One year (almost!)

It's hard to believe that it's been nearly a year since Peter became ours.  In some ways, it seems like he's been with us for much longer but in other ways it seems like just yesterday that we held him for the first time in Jinan.  As we approach the first anniversary of Gotcha Day, I've been thinking about what that day means and how we will celebrate it, both now and in the future.

We know adoptive families who treat Gotcha Day like a birthday, a true day of celebration.  And in many ways Gotcha Day is just like a birthday, the day that their adopted child has been reborn into their families.  But we know other families for whom Gotcha Day is a low key affair due the memories of grief, trauma and loss that are stirred by remembering the circumstances that brought these children into our lives.

I don't really know how we will celebrate Gotcha Day in the future, especially as Petey grows in awareness and starts to ask the questions that are sure to come, questions for which we have no answers.  But for now we are grateful that he is part of our family and we hope that he is as blessed by our family as we have been by him.

~Matt

Keeping the beat in music class