Marcus for supper.  We will give Eliana gifts and sing to her. I do not know if she will feel bigger and stronger, I don't know if she will understand that she is a year older.  But I do know that she will know that she is loved.