1 Year Forever Family Day!!!!

One year ago today Mark and I spent the morning organizing our hotel room in preparation for the little boy that would soon be coming back to the hotel with us.  You can read about Gotcha Days, bonding, grieving, orphanage behaviors and sleep issues until you are blue in the face, but nothing really prepares you for the jumble of nerves that sit in your stomach while you wait.  Truthfully the "Gotcha" part of the day went so quickly that it seems like a blur now, but I can clearly remember the rest of the day.  The snuggles, the first bath, the laughter and the joy of realizing that our dreams of parenthood had finally come true.  We have our good days and our hard days just like any family, but the good days definitely win out by a long shot.  Here are a few random updates for our 1 year Forever Family Day:

-Konnor has gained 9 lbs and 4 inches this year

-He is completely caught up developmentally with the exception of speech which is to be expected

-In the last few weeks he has started sleeping with a small yellow ducky and is actually playing with his other stuffed animals now.  This is huge for a little boy that just a year ago would not even touch a stuffed animal and hated blankets.

-In the last few weeks he has started doing alot of imaginative play.  He will make his animal crackers walk on the table (I was so excited I had to change the rule of "don't play with your food" to "you can only play with your food if it actually looks like the animal."  He will take his stuffed animals and make them "pretend" eat from his play dishes and he will make Mark and I a meal to pretend eat.

-The last 3 weeks he has been sleeping better (although we still have a ways to go), but I refuse to call it a good sleep pattern until we have been sleeping well for at least 6 weeks.  Sleep has been a big struggle for us the last year so I don't want to lull myself into a false sense of restfulness : )

Overall we are happier than we have ever been and so very grateful to have this special little boy in our lives.

1 year ago today

Fun at the park on Forever Family Day!!