In ten years...

Ash bounced this on to me :) So, where do I see myself in ten years?

Hmm. In ten years i'll be somewhere around the age of 33, ha. I hope to have my three little triplets being BIG kids. I still think i'll have my dream of adopting, and maybe at this time i'll have a little adopted toddler perhaps? But how will I manage to still be living in PARIS with four children, when apartments here are not made for more than two children? That'll be a challenge.

Ideally, I'll still be in the same apartment as I am in now, although it could be cramped. But I can really see myself being in the suburbs, one of the nice quiet villages where the children can run and play in the garden but we can still visit grandmother and grandfather in the city on weekends. Oh, how lovely that would be. I see my little ones being great friends with cousin Agnes and Cléméntine, who won't be far in age from them. Of course they will be great friends with their adopted older siblings Prune and Capu as well.

Jacob and I will still be young...most thirty three years olds (atleast in France) haven't even begun to have children yet. In ten years we'll be celebrating a decade of marriage. How lovely that'll be.

Hopefully by the tenth year I will have lost my triplet belly! hehe.

I want my sister to be living adventerously and following her dreams. I want to see her compete in London 2012 and by the time she is 22 be finishing up her education to be whatever she wants to be.

I would love to still be an adoption agent, blessing families with children they've longed for.

In ten years I really need to fulfill my goal of visiting my Tante Chaya in Israel like i've promised her for the past two years :/

Most of all, I want to be happy in ten years. I want Jacob and my children and my sister and my parents to all be HAPPY. When I think in terms of my age, ten years doesn't seem far at all. But when I think of how in ten years my children will be pre-teens and start sassing me, it begins to feel so much farther away.

I can't wait though :)

Thanks Ash, this was fun!

I'm passing it to...
Giovanna @ lavitadigiovanna (Even though I know you don't blog much, you should do this!)
Claire @ Winnie & Eva (Same with you Claire!)

so exhaustedddd

i had a lovely weekend at the sea with Jacob. it was fantastic.
anddd today was my birthday. i'm 23 :) i've thought i was 23 for awhile now so it's not a big deal haha. we had a nice dinner and I got a beautiful photo that Jeffrey took (oh, did i mention that he went home to brooklyn for summer? i miss that little bugger) that has myself and jacob holding my belly and him kissing it. it's in black and white and looks quite professional. it also has a nice picture frame that i'm not exactly sure how to translate into English, haha.
I HAVE NEVER BEEN SO TIRED IN MY LIFE THOUGH.
Seriously. I'm having such a hard time breathing and I'm in soo much pain. i'm extremely swollen too! Ugh, the happy and giddy part of pregnancy is SO OVER. haha. it'll be a lonnnnnng few months. I feel bad for complaining but you guys will still love me :)

Greatest moment of my life :)

Today was perfect. Amazing. More than I could have asked for.

So, I barely got any sleep last night. We had planned to meet Fleur and her parents at about noon at a café. I changed my outfit several times. I'm sure she wouldn't care at all what I was wearing, but I had been waiting for this moment since I was fourteen.
I got to the café early. I was shaking. Then, from behind me, I heard an extremely high pitched voice.
"Amélie, is that you?"
I lost my breath for a second and turned around. Fleur's mother looked exactly the same as she had last time I saw her. I kissed her and her husband, and FINALLY got to lay my eyes on her. HER. My daughter. My flesh and blood. All I had been dreaming of. I just couldn't help but put my hands to my face when I saw her, and I just started to cry a bit. She's SO beautiful. I could see myself in her, and I could see Julien in her too. She looks like Angélique, she has my father's smile. And surprisingly enough, she had some tears too, and she reached out her arms for me. I hugged her with everything I had. She's such a petite little thing. She started speaking to me quickly and happily, and she has the most beautiful clear voice with the smallest hint of a German accent (they live in Luxembourg). Even her parents wiped away tears, which definitely made me let my guard down. So they really wanted this, huh? Fleur spoke of how much she liked my hair, she spoke of her little sister Lise, and I told her that I am having three babies of my own! She just squealed about having more siblings. All this time I was wiping tears from the corners of my eyes. and just then, the most magical thing of all...i felt a kick. I grabbed Fleur's hand and put it there, and she smiled at me.
Fleur's parents made a very nice scrapbook for me. It has pictures of Fleur as a baby (we were nearly identical!) her first lost tooth, her on holidays and first school days. It was beautiful. I gave her a gift of my own. A picture of a very young me kissing my very large belly. When the time unfortunately came that we had to leave, Fleur's parents said they'd keep in touch. If they don't, I certainly will- now that I know her, I never want to let her go. She's the most amazing person I've met. I'm SO incredibly blessed to have her in my life. As we hugged goodbye I completely lost control of my emotions. Fleur told me "Don't cry, Amélie! This isn't the end, it's only the beginning!" I've felt more at peace than ever before. It confirmed everything wanted to know before; Fleur is happy and was given everything in the world. I made the right decision, and I can finally say that and MEAN it.



-Amélie

Dear Amélie

That's what I first read. It was from Fleur's parents. They described to me how a few years earlier they had cautiously stepped into an open adoption with their second child, and how beneficial it was to them. So they decided they weren't afraid of me anymore, and instead actually now want me a part of Fleur's life. After I read it and told my family the news, they seemed confused as to why i wasn't collapsed on the floor sobbing and thanking God. It's just...I never expected this to happen. I don't know if Fleur's parents understand the emotions behind what they are doing. I wrote them and email though, and I'm excited. This is what I've been waiting for. Meeting the girl who changed my life forever. Does she look like me, or Julien? I know he'd be dying to meet her but I don't know what to do. I just never thought this would happen for twenty more years till she found me on her own. What will I say? Will she think I abandoned her? Oh God, I just want her to know I love her.

tattoos

they aren't really for me. ick. the idea of getting one freaks me out. jacob has a couple though. see, i don't mind when he gets them because they are never tacky and always with good interest. he has a bunch of maori designs on his bicep going down to his chest which i understand because it's a cultural thing and when he participates in the maori ceremonies he wouldn't look like a true maori person of course. he also has a maori phrase on his back that says "te tapuna atua koe e manaaki" which means "the ancestors are watching over you" and on the opposite chest of the design he has "bulletproof" because that's where his dad was shot. in the middle of the maori designs on his bicep he has "14/7/01" (the date his Uncle Hemi died) and "16/12/99" (the day we met) my dad always tells him "you better keep in shape or else those tattoos are going to get saggy!" haha. my parents hate tattoos. when he was a teenager, my dad begged his parents to let him get my mom's name tattooed on him. HA. of course they said no. so my rebellious father carved in "Mathilde" onto his arm and colored it in with ink. it's not very visible, but it's still there!

anyways, he told me today that when the triplets are born he is getting their birthday inked in with the rest of the dates that go through his bicep design. i think that's sweet.

but yeah. sabbath today was nice. except the most OBNOXIOUS little boy i've ever met was bothering me after the service. I swear, if my kids ever act like that...

ARGH

WOW, i hate my computer. It's so bipolar! Sometimes it works just perfectly and then others it doesn't. Some sites work okay but others don't. anyway, it's just soo obnoxious and who knows when it will work normally again?
On the plus side, I succeeded in all of my finals and will be graduating soon! YES!

The 18th was Shavuot so I didn't do much. It's the anniversary of God giving the Torah to the Israelites. Every year for Shavuot we have cheese blintzes, it's an Ashkenaz tradition from my mother's side. After that last night we went to the synagogue for the Confirmation for the tenth graders. Then we had an all night Torah study which is another tradition. Except Jacob fell asleep, haha, fail. But I almost did too. We have some Sephardic neighbors that don't celebrate it like the Ashkenaz so they sort of gave us looks as usual, haha, specificially one of my ruder neighbors who doesn't understand Ashkenazi Judaism anyways. Blah, so yeah i'm pretty tired now.

Tomorrow i am 13 weeks pregnant! Time is flying by, but i'm hardly even there yet. The doctor says that I will have my c-section probably around 35 weeks, which means I'll probably have them around mid-late October.

I've been spending a lot of time helping Mathieu and Emaline adjust to parenthood. Well, that's a lie, but I have been cooking for them and changing the occasional diaper :) Cléméntine is adorable. She's a red-head! Once Mathieu starts working again I promised Emaline i'd help out until I begin to waddle, in which case i'm retiring to the sofa :)

Hope you all are doing well! I miss talking to people since once again my computer is dumb :(

woke up to a knock at the door...

Babysitting Prune and Capucine overnight with Jacob. My mom woke us up in the middle of the night. My grandpa had a heart attack. He's all right now. But the reality of him someday leaving me just hit, and it's scary. I'm so angry. But I don't know at who.