After putting together page 5 of my daughter Alex's Life Book, which was themed "christening," I realized that not much happened, as far as "milestones," with regard to Alex's adoption, so it took a bit of thinking to figure out how I should them the sixth page of her book.  Eventually, however, the choice became obvious.

In Texas, even though a birthmother can relinquish her parental rights after 48 hours elapses from the child's birth, the prospective adoptive parents can't breathe a sigh of relief just yet.  Assuming the law hasn't changed, there is a six month period during which the prospective adoptive parents are "observed," to ensure that they are, in fact, fit parents, and deserve to have the child placed permanently in their home.  The six-month period is intended for the new family to bond.  Once the social workers are convinced that the bonding has occurred, only then will the family be approved for adoption.

For this reason, I decided that the appropriate theme of page 6 should be "the first six months" -- and bond we did.  I had the wonderful problem of picking my favourite shots over this six month period to include in this book, because even though Alex took a while to smile, once she did, she didn't stop.  I picked 5 of my favourites: including a shot taken when she was 2 months old (our first Mother's Day), and another taken showing my husband Marcus and her talking animatedly in bed.  I included the words "laugh" and "giggle" and "play" on the page, because for those first 6 months, that's definitely what we did.

And we haven't stopped.