20 Months/10 months

Today Noah is 20 months old. As of the 20th he has been with us 10 months. That magical time when he has been with us longer then he was without us. I won't say I feel like he's always been with us because it doesnt. Very clearly I remember the days, weeks, months and years of longing for a child and how painful that time in my life was. I remember feeling like Sean and I were a couple and not a family and how part of me felt empty.
However I can also remember like it was yesterday walking thru those gates and seeing Noah for the first time ( a little puff of curls over the top of a bouncy seat). I watched someones "gotcha video" last night and held my breath as I saw them walk that path and stand outside those gates. Our son has changed us in many ways and we will forever be greatful for what he he brings to our life.
Noah now has 17 teeth and #18 is on its way. We have started introducing him to potty training and its going great. He doesnt know how to tell us when he has to go but he will sit on the potty and pee if we ask him if he wants to. He is doing a great job riding the bike he got for christmas. He loves balls, books, cars, tools and blocks.
Happy 20 month birthday Noah Tamirat you are my joy and I can't belive you have been with us half your little life.

Postplacement visits.

Saturday is our last postplacement visit. There are no words to describe how happy I am to be done with these. We still have to write yearly reports until Noah Tamirat is 18 but we will no longer have a social worker coming in and judging us as a family. I feel so much better prepared for this last visit. Because of the timeing of when they need to be done to get to our agency and then to Ethiopia in time ours have actually been done at 1 month, 4 months and now 10 months home. They are 3, 6 and 12 month reports. When we did our 3 month report I felt lost. We barely knew this child, there was no schedule or routine , lord only knows when we last had a good nights sleep. The questions felt overwhelming and I wondered what our SW would write about us as a family. The 6 month report was only slightly better because we were still very sleep deprived and still very much getting to know our son. The routine /schedule was a little bit closer to being established but not there yet. I was feeling like a failure. And some how she still wrote it was in Noah's best interest to stay in our family..Really , wow thats good to know.

At this stage I think we are much more prepared. We have a schedule and most importantly we have been getting sleep. Ten months with Noah have allowed us to see more of his personality and become more of a family. The questions that we are asked shouldn't be a problem to answer and I don't feel as lost and won't feel like as much of a failure. Here's hopeing she still finds it in Noah's best interest to be part of our family because we aren't letting him go I think we are kind of attached.

Friday photo Fun

The Blizzard of 2010?

8:30 am. 23 inches and still coming down hard.

How Noah entertains himself on a snowy day.

Ethiopian treasures.

This post is a long time coming but I thought I would finally post a picture of some of the treasure we brought home from Ethiopia. In some of my older posts you'll see pictures of the two outfits we bought for Noah, the wooden stool, the drum and the hat. But these are things we have never posted pictures of. Our greatest treasure..see I lied we always post pictures of this one..but now for the unseen.

Wooden goblet..it has a giraffe on one side and an elephant on the other.

Carved wooden elephant candlestick.

I couldn't get a good picture of this beautiful soapstone coaster set.

A little cup and dish.

The painting we bought at the italian restaurant/art gallery. A soapstone rhino and a wooden zebra.

An English/Amharic bible(new testament only) two necklaces and a keychain that we will give to Noah when he's older. The keychain will probable be a gift when he gets his drivers license or first new car or something so we have ALONG TIME before he get that.