Une Envie de Sel

I bought this hat the year before we adopted Q, as an anniversary present for my husband. At that point, we were so deep and long into the process of the paperwork, the red tape, the payments, the classes, the fingerprinting, the police checks, the endless imaginings, that everything we gave one another at every holiday and important occasion was something for her. Christmas, Valentine's Day, birthdays....all the presents were for her, through eachother. We gave eachother children's books, toys, tiny items of clothing, whatever small things we could afford while taking on the expensive endeavour of an international adoption.

At the time, we were maybe a year and a half into the actual adoption process, but we still had no idea what age our child would be when we finally met her, much less what sort of person she would be, what region of China she would hail from, or what she would look like. I remember pulling the hat out of its bag and setting it on the rustic wood-block table at Domo, the beautiful and painfully-authentic Japanese restaurant where we celebrated our anniversary that year, along with my mum, who was visiting that week from her home in Woodstock. I remember thinking how my husband would enjoy imagining our daughter in this hat ( I had also bought a faux-vintage t-shirt with a tattoo-style heart and the legend "daddy" inscribed over the chest), and I remember wondering for the bazillionth time what she would look like, who she would be.
When we did finally bring her home from China, she was very small for her age (only 14 lbs at almost a year old, probably largely do to the rollicking case of intestinal parasites she was carrying, in addition to the limited food supply that her orphanage, with their scarce means, was able to offer her). That first winter, she was nowhere near big enough to wear this hat. In the past few months, however, she has grown at an astounding rate...nearly an inch per month. Recently, while culling some of the clothes she has lately outgrown, I came across this hat again.
It's such a cool hat...I mean, am I wrong? This is a cool hat. So even though we're heading into the heat of summer (any day now, should it decide to stop hailing and whipping up tornadoes) I had to pull it out and give it a run. (That's my adopted Queensland Blue Heeler Sam, btw. I have had Sam for nearly a decade now. Sam is very spoiled. He sleeps under the duvet in our bed. He eats coffee cake when I go out for coffee. He knows more words than I do. He looks out for all of our vices. He is a very concerned little dog.)
At any rate, the hat certainly fits her now...I'd even say she does it credit. And...bonus! She liked it enough to wear it for an extended period of time, on a warm day, without whipping it off her head and throwing it to the ground (her usual reaction to a hat once she's done admiring herself in the mirror for a few seconds).
I don't know what it was about this hat that she liked. I don't know why she felt comfortable enough to wear it around for the afternoon, but I am grateful...
...because, really, did you ever see anything better than the Q in her white vintage nightshirt with the fur aviator hat on top?
This is Fred, btw. He's a basset hound. And...he's a basset hound.
Q's feet still aren't quite long enough to reach the pedals on this old-school trike, but she has ambitions. In the meantime, mommy still needs to push her around the patio, making dorky "brrrrrrr-pth-pth-brrrrrrrrrrrr!" sounds as she goes.
Fred helps. Well, he doesn't help. But he wants to help. At least, that's what he tells himself.