Our Liliana Grace MinQin Swindler the day after we "got" her.Wow, just a little under two years ago we were preparing to travel to China for the second time to bring home our little girl, Liliana. The story of how we had come to this point is a miracle within itself and one I told so many I was going to write about soon, and soon became well, a long time ago. Maybe someday...soon. Anyway, it is hard to believe that we have had her to hold and comfort and tickle and feed and change and cry with and everything else you can imagine for almost two whole years.
Lili is such an interesting little person. She has such a wonderful personality full of drama and emotion full of drama. She can't just say something, it has to be dramatic and full of emotion. She loves this way too. When she hugs, she really hugs. When she kisses, she has to land right on target or she will hold your cheeks to make sure she does. What ever she does, it is full of intention and not necessarily thought out to the end but nonetheless, done with full emotion and you guessed it. DRAMA
Our little beauty a few days after we adopted her.Her relationship to us began that way, she would cry forever. We of course thought it was because of well, the adoption, separation from familiar surroundings etc. We looked for whatever way we could to understand and appease and comfort and finally just had to admit that we didn't know why but we would just have to let her cry. It used to kill me. It made me so mad that I could not find a way to "fix" it.
Look at that face. A wonderful personality to go with it too.It has helped me to understand a bit more the serenity prayer of accepting the things I cannot change. The courage to change the things I can and most importantly, the wisdom to know the difference. Knowing that "fixing" everything is not my "to do" list is a freeing feeling. My little girls have helped me a lot in that area of life. They are such a blessing.
Just as every child changes the lives of those around them, Lili has changed ours. Sometimes in subtle ways, sometimes in major ways but always in the end in a blessed way. I am confident that this is what my Father had planned before He laid the foundation of the earth. His ability to work things out still amazes me even though I know He can, my impatience usually gets the best of me and I forget how much He loves me. He continues to try and help me learn each day as I grow to love my wife and my girls even more than I did the day before.
My little astronauts, showing off their Endeavor t-shirts.
When I travelled with the band and sang for a living, or should I say for an existence, we used to sing this song, "I love you more today than yesterday". We probably did it hundreds of times and it got to be old, so old but at the time I did not understand the deep meaning in the lyric. Now as I sing it to my girls sometimes it makes so much sense. It is a love song of course and some of the lyrics say "I love you more today than yesterday, but not as much as tomorrow".
Such loving devoted sisters. (but they can be mean to each other too)
As each day comes and goes, I can't imagine that to be true, but I find it is. Somehow my heart must be made of similar material as the Grinch's whose heart was able to grow. Mine grows each day albeit just a small amount, to hold the love I find growing for my family, day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment.
And then somebody pisses me off ...
and well... ;-)
Just teasing. Nobody reads this anyway.
When Lili is old enough to understand my sarcasm she will laugh. A lot.
Love,
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