Adopted

"I adopted"

While we were in Colorado, Avery said, "I adopted" for the first time.  It was out of the blue.  I hadn't mentioned adoption in quite some time.  We don't avoid the topic, obviously; I'm just noting it wasn't a topic of conversation in the previous days.  She said it again while we were driving back from visiting my brother and his family in Wyoming.  Then she asked to hear the story.  I've told her the story of how we became a family probably ten times in her life, mostly while walking the dogs.  So I told her the story again.  She was in her car seat and hugged herself tightly at the end with a big smile on her face.  I know as she gets older, and we talk about the subject of her adoption, that smile won't necessarily always be there.  That's difficult for me to think about, for Avery's sake, not for mine.

It hit me with a thud when she said it, not because of the topic, but because it was a sudden realization that she's becoming aware of the concept.  Am I prepared to answer all of her questions, and to specifically talk her adoption?  I think so.  We talk about adoption a fair amount, not as it relates to Avery, but in general.  We also talk about her birth family a lot.  Typing that sentence made me realize I needed to reach out to Nikki again, so I just sent her a long email with dates we are available for a visit.  Nikki has started working, so she doesn't have as much free time.  She does get on Facebook occasionally, so that is another way we can stay in touch.

Much Better Reentry

You know how I always lament how difficult it is for me to return from vacation?  Not this time!  I had zero reentry problems.  I think the main difference was that Avery went to school yesterday, giving me the chance to get all of our stuff unpacked and get the house back into a state of clean such that we can get back on our routine. 

Dogs

Rachele's dad watched the dogs for us while both the G's and we were in Colorado (grammar experts: did I get the grammar correct in that sentence?  I'm curious, but unsure.  I know I could word it better, but is it grammatically correct?)  He made this great video of their stay at his house. 

Search in blog

I don't have this blog listed publicly.  I don't mind that some people read it whom I don't know personally, having clicked over from the blogs of various friends, but I don't see the point in listing it publicly, especially since it's such a daily log blog.  Anyway, Blogger has this bug where if you don't list your blog publicly, the search functionality for the blog doesn't work.  It used to, but has been broken for a couple of years now.  I often use my blog to look up when something happened with Avery or other things, so not having this search functionality work sucks.  However, today I discovered that if I use the search functionality on the Edit Posts page, it works great!

New labs in gmail: preview and label hierarchy

For those who use gmail, they released two new labs that I particularly like.  First, you can install message preview that shows a preview of a message you right click on.  Handy.

Second, you can install the ability to create a label hierarchy.  Sweet!