2 Years Later...

Two years ago, Nate and I sat in a hotel in Strongsville, glued to the computer as we watched our son's plane "travel" across the computer screen on his way to Chicago from Seoul. I got very little sleep that night, and I guess very little sleep since but that's okay! The following morning, Nate and I would take a trip that was roughly three years in the making. A trip to wrap our arms around our youngest son, who had been born in our hearts so long before! The joy and excitement of that day truly ranks up there with the birth of both our other two children! While there was no physical pain, the time waiting for the plane to unload, for him to go through customs, and for him to finally come through the glass door, which we had been staring at him through for what seemed like hours but was likely only several minutes was painful in different ways! But the relief of holding him in my arms, healthy, warm and forever ours was no different than holding our squirmy babies in the years before!

I was going to post some photos, but as I was looking through some disks, I came across the video that we were sent while he was still in Korea, in the care of his loving Foster Mother. While I created several videos like this one while we waited and this one of his homecoming I had kinda forgotten about this jewel of a video. I wish I could upload it, but it came as a DVD and I don't know how to get it into a raw file to upload... if anyone knows how to do that, let me know!

Anyway, as I sat and watched this video, I was moved to tears. This little guy, who at the time we first watched we knew very little about, is so much like the crazy 4 year old that has been home with us for 2 years now. His facial expressions, his giggle, his little voice when he tried to communicate. It is all identical. And the personality that he showed in the video is him to a T! I'm sure that's how it should be, but it is just something to watch the video again, now knowing him as my son, knowing him as well as I do, and see that same little spunky spirit!

We are hoping to celebrate our Forever Family day tomorrow in some way. We still don't know exactly what we will do. We had hoped to go to an Akron Aeros game like we did last year, but as was the case last year, they are calling for LOTS of rain and we don't want to chance it. We've talked about bowling so that may be what we'll do. No matter what we do or where we go, as long as we are together, as our Forever Family, that is all I could ask for.

So I'll close with these thoughts, while it has been two years since Toby has come home, we are still not at the magical date. That is the date in which he has been a part of our family longer than he wasn't. We still have a few more months until that date. They say that at that point, you can get a true measure of how well your adopted child is "bonding", and settling in to their new lives. Well, I know we aren't at that date yet, but I can say I am not worried. Toby is doing TREMENDOUS!!!! I could not ask for him to be doing better... well maybe if we were completely over the nightmares and I could get more sleep, but other than that, he is doing amazing. He is speaking in complete 5-7 word sentences. He is counting to 5 which is a huge accomplishment. He knows his shapes and colors and is showing more interest in writing and learning letters and numbers.

He makes amazing eye contact with us, tells us often how he loves us all, and loves to be held and cuddled.. all the time :) He loves spending time with our extended families and all our friends.

No new videos this year, but I thought I would link back to these other videos of his Finalization Day and the video I created last year containing his Year of Firsts.

And as I close each post, with the meaning of Toby's name... God is Good!!!