thankful for a family of 2

Before I go to bed tonight I want to spend a few minutes  remembering where I was two years ago. Two years ago I had just said goodbye to this little boy Aleksandr Sergeeivich Izmailov, aka Sasha. I had spent four days with him in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. From New Year's Day until Jan. 4th I was spending hours of the day at his orphange, using my rusty Russian skills to talk to his caretakers: Nina, Luba, etc., going for walks, playing with him and others in the orphanage who would soon be adopted. Soaking it all in. This 3, almost 4 year old boy would be my son. He had dreamt of me the night before I came.

Even now I can remember the swirl of impressions and emotions that had me SO off balance. I had met this tender, fiesty little soul who was to become my son. How do you forge that bond of parenthood in a moment? Like true love of all kinds, it was first a commitment and promise to love him, no matter what... but time with him, learning who he was, in another language, in a foreign place, was simply emotional. I had waited for two years in the adoption process and now here he was, Sasha...soon to become Kaden Aleksandr. This rare gift from God....entrusted to me. I can remember staying up late talking with Teri, my closest friend, who had traveled there with me, about my questions, and fears, and all the what-ifs. Yet in the end, after waving goodbye to that face in the window of the orphanage, I knew I could never leave him behind, he was meant to be my son.

Two years ago today Teri and I were sitting on a bed in a hotel room in Paris looking back on all our impressions with the distance of time and place. Enjoying the magic of foreign travel, yet trying to order all the images we had collected from Bishkek. It seems like it was yesterday, yet at the same time I can hardly remember life before K. We haven't been apart for even a night in the past two years. He is currently the small world I watch constantly and have had to keep all the satellites orbiting around.

and now he is sleeping, snoring slightly in his Christmas jammies and new cast on his arm, one of his cats, Pushkin, draped over his sleeping body. He's home, happy, still a tender soul, yet very fiesty, and growing so much. The journey has been more than slightly rocky, but oh so worth it in the end.

we are a family of two.