It's been exactly one year (right around this time of day (except a different time zone!)) since we met the children who are now ours!

Last May 22nd, I posted Road Trip: Day Two – Meeting the Kids. It's been an amazing year full of pinnacles and valleys unimaginable at the time I wrote that last year! But, here we are a year later, fully bonded, attached, and settled into a routine.

My children love each other with amazing depth for children who have only formally known each other for twelve months. My oldest will often choose to be with them over something that previously he would have loved to take part n. Now, he'll merely say he'd rather play with his brother and sister.

I'm somewhat squirrelly about showing full on pictures of them, but I have one that went out in our New Year's cards that captures this feeling. In our living room, above the fireplace, we have the word L-O-V-E spelled out in little shelves I found at Big Lots. In the picutre, the children are standing under the word L-O-V-E, arm in arm, huge smiles evident, and my youngest looking up adoringly at his older brother.

My daughter has successfully battled enuresis, encopresis, intentional daytime soiling, rages, tantrums, and has been all but released from the therapist's care (we just go for “check-ins” every few weeks). This is the little girl that as recently as December of last year, feared walking across the floor for fear of the “bad men” coming to “get” her. This is the little girl who stayed awake for hours every night consumed with severe insomnia, in extreme hyper-vigilance against these same “bad men.”

As for my youngest, this has also been a year of remarkable growth. When we were talking on the phone in our weekly calls to his foster home, I noticed it seemed as though he had difficulty hearing (the constant, “huh?” was a clue!). I mentioned it, and sure enough, he needed tubes! Because it had gone so long undetected, his speech wasn't as clear as it should have been for a child his age. A year later, I'm happy to report, he has an amazing vocabulary, clear and precise speech (as clear as it gets for a five-year-old), and his hearing and persistent sinus infections have completely cleared to normal.

It's hard to believe it's only been a year since our formal meeting. It seems like they have been a part of our hearts and family forever.