A Little Boy and a Smoothie

What do these two things have in common?  Absolutely nothing.  Nada.  But, I promised pictures of our boy and a reader asked for my smoothie recipe.  I don't want to disappoint on either count!  So, this post is about a little boy.  And the next post will be about my smoothies!  Okay?  Okay!

Without further ado, I will tell you how this guy, became our son.

I saw this picture last summer {yes, almost a year ago}. He was called Drake by the agency.  I thought he was precious and I printed his file.  I showed it to the husband.  He was not as smitten as I was.  As a matter-of-fact, he was less than interested in discussing adoption again.  We weren't ready to do it again.  And no matter how I begged, he would give this little guy no concern.  After a month or so, I gave up and put the file in a drawer.  To be forgotten. 

Only it wasn't.

Unbeknownst to me, Isabel found the file and ran copies of this pictures.  Numerous copies.  Which she placed all around her room.  And whipped out to show anyone and everyone that would look.  How did I find this out?  Oh, only when my in-laws questioned me about "our new son".  Our new son????  The one Isabel had showed them. 

Boy did I have some explaining to do!  After which, I had to set Isabel straight and explain that this kid was not her brother and probably was not going to be her brother and that she couldn't just go around telling people that he was her brother!  Oh. My. 

Fast forward to Christmas.  Paul has a complete change of heart.  Now he's ready and he specifically wants me to show him some little boys with heart defects.  You know this part of the story.  If you need a recap, click here. 

When we separated from Shan Yi, we were not exactly in a hurry to attach to another child.  And yet, we knew we were in this for a reason.  To give a child a home.  We couldn't stop just because our plan fell apart.  After all, it's not about us.  That was the hardest part of separating from Shan Yi, was understanding that we did it for him.  We wanted him.  But he needed a family that would be more than we could be. 

At that point Paul brought up "Drake".  Was he still available?  Was he a possibility?  Our agency was very interested in exploring our options for a child, and we mentioned "Drake" they let us know he was in fact still  available.  After 9 months!  I could not believe he was still waiting! 

But he was.

I shared the story of Isabel's long time attachment to him with our agency and they quickly became convinced that we needed to be matched with him.  They locked his file for us on May 11th and on May 13th (Claire's adoption day) we received pre-approval for him!

Why did it take so long for us to share this information.  Well, quite frankly, we were still processing our loss of Shan Yi and not actually ready to celebrate.  It seemed to quick.  I hope that makes sense.  And honestly, I have had to warm up slowly to this "new" little guy. 

Who by the way is not so little anymore!

After we locked him, we requested updated measurements and we were very happy to also get updated pictures!  But, our guy has grown up so much since I fell in love with him last July.  Even better, I have two videos of him too!

So, Isabel gets her brother.  Hard to believe she knew all along.  And she never got rid of his pictures even after we told her Shan Yi would be her brother.  I found then stuck to her cork board over her bunk bed when I was cleaning up for the homestudy! 

 

Another thing, he is from Tianjin.  Claire was from Tianjin!