Beginning the New Normal with Great News

The best part of the last week or so was the visit to the pediatric cardiologist last Thursday who told us, after checkups, echocardiograms and ultrasounds, that we need not worry about either girl.  Lola can come back for a followup visit with her heart murmur in five years if she doesn't grow out of it first, and Opal only needs an annual visit because the hole in the valve in her heart is small.  He said nothing he heard or saw would impede her ability to grow or function and that was what we were hoping to hear.  She is healthy - they are healthy - and we can focus on assimilating at home full throttle now.  

I am not surprised because intuition told me so but it's so, so good to get it verified by an authority.

Last night Annabel went into my closet right before we put the girls to bed.  Opal and Lola are somewhere between one and two naps a day, that two-year-old place where children and parents are in a pergatory state.  Annabel and I were upstairs, watching them put our shoes on and play with Baby Jane and walk the hallway which must still feel new.  Annabel comes out of my closet in a Donna Karan wrap dress with long cotton black pants underneath  that she wore to her skate/swim camp today, and my new black patent pump with a four inch heel and she blew me away.  She is taller than Luke because a) that's the Livingston in her and b)she is a girl.  This is the age when kids accelerate and it's up to Mark and me to catch up and God that is hard and it's not going to get easier.  I love this girl so much.  She kills me.

This happens every time I try to get a shot with all four.  If anyone knows a good photographer for family photos please send their name my way, I can't keep torturing the twins, they sense what I'm trying to do.

She doesn't ask to jump in and help, she just does, not out of any obligation that I can sense, but because she wants to and loves these girls and enjoys playing this role.  We joke and notice what one does, and what the other does, and wonder about where they learned this or that.  Are they speaking Chinese or is this two year old babble, has been the conversation lately.

My feelings have been growing in different directions. For instance: Mark was with the girl in the early/midmorning on Saturday while I went to the gym and when I came back they had been fed and were playing.  When I walked in, they both showed me the biggest smiles and rushed me and gave me big hugs.  That put my experience as an adoptive parent on a different level.  I was so happy.  

Since then, they have needed me and asked for me but I wait for the spontaneous joy I felt three days ago. It's happening, just sporadically.  It's only been 3 weeks and 3 days that we have been together, I tell myself, but ye gods that feels like we've always had them.  When you are in a hotel room for two weeks with toddlers, you bond.  You bond! I am patient.  

They are happy girls.  Just don't try to stage a family picture on their watch.

Mocking Zeke from his bed that they've turned into their chaise.  He's a good sport though and lies down next to them.