Looking back at the past 11 months with my children, I see such growth and progress. I remember when “Success!” was getting them to sleep at night!

Success now looks very different than it did then. The kids have moved onto bigger challenges. Success now comes in the form of conquering fears time and again.

The last I blogged about fears, my daughter had just experienced terror in the pool as she learned a new swim technique. We practiced a “script” for her to give her teacher the next day, and I reassured her she would be back to her old mermaid ways.

Sure enough, the next morning, she delivered her well-rehearsed speech, and her teacher was fine with it. She had a blast in the pool, as though nothing happened, just as I knew she would. In fact, today, she also had a new swimming curve ball thrown at her, but this time, she was relaxed about it – success!

With the passage of time, my children are realizing more and more that their basic needs are being met, which allows them to move higher and higher toward self-actualization. It's exciting to see them master tasks and conquer fears, just as it is interesting to she how my husband and I have learned from this whole process of integrating two new children into an existing unit.

The intensity has changed a bit, as those first few weeks and days were purely about survival. However, the issues the children are tackling now have far lengthier consequences and are weightier matters in the scheme of things.

They say that in order to be effective, goals have to be tangible and measurable, so that you can accurately account for growth and see if those goals are being met. Using that as a definition, my children are clearly growing – it's a change you can definitely see and measure!

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