friends stuffed and friends cooing

Here's Zoralee with some of her less talkative friends, from left to right a teddy bear handmade by Jess H., a doll commissioned by Elisha to be made by Autumn, and Z's very first stuffed animal, a rabbit received at Eastertime from Scott and Amanda.


Here's a teddy bear from Katherine, and a gloworm from Grandma Rena that looks precisely like Zoralee when she's swaddled.

Zoralee also has two new friends of the human variety, through an astounding, miraculous series of events. I asked Paul and Joanna if I could talk about and show pictures of Zoey and Chloe on my blog, to which they were agreeable. So here's the brief version and a couple of pics.

Paul and Joanna have been wanting a family for the better part of their 8-year marriage, but weren't having success at creating one. That, and a stressful career were already heavy weights on Joanna. Then in early in 2008, she was in two car wrecks that essentially totaled life as she knew it - her health, career, sanity, ability to sleep, hers and Paul's plans for the future, etc. Toward the end of the year, after much pain, seeking, surrender, and healing, they decided they'd like to adopt a child, or better yet two at once in the form of twins. They started in on the process through a private agency, and the social worker told them there was no way in h-e-double toothpicks they'd get twins, but that it was a nice sentiment. I'm paraphrasing.

In mid-December, when they'd barely completed the bulk of their paperwork and were settling in for the inspections, the home visits, the wait, the agony, they got a call. There was a set of preemie twins in a town nearby whose initial adoptive parents backed out on account of the intense special care they'd need. Was there any way they could drive to this nearby town TOMORROW, spend four days at the hospital learning to care for them, and take them home? And literally overnight they were parents of twin girls.

These little dolls are now almost six months old (having spent five months in the hospital), but are just now Zoralee's weight. They were the size of dollar bills when they were born, less than a pound each. No foolin. Here they all are together. Of course Zoralee "Bundle of Grump" Rena is clearly deciphered.

When we hang out at their house (they're especially susceptible to germs and gunk so are home-bound for several months), there are babies everywhere. Only three, yes, but it's still a visual oddity, a glitch in the matrix. You know they're all in the living room, but you walk into the bathroom and expect to see one in the tub and one washing their hands at the sink. It's like the Richard Scary books where there are members of the rabbit and cat families all over the page.

We are heavily missing our peeps up in Anchorage. Starting over to create a social network, I mean one comprised of live people, is really hard, no matter what other good things in life you have. So getting to know people like Paul, Joanna, Zoey, and Chloe, has been joyous.