Gotcha!

• 
  
  
  

It is difficult to believe that a year ago today Yikealo took the step out of his pictures and off the pages and swaggered into our lives in person. Has it really been a whole year!? Didn't we get him yesterday... or has it been ten years now...
In retrospect, we were foolish to make "the walk" up the hill from the Union Hotel to Hannah's Hope with such trepidation in our hearts (for an account of that day, see THIS). At the time though, there was no way for us to differentiate between our loving, well-adjusted, eats-everything-in-sight, sleeps-through-the-night son from the distant, troubled, picky, howler that we dreaded adopting. Rather than fitting the bill of our nighmare, Yikealo has been simply delicious for the past year. With a cherry on top!

From that first morning in Ethiopia when we woke up to him kissing our noses and then demanding we kiss his to giving me "some squish" this evening before bed, he has been a little boy full of love for his adoptive parents. His smile is infectious; there are new friends to meet everywhere. It is amazing how much better we know our neighbors now that he draws them into conversation everytime he sees them while we're out walking.

I am so thankful for the year that I've had with my son and that even though he's grown five inches eatin' his mama's cookin', he's still small enough to fit so comfortably in my heart.