2nd Referraversary

Two years ago today, we got the word that we would have the enormous privilege of raising this little boy:


We were ecstatic. Totally over the moon in love with that pudgy little face, the rolly thighs, the doe eyes, the shiny head. We started imagining Sidamo in our lives, in our arms, in our home. We printed out a big picture of him, put it in a frame, and put it on our kitchen table so we could get a feel for what our family meals would be like when we brought him home. I washed, folded, and refolded all the clothes we'd been handed down, imagining a 3-dimensional Sidamo filling them. The scent of the laundry detergent we used then (we've since switched) still evokes memories of Sidamo, which is weird since I hadn't met him yet.

And now, two years later, it's hard to imagine a time when I only knew this sweet little man as a picture and a stack of paperwork. Just the other day, I was recalling something that happened about five years ago, and Sidamo was in the memory—as vivid a figure as those of us who really were there. He's totally and completely infiltrated every aspect of my being. And I mean that in a good way.

I'm not sure when it started feeling this way, but it wasn't immediate. Nowhere near. I remember as late as a year ago hearing other adoptive moms (or moms in general) talk about how they couldn't remember a time before their kids, and I thought they were either a) total saps, or b) full of shit. But something has shifted in the past year. I've always loved Sidamo, from the first time I set eyes on his little mug, but I don't know when it was that I began feeling like this—like we're fully integrated into each other. The feeling is indescribable, and I now know that those moms may have been saps, but they were telling the truth.

Sidamo is equally enamored of Baby Sidamo, as you can see here:


And, more animatedly, here:

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For comparison's sake, here's our first referraversary post.