Catching up with the Metzlers at the Chicago Botanic Garden

This week, Meg, Finn and baby Maeve met Sasha and I for our tour of duty at the Botanic Garden.

Many of you may remember that we caught up with Tim and Meg in Moscow on our second trip. We got together with them a second time after they had picked up their son, Finn (his Russian name was Kyrill and I must admit that I'm having a hard transition to his new name). Finn looks great. He seems taller and lacks some of the 'sturdiness' that Sasha has but is so smiley and outgoing. He's five months older than Sasha and has already learned some words. Perhaps words are in Sasha's immediate future. I think that would really help his frustration.

Maeve is a precious, beautiful little smiley girl. Here is a photo of Maeve in the English Walled Garden at the Botanic Garden.


As we toured around the gardens, we chatted about the challenges of adopting a toddler and how different it is than adopting a baby (Maeve is Meg's second domestically adopted child). It was such fun to catch up with someone who's really quite the motherhood expert (3 kids all under the age of 6 gets you the Platinum Mommy Card). And, beyond all this, Meg is simply a super cool chick. She makes motherhood look easy and glamorous somehow. I certainly am nowhere near the point where I make motherhood look either chic or effortless. I've actually had friends tell me that they had wondered if they should've had children and, after hearing and reading my stories, these friends felt they'd made the right choice. Meg, on the other hand, makes you think that having a large family would be great (no .. no .. not any time soon for us. We're still getting used to the first one!).