Worth a Thousand Words

Josh mentioned the other day that he wanted to text Tania again and ask her for a current picture of herself and Justin for Noah to have.  I liked the idea and figured it couldn't hurt.  Why not?  And sure enough, after a day, she texted a quick picture back.  We were pretty excited to see it.  We sort of scrambled all over ourselves to get the file emailed and opened on the computer. :)

Granted, it's a bit grainy because it's just a phone pic, but we are so glad to have it.  I kept staring and staring at it last night after Noah went to bed.  Looking so hard at those faces, letting their reality sink in again.  Tania is of course a very familiar face given how we have seen her in person almost every year up til now. The last time we saw Justin, however, was 4 years ago - so seeing him here meant a lot to us.  He looks a bit different; going from 16-20 will do that to a guy, I guess. : ) We didn't really explain to Noah who he was, though we did tell him his name and told him he once met him when he was a baby.  We focused more on Tania, whom Noah does have a working knowledge and memory of.  And besides, how DO we explain a birth father to a 4 year old?  Talking about how he grew in Tania's belly is one thing; talking about how he came from Justin is a bit more complicated ... Yikes.

Anyway, after Noah saw their picture and had a few things to say about it, he was off to bed agreeing that he would like to keep it in his room once we printed it.  We texted Tania back to say thanks, and then she made our night by her following responses.  After how low I felt given our last interaction with her, last night's texting dialogue just made my heart exhale and grin.  Apparently, we should have been texting all along!  I curse you, generational gap! : /

Josh:  Thanks for the pic.  Noah says getting your pic was like getting candy at Christmas.

Tania:  I'm glad you got it.  Can you tell Noah that I miss him and love him lots.  And thank you very much.

Josh:  Will do!  When we told him earlier that you sent him a picture he said, "She sent me dat cuz she wuvs me?"  He'll keep the pic in his room.  Thanks again.

Tania:  This has made my night.  I have been feeling a bit down because I missed him this year and I am really glad he liked getting that.  I am still waiting for the ones you guys sent but I am sure they will be here soon.

From there there was just a bit of housekeeping correcting what we had of her current address, so now we are straight.  We went ahead and overnighted her the last package of 15 or so pictures again, just to clear things up.  So frustrating.  BUT, she did also say she spoke to her dad in FL and he found the stuff we'd been sending her over the past year and was going to mail it all to her.  That's good news.  I'd really like her to have all that I wrote and detailed for her, especially since it made her so happy to hear even a few quotes from my boy just last night.

Anyway, so glad to share the encouraging update about Tania.  It's a good and reassuring sign.