Love is such a funny thing. It blinds us to things that we would normally see. I was at the park on Monday evening; Kaitlyn's favorite park. She was playing on the structure and having a ball. She would go down the corkscrew slide, run to the other side and go down the red tube slide. The run to the other side always involved a "Hi Mom!" with a smile from Kaitlyn. Each time she ran by I smiled. After about the second time I realized that I was beaming, probably like a lunatic. For a moment it seemed ridiculous to me that two simple words and a smile from a two year old could produce such a reaction. Then it occurred to me that this is a feeling that every mom feels. Wow. It's good to be a mom!

Before Kaitlyn, I never fully grasped the changes that motherhood would bring to my life. I could have never understood why I would be sitting on a park bench beaming. Even now I don't completely understand the inner-working of a mother's love. I don't fathom how I have the ability to go from all out frustration at the fact that I'm putting the pull-ups back on for the third time since I laid her down for bed to complete amazement at the groggy little one smiling at me. She can make my heart melt even when she's not awake!

As I'm sitting on the park bench basking in maternal warm-fuzzies I realize something. All the little ones on the play structure are with someone who "looks" like them. One thing I love about our location is that we live in an area populated by every race, ethnic make-up and color that you could think of. When you go to the park, you hear several different languages being spoken by children and their parents. I love that Kaitlyn has this multicultural exposure at such a young age. The striking thing to me is that despite the colors and the languages you could easily match the children to the parents. The blond-haired blue-eyed brother and sister belonged to a similarly featured mom who spoke with a thick German accent. The dark haired girls belonged to a dark haired mother and father. Grandpa joined the group and I found out later that he was originally from Croatia.

The exception in this matching game was the little Chinese girl and her rather Amazonian looking American mom. Unless someone had seen us getting out of the same car, they would not have "matched" us. We don't look like an obvious pair. The reason I thought of this was that I saw one of the mom's look at me and smile during one of Kaitlyn's fly-by's. She gave me that "knowing" look. I returned her smile and immediately began wondering what it was all about. After a few seconds I realized it was that she had probably pieced together our story; the obvious reason that Kaitlyn and I don't match.

This is why I began the blog the way I did. Until the mom smiled at me, I didn't think about Kaitlyn and me being different. She's my little girl. I'm her momma and, bless her heart, she's taken on quite a few of my traits. When I look at Kaitlyn, I don't see a Chinese orphan. I see my daughter. I see a little girl who could not be more like me, even if she did share my genetic makeup. I see a spitfire determined to conquer the climbing wall and overcome her uneasiness around large groups of kids. When I look at her, I see everything that every other parent at that park sees when they look at their children. I see myself. I see my hopes for the future. I see photo albums of vacations and school field trips. I see the potential of a life of dreams waiting to be fulfilled. I see heartaches. I see bloody noses (quite a few of those I'm afraid). I see friendships gained and lost. I see hope. I see the promise of life.

What I don't see are our obvious differences. Love is funny. It can blind us in the most remarkable ways.