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Saturday it was one year!!

It hardly seems possible.

He could barely walk and now he is wickedly strong.

He would barely talk and now he is giggly and outgoing.

He’d never been on a swing and now he runs and belly flops onto them so he can “Fly like Buzz Lightyear!”

He was desperately scared of baths and now hangs out in there for as long as I’ll let him.

He fit in the sink when he came home and now when he stretches from fingertips to toes, he is the length of the bath tub.

He causes us no end of trouble and he makes us laugh a lot.

His dimples and exuberance fill a room with joy.

He is my snuggle bug.

When he came he slept alone in the port-a-crib with no thought it should be any other way. No thought that he should want to be in his Momma’s bed or could be in his Momma’s bed. After awhile (and some lessons learned from watching his big sister) he spent some time in Momma’s bed. Now, he comfortably sleeps in his own bed every night. He is a light sleeper and if I come in to straighten his covers at night he often will wake-up. He’ll snuggle right back into his pillow, though, and mumble, “Nigh’ nigh, Mommy. I wuv you.”

It doesn’t get much better than that.

I believe that at some deep level, the kids know about the anniversaries of trauma in their lives. Carlo was so much trouble this weekend. He didn’t get to finish gymnastics, because he couldn’t keep his hands and feet to himself. He had to sit with me and Nicky. His teacher in pre-school explained to me when I picked him up yesterday that he’d been hitting. The thing is, we all know he can behave. He chooses to behave sometimes — but not others. As much as a home coming day or adoption day is the start of something beautiful and good, it is the end of something — sometimes beautiful and good and sometimes not, but often the very ending and transition is traumatic.

Today, though, I hear he did great and his teacher and I are working on ways to address his sometimes behavior issues at school. At home, he goes to a time out, but at his new wave school they are not allowed to do time outs because it is belittling to the kids or some such nonsense.

He certainly did wonderfully well at dinner out tonight and all this evening. And, he is *finally* sitting well at night during reading time.

I can’t wait to straighten his covers tonight and watch him snuggle in and whisper, “Ha du. Nigh’ nigh, Momma.” (Thank you. Night night, Momma). Its the best end to my evening ritual.

I’ll try and post some photos of my baby over the past year tomorrow. (Not so much of a baby anymore — fully potty trained during the day and nearly at night, gets himself dressed every morning, gets the dog her dinner, cleans up his dinner place … no babies here).

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 29th, 2008 at 8:55 pm and is filed under Family, My Valley Of Love and Delight, Carlo. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.