If you happen to stop by our house any time in the next 9 months you might notice that the calendar is permanently set on August 2015. You will probably wonder why on earth August? But if you take a step back and look…you will see the bright eyes and smiling face of “Mr August” and the answer will become apparent.
One can find those same bright eyes and smiling face hanging on my walls, and his face is seen and thought of in our prayers each night. Yet he’s not home yet. Yes Edric JoonSoo was chosen to be Mr August for the Korean Adoption Agencies annual calendar and this momma couldn’t be prouder, unless he was here looking at the photo with me.
Both boys knew right away when they saw the photo, Caedmon in his 2 1/2 year speech said “Dat’s Edric” and smiled proudly. They both ask me when he will be home, and I answer time and time again, “I don’t know” and then say to myself “but I so wish I did”.
I can’t publicly post his photo anywhere but I promise you each month when those photos arrive in my in-box I quickly text them out to my close friends and family. And then wait again for another 30 days to pass so that I can again see 3 brief snap shots of him. So often I wish I could even just get a little communication back and forth about what his days are like and what his personality is blossoming into. We periodically get little “progress reports” that say things like “he can stack 3 blocks on top of each other” and “he can go up and down the stairs with support”, but I want to know more. Often the photos are slightly blurred, and having two other boys I know exactly why, he like his two older brothers, won’t stay still long enough to get a decent shot. Instead of being annoyed that my brief glimpse of his life isn’t perfect, I try to remember that. It was funny last month looking at his photo, he was clearly not in the best of moods (as best as I can figure from the 3 shots) and his face and expression clearly said “Seriously you sent me a toothbrush?” as he sat surrounded by his latest package. Likely at 18 months it wasn’t the toothbrush that he was bothered by, but was he hungry? Did he miss his nap? Did the subway ride in bother him? Was he annoyed by the cute puffy vest that he was wearing? I wish I knew and I wish I knew the answers to those questions everyday.
And so it’ll be August in our house for the next number of months. While I hope and pray that his feet are running down the hallway by August of 2015, I am also acutely aware that it may not be so and so the calendar will stay there until those feet are running down the hallway and his giggles are filling the air.
Hiking Mommy 