Da day. . .

I probably won't note these days publicly in the future, but will continue to do so for myself.  But, this being a Three Year, I think I will round it all out with finishing notation of these momenteous dates:

Today marks the third anniversary of the judge in Krasnoyarsk saying "Da.  You may be the mama and papa of this baby boy currently known as Stepan Vladislavovich Nosov and whom will now be known as Aidan Josef Harrison."  She said this after we had a nerve wracking, headache producing thirty hour delay. . .

We had gotten through the entire questioning portion on the 25th of March (albeit with a bit of a stumble on the discipline portion--could not for the life of me remember what we had been told to say and the questioning was pretty intense on this!)  But, the big hurdle seems to have been that the Ministry of Education had not made one final look see to find out if the birth mother, or family, wanted Aidan back.  I was sick to my stomach with worry over this.  I just wanted my son.  Suffice it to say, the Ministry of Education went in to major scramble mode and went to the last known address of Aidan's birth mother and could not find her or anyone related to her.  So they refiled the forms indicating they approved of us being his parents. . .which turned out to be the wrong forms!  But, the judge gave us her "Da" anyway.

About the discipline thing, I have thought about that a lot since that day and realize now why that question was so important to the judge.  I totally goofed up my response, which I can only attribute to nerves and never having been a parent before--another reason why the judge was questioning us!  And although Aidan is growing up a bit spoiled (okay, maybe a little more than a bit) he is a good boy and manners are being instilled in him for the most part!  He is free spirited and allowed to make his own decisions on a lot of things.  But, he does need frequent reminders that he can't talk back and that he needs to be nice.  None of his behaviors are troubling and, to me, seem very normal 4 almost 5 year old boy behaviors. 

About the only behavior still remaining that I attribute to  his having been in a baby home is his level of discomfort with change or inconsistency.  This does come up at his school--particularly lately--in the form of his teacher being out extensively (his teacher is getting married and training for an Assistant Director postion).  I can usually talk to him and get him to be okay again, but only if I know.  If I don't know, then he will act out agressively and will be a little hard to control.  We're working with his school to try and get this to be more consistent. 

Otherwise, our kiddo is a very healthy, loving, totally smart, athletic little boy who is growing up in a normal (okay, my version of normal) house with two loving and totally in love with him parents!  What more could a boy want??? 

And here he was three years ago. . .

He has grown up so much since then!