In Which Connor Has A Birthday And We Got Our Big Phone Call

The Saddy Sicky Birthday Boy:
At Least There Was Chocolate Whipped Cream!

Yay!  Happy birthday to Connor!

Can you believe my kid is five?  I sure as heck can't.  It really doesn't seem like it's been five years since we got to meet our little guy for the first time.  Only now I guess he's not so much of a little guy anymore.  He's more of a big boy. 

Sigh.

Unfortunately the big boy started running a low-grade fever today and wasn't really able to do much celebrating.  We spent a quiet day at home watching a couple new birthday movies in between naps and seizures (he had five today).  Also he had a couple of bites of chocolate whipped cream, but he didn't really seem interested in it, which tells me he was feeling pretty punky.  He ended the evening snuggled up in Jeremy's lap.

Connor did enjoy the movies quite a bit as television watching is a very special treat for him, but as far as birthday celebrations go it didn't really seem like a very good one to me.  We'll reschedule his special family outing for another day when he's feeling better.

However, he did get really excited when I told him he'll be going to visit and ride Thunder again on Monday.  We'll be fitting him for a helmet on Sunday (since I have a roller derby bout to go cheer at tomorrow and won't have a whole lot of time for shopping) and hopefully he'll be fully recovered by then and ready to have a great time! 

Don't worry; I'll do my very best to get some good pictures of him riding for you all, though I'm not sure cuteness on that scale can be recorded without my camera exploding.

Even though the little guy wasn't feeling up to par the day ended on a high note; we got our call from the adoption agency with our update on Ellen!  When our adoption agency went to meet with her the orphanage workers immediately told her that she was being adopted by an American family-- which is something our agency and we weren't expecting at all-- and her whole face just lit up!  She was thrilled and asked to see pictures of us, which they were luckily able to pull out of our dossier (as we're way too early in the process for a photo album to have been sent over yet).  She thought we looked nice, is excited about the idea of having a little brother, said she's okay with cats (though she likes dogs better) and can't wait to travel to her new home. 

This is the best possible reaction from her we could have hoped for.  While Ellen will no doubt have a lot of conflicting emotions and will grieve leaving her home, school and friends behind, the fact that she wants to be adopted and is excited about coming to America will probably make her transition so much easier than if she was not interested in being adopted or was really against leaving her birth country. 

We were able to have a whole lot of questions about her answered, and the more we find out about her the neater the kid seems.  Turns out that she's already done a little bit of traveling internationally; she flew to China in 2010 for the Asian Paralympic games!  Apparently she's a really dedicated swimmer-- freestyle is her favorite stroke-- and she practices seven days a week.  She also studies the art of fencing. 

That's right-- we're adopting a kid who stabs people with swords as a hobby.  Jeremy, as you might imagine, couldn't be happier. 

We now have a bunch more little facts about her that are helping us get a better picture of the kind of young lady she is, and the more we learn the more we're convinced that she'll be a great fit for our family.  So hopefully in the next week we'll be receiving our updated pictures and translated documentation for her, which we're excited about seeing. 

We're so glad that we got great news!

~Jess