Our Family Anniversary

As we made our way in the front door, my nerves got the best of me. A small-framed woman greeted us with a wide smile as she walked to the crib in the corner of the tidy room. She turned around to proudly reveal the baby she had lifted from the bed, and all I could do was giggle nervously and mutter, "Wow, he's big!"

I think that I repeated that phrase a dozen times as Scott and I sat on the wooden bench holding our son for the first time. Those moments were surreal...I was overwhelmed at the realization of how unprepared I was for motherhood and intimidated to have four sets of eyes on me as I interacted with Matthew. And yet as I look back at photos from that day, all I see is joy on my face.

Today marks a year since we first met Matthew. 365 days...that seems strange to type out. I think I like referring to it in days though...it seems a better way to express the time...

the days of new discoveries
the days of exhaustion
the days of triumph
the days of failure
the days of growth
the days of true laughter
the days of too many tears to count
and, most of all, the days of a love that I cannot describe

So, today we celebrated with lunch at a cafe and a visit to the children's museum! Scott took the day off, and we enjoyed our little family in a lazy, low-key way. We gave M a gift we bought in China...a pig ornament because I THOUGHT he was born in the Year of the Pig. Turns out that you're not a pig unless you were born after Feb 17, 2007 because the Year of the Dog runs Jan 29, 2006 - Feb 17, 2007. M's birthday is in January. Shows how much I know about Chinese astrology. Oh well, we met him in the Year of the Pig! Funny thing is I told him that he could hang it on the Christmas tree this year, and he remembered what a Christmas tree is and where we had ours last year!

Our first look:

P.S. Matthew is getting his fifth tooth....hooray!