My Son is 2

jason@i40.com (JasonR) — Mon, 13 Feb 2006 09:03:43 -0500

This is the predictable sequel to My Son is One posted a year ago

I was up most of the night. Aiden woke up at about 2 with a fever (back of the hand to the cheek assessment, Taking his temp would have done either of us any good at that hour.) and in need of tlc. He fell back asleep, on my chest on the recliner, I followed shortly there after smiling and enjoying the moment (not of him being sick, but of him still being young enough to find comfort on daddy's shoulder, ("shoul" and "oer shoul" in Aiden speak)) knowing there will be a time, that will come up before I know it, where he will be to "old" for that.

It's been another amazing year. He can count to 11 (Blame his uncle Mattie for not letting him rest on his laurels of being able to count to 10)... yes my son goes to 11. He can tell you how old he is, and he adds new words to his vocabulary at an extraordinary rate. Several months ago we tried to count how many words he knew and stopped counting somewhere past 100.

The year had it's challenges, 4-5 trips to New England to visit, and eventualy say goodbye, to my grandfather and A chance meeting I may have the courage and words to write about some day.

Aiden's personality continues to mature, loving to laugh and be silly "Silly silly daddy" "silly mommy".. and demanding what ever triggered the laughter to repeat endlessly "Again again" and "dady to it!". He's also a self motivator. When we suggest that it is time for bed, he quickly add "and no crying" even though I don't think we've used those words in that context more than once or twice.

He still isn't comfortable staying with anyone except Cheryl and I, and every attempt to have someone else watch him as ended in a flood of tears. He does show signs that it is getting better, and maybe Cheryl and I will fit in a couple of legitimate date nights this year.

This weekend to celebrate the anniversary of when we became a family through adoption, were going to go to Myrtle Beach, and have some family time in a pool... I was going to say without phones (but we'll have our cell phones), w/o computers (but we'll at least have the n770), and w/o tv (but that's not going to happen).

The other day I came home, and un prompted Aiden ran from the other end of the house, threw his arms open and said "Daddy big hug!"

My son is one.

jason@i40.com (JasonR) — Fri, 18 Feb 2005 09:31:16 -0500

My Son turned one last weekend. It is just now that I can type that without crying. Tomorrow is the one year anniversary of my life changing so abruptly, so completely that I couldn't comprehend it at the time, and by the time I could comprehend it life prior to that was a distant haze.

My wife and I tried to have children for 6 years. poking, prodding, dixie cups, the whole 9 yards. Infertility sucks.

We spent almost a year researching agencies, saving money, getting prepared (Mentally, physically, etc) as well as preparing our friends and families. In september 2004 we chose and signed up with an adoption agency 20 miles away (after looking at 100+ agencies across the country).

For 4+ months we waited. the adoption opportunities that came our way just wern't right for us (or we wern't right for them), and we were both getting discouraged. I distinctly remember crying on my way to work every morning for 2 weeks straight.

On February 19th, 2004 at 10am, we got an email from our agency. It was a short "we have a healthy male baby..." email, asking to reply if we wanted more information. I called my wife, as I always did when we got an "opportunity".

"we have email" I said simply. It was our euphemism for email from the agency. She read it while I was on the phone. We decided, pretty easily, to go ahead and email the agency back and get more info. We also decided to meet for lunch, not expecting the
agency would get back to us by then (they generally moved painfully slow).

I got an email back from the agency about 5 minutes before Cheryl arrived for lunch. I read it, and got more and more excited as I did. By the time cheryl arrived, I was literally bouncing. It felt right.. Perfect actually. As soon as I got in the car I started reading it to her. 10 minutes into lunch, as we discussed every little detail, my cell phone rang. The agency wanted to know if we had any questions. We asked the ones we had, asked if we could see a picture (we had already made up our minds, but for some reason we both needed to "see" the baby to make it real in our minds), and told them we'd
call them back in 30 minutes.

We raced back to my office, and had email waiting for us.. A picture of a tiny, healthy, baby. 30 seconds later we called the agency and made arrangements to pick him up the next day.

That evening we shopped. Everything we "thought" we needed for a baby.

26 hours later he was in our arms. An hour after that, me, and my family were home.

What a year it's been.

-Jason

i40.com - Adoption

My Son is 2

My son is one.