Ben: Two Month Update

I cannot believe Ben has been "officially" apart of our family for 2 whole months.  I'm not kidding when I say it feels like he has been with us for SO much longer than that.  Jake and Cole wake up probably an hour to 30 minutes before Ben (Why can't our kids sleep in past 6am!) and I sometimes think to myself, "this is what life was like before Ben" and it seems like SUCH a distant memory for me.  Dan and I say over and over how much life Ben brings to our family.  Cole and Jake can be so serious and Ben is quite the opposite- silly, loud, dancing, easily excited, waves and smiles at everyone - he really is a joy to be around  This month there were SO many firsts, mostly good but one not so good: 

• First Mother's Day :)
• First visit with Aunt Beth, Uncle Jeff, and Aunt Sam
• First Popsicle (we are assuming here... but the way he was eating it we assumed it was his first lol)
• First Spiderman Birthday party (Jake's)
• First Brother Graduation
• First ER Visit

The first month had it adjustments- we realized quickly how important the cocooning period is (as it's called in adoption world) as Ben quickly called other people "mama" and attached to them.  Now, we can tell he is quickly adjusting to our little family and it is so fun to see :)  He had such a fun time at Jake's birthday party and enjoyed meeting pretty much the rest of our immediate "extended family."  We are so thankful for how well everyone has loved and welcomed Ben to our home :)  We can tell he is beginning to understand what a family truly is and thankfully is sleeping through the night, eating almost all the food we give him, and is SUCH a trooper when it comes to his routine medical adoption visits.  He has had to get his blood drawn three times and only cried ONCE (it was with Dan so maybe that's why ;) Just kidding- the third time he got his blood drawn was with Dan at an ER visit and they were there for almost 10 hours so you can imagine that probably had something to do with it!  He had a couple swollen lymph nodes which is what caused the ER visit and we are still following up on those.  We are so thankful for the adoption center at Comer's Hospital.  They have been so incredibly helpful these first few months! 

Today someone came to our door selling something and naturally all three boys crowded around the front door and the teenager looked at me and said, "Are these all YOUR kids?"  I couldn't help but laugh- I completely forget that Ben looks adopted to the typical outsider- it feels like he has been a with our family since the beginning and in some ways always he has- we know that God ordained us to be his family since Ben was born.  And although our journey to adopt him started even before he was born, we are so incredibly thankful he is with us now and looking forward to MANY more years with him here :)