Wonder of Wonders

Sometime the milestones with our boy are mini and I only feel them in my heart. But once in a while we have a really BIG milestone, and I feel like shouting it from the mountain tops.

This is a mountain top kind of week.

Matthew is eating food on his own. From a plate. Not a mush or mash, but several different types of food in separate little piles on his plate. Glory be.

Not only that, he’s drinking water from a squeeze bottle all on his own.

It’s miraculous.

This is an amazing season with our boy—and I apologize for not blogging more about it. Life is also very busy and fast paced, with the end of the school year looming and so many things to get done, both at home and at work. But I’d be remiss to not at least share with you that we are seeing new and wondrous things each day in his development. He’s moving forward in his social skills, his communication, his eating, and his play.

And both Aaron and I also feel a shift in our hearts. It’s subtle, but it’s there.

I’ve read so many adoption blogs, and again and again I hear about the two-year mark. The first two years are so, so hard, and then when families round the corner into the third year, it’s like things just settle in and life becomes normal in a way it wasn’t for the two years prior. On May 28 we will celebrate Matthew’s Gotcha Day again, TWO YEARS with us, and it’s just recently that we’ve felt a kind of goodness and permanence that is new and so, so nice.

It’s not like every day is perfect. Some days are still hard. But we’ve accepted our boy, delays and all, and we feel SO grateful that he’s part of our family. We’ve quit asking all our “why did this happen” questions and have learned to embrace this journey we are on. And frankly, it feels quite normal now. Life feels normal. Matthew is so familiar. His delays and challenges are familiar to us, and we are encouraged by his many successes.

It’s good.

Send up your cheers for our boy—who is learning, growing and changing each day. And know that we are celebrating the sweetness of this season in so many ways, big and small—its normalcy as well as all the huge steps Matthew is making as he continues to gain skills and reveal more of who he is to all those around him.