this is a recap of our trip that Erica did.
http://vimeo.com/12292225

Four years

When I was around eight years old I lived in an apartment building next door to a friend named Charity. We both stayed home while our mothers worked (For my social worker friends-her mom was the neighborhood manager and was only a building away). We were not allowed to go outside so we would talk on the phone. This apparently was not enough as I decided that I needed to be on a more personal level and see her face to face. This problem I solved by deciding to drill a hole in the wall. When my mom got home I could not understand the gasp and utter disbelief. Surely she was proud of all the hours of hard work that had gone into this solution. She was not. And, neither was Charity's mom whom had to rehang a picture that I had apparently knocked off.
A few weeks ago I walked into our master bedroom to find Levi carving a hole in the wall with a screwdriver. The first thought that entered my mind was, "What in the world is he thinking?" but the second was that my mom's curse/blessing worked. How many times had she said she wished for me to have a child just like myself.
For four years now I have witnessed a progression in slow motion. A child who is becoming scarily, strangely like me. And there is no way I could love him any more than I already do. He got Andrew's humor and I laugh at him all the time. I wished for freckles across the nose and he has them. I so love my firstborn son and I have so loved these last four years that I have been blessed to be a mother. I pray for many many more.
Beautiful little Ivey: