Mercies of the Morning

I cannot seem to get these verses out of my head today..."Because of the Lord's faithful love we do not perish, for his mercies never end.  They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness!"  Lamentations 3:22-23

You see, I slept pretty poorly last night.  It wasn't me though.  I rarely ever have trouble sleeping, even when I used to work 3rd shift.  For some reason (that we are hoping isn't an ear infection recurrence) Madelyn was awake from about 12:15 to close to 2am.  This is so very unlike her, but never the less it left me feeling like I had been beaten up by a 14 month old during the night last night.  I was determined not to let it dampen my
sunshine-y day, though.  I knew I could survive on a half pot of coffee until morning nap time :)  We proceeded with breakfast and diaper changes, and then I grabbed my iPhone to quickly glance at emails.  Imagine my surprise to discover an email entitled "Mao Xin Mang's birthday pictures!!!!!!"  (yes, that many exclamation points)

Back in March, before Brennan's birthday, I had contacted the wonderful ladies of http://ladybugsnlove.com/ to see if they could help us with getting a birthday cake to our sweet boy.  They were so gracious and agreed to help make this happen.  It really meant a lot to us because it is difficult to know that your child is having a birthday but you can't be there to celebrate with him.  It is also highly possible that Brennan had seen other children in his orphanage with forever families be sent birthday cakes, but that he had never had been given his own birthday cake.  So that fact made it special as well, we got to be the ones to bestow this "first" to him!

 
So, in the States we have these traditional "first birthday" parties for our kids.  We plan them to be so special and we take lots of pictures and hope the kid will destroy the cake a be covered in icing, right?!?  That is a part of what these pictures symbolize for me.  I am so thankful for these nannies who have given not only Scott and me the treasure of these photos of Brennan's (probable) first real birthday celebration, but who also made Brennan feel so special and treasured on his fourth birthday.  (just a side note, Brennan is wearing an outfit in the photos that we sent to him for his birthday :)

Now as if that email didn't just make my morning and leave me feeling like I was on "cloud 9", it got even better!  Just like the verse says, "His mercies never end".

This afternoon I once again glanced quickly at email and saw a message from our agency social worker entitled "Update".  Hmmmm...what in the world did that mean?  Well, I also had sent a care package back in March, via our agency, and I had enclosed a list of 10 questions to help us better "get to know" Brennan.  The update was answers to our questions!!!

What we learned about him from the answers given is the following:  he likes toy cars (SCORE, I sent two in the care package!!), blocks, balls, riding in a car swing, playing in the sand, and walking on a little balance beam outside.  He also is happy when he's eating snacks and playing outside.  He does not know his colors so he doesn't have a favorite color, and he likes cakes and meat (we'll have to work on the fruits and veggies part).  Brennan is afraid of loud sounds, and he weighs 28 lbs and is 2ft 8.7in tall.  (He is 5 inches shorter than Ben and weighs 5 pounds less than Ben).

The last answer was what sent me back into a weepy mess again, though.  We (nervously) wanted to know what he thought about getting a family, and this was the answer: "when he was told that he would have a daddy and mummy, he was very happy, he took the gifts which from the daddy and mummy, then he shared them with the other children, he was very happy when he was told that he would have siblings, he sees their (family's) photos every day."

Words cannot even really adequately describe how wonderful; what a TREMENDOUS blessing this update is!  I am so excited for he and Ben to be brothers (and most likely similar to being twins in size and development).  It seems their little personalities are already very similar.

I am also so excited that our social worker will be leaving tomorrow to travel to Ch*na to visit some of the orphanages Lifeline Children's Services is going to be partnering with, and she will be visiting Brennan's orphanage in Mao Ming City during her visit.  She is going to be able to see our boy and love on him (and she has promised some more pictures as well!)

I will leave you with my favorite picture from Brennan's birthday celebration; him serving one of his friends a piece of birthday cake.  What a precious, precious child he is!  I am so humbled to be able to say that, Lord willing, he will be (officially) mine and Scott's in a few more months.