Lovin' Spoonful

(This picture is from our Welcome to the Family party/baptism in 2003)

Six years ago today, we became a family.

Although I don't remember a whole lot from those early weeks of parenthood, the events of that day -- of those first moments -- are a part of me.

And while we discuss adoption in our house whenever it comes up, I do try to make special mention of it on Family Day.

Hannah and Lizzie love to hear the story of how we came to meet them; how I thought they were cute; how Hannah looked at me with one eye open; how we took them to a hotel where we lived for a week; how we changed their diapers; how we all fell in love with each other.

Tonight though, I told them one of my favorite stories from our first day as a family.

Since we had fewer than 24 hours to prepare to be the parents of twins, and since I am not the most organized person on a good day, we arrived at our hotel room with two babies, a couple of bottles, some diapers, two cans of formula and nothing with which to open the cans or to mix the formula.

I sent Rob out to get provisions for the week we were expected to stay in Delaware while paperwork was filed. He came back with a measuring cup, a can opener, a spoon and a couple of cartons of Chinese food.

We fed the girls and then, as they slept, I opened the Chinese food only to discover that Rob had not gotten anything to eat the Chinese food with. I was starving, so we spent that first meal sharing not only the chicken lo mein, but also our one lonely spoon.

To me, this was clear evidence that we were simply too dumb to be parents. And when I tell this story I use it to illustrate just that fact.

Tonight though, as I was telling this story, I dramatically opened the dishwasher and pulled out the serving spoon that we had used to mix the girls' formula and eat that first meal together.

"This is that very spoon," I said to them, holding up the freshly washed spoon.

But instead of laughing, Lizzie took the spoon and looked at it very closely and said, "This spoon has love on it."

I looked at her as if I hadn't heard her correctly and she clarified: "Because you passed it back and forth when we were babies ... it has love on it. It's got our family on it."

Which is really a much better way to end the story -- and to celebrate our family day together.

(This picture was taken in late 2008.)