Ages/Names of Children

We met as friends in San Francisco before Jonathan moved back to New York City to be closer to family.  When he came back to SF for a visit, we saw each other again and started to date.  During Jen’s first visit to NYC, lightning struck (not only romantically but seriously…lightning struck the building next to us, the fire department came and everything).  A year later, Jen moved East, and a year after that we married.  For 8 years, across 3,000 miles, after finding new jobs, and a new home together; our relationship and love has only grown stronger.

A few years ago, we were lucky enough to have a child, and have been trying to grow our family since then.  Being a Mom & Dad brings pure joy to each day.  Jeremy is a happy kid who loves to laugh and has told us he really wants a little brother or sister.

One of our favorite things is to host extended families for holidays – parents, brothers, sisters, and cousins all together sharing a meal, stories, and general craziness.  But we also have our own intimate family dinners every night, and we often invite friends and neighbors over (especially for backyard barbecues). 

We commute to work together every day, and drop our son off at the great day care center on our work campus.  On weekends we go for walks or bike rides, or hang out with our neighbors.  Our neighborhood has a ton of children of all ages, and everyone always looks out for each other.  We love filling our free time with toys (mostly cars right now), games (like hide and seek), activities (gym and music classes), outdoor fun and nightly story time.

Music and sports are a big part of our lives.  Jonathan has done several triathlons, and carried Jeremy across the finish line for one last year (he was so excited to “win” the race! J).  Jen just ran her first ½ marathon this year, and she also takes the jogging stroller on some scenic runs in the parks near our house.  We both enjoy camping, and we’re coaching kids soccer this year, too. 

We’ll sing our new child to sleep with lullabies at night, and play different instruments together in our own “band” during the day.

Adoption

Jonathan’s sister was adopted, so it’s always been part of our lives and something we always knew was a possibility for us.  We are looking forward to welcoming a new child to our family, one who will be surrounded with love, happiness, and comfort.  Our jobs allow each of us to take off extended periods of time for adoptions, so we can each stay home with our new baby.  There’s also a professional day-care facility where we work, so when the time is right, our little one can play and learn with other kids the same age, with us nearby. 

We saw a poem during a visit to Family Options that we loved and that reinforced our choice to adopt.  It essentially said: children come through us but do not belong to us; we can give them love but not our thoughts; we can house their bodies but not their souls. We are the bows from which children, as living arrows, are sent forth. (paraphrased from Kahlil Gibran’s “On Children”).  It doesn’t matter where our children physically come from. We will love and nurture them and give them the wings they need to fly.