Reflections on an amazing day...

I can easily say that yesterday was one of the best days I've had all year! So many things happened to brighten the day. It started with Darren's report about Bright and Christmas Day at Eugemot. Then I came home to open a gift from my dear friend Sarah that sent my heart soaring--a beautiful necklace with Bright's pic on one side and "I Love You Bright" in Ashanti with the Ghanian flag as a background on the other side. THEN I opened the package from Lois/LVI and found the video of our Bright!

Not only did good things happen with Bright yesterday, but we also received 2 checks we have been waiting for in order to get our Ethiopia adoption going! It just felt like God poured down blessings on us yesterday. Thank you, Lord.

Some of you may have noticed when you watched the video that Bright doesn't come across as a toddler. We expected this. He was probably at no more than a newborn level developmentally when he came into care in early September with very significant malnutrition. We have a photo of him sitting up (good!) but Lois shared with us that he definitely isn't crawling or cruising yet at 14 months old. Now that we have a video, one of my friends who was an Early Intervention Specialist (in her life before motherhood) confirmed that she feels like Bright's muscle tone is that of a 3-4 month old.

I am an information junkie so being able to see for sure that Bright is quite delayed doesn't really discourage me. In fact, I feel blessed to be able to know where he's at developmentally at this point. We have no reason to believe that he won't catch up once he's home and is given lots of opportunity to develop those muscles/skills. At Eugemot they don't allow the babies to be on the floor because of the dirt and grime, and I don't believe they even have a playpen. So Bright probably spends his days in someone's loving arms, or hiked up in a high chair or bouncy seat (I've seen both of those in pics). That's okay--love is the most important thing right now. He's got the rest of his life to figure out how to crawl and walk. =-)

Love,
Anita