Two years...

We have our official court date...drum roll, please...March 16th! Happy dances all around!

We are taking our son, Michael with us to Moscow. He has been very insistent that he wants to go - he is tired of waiting and thinks it is high time Masha meet her big brother!

I write a lot about Down syndrome but not so much about Michael's condition. Michael has Asperger's syndrome, mild obsessive compulsion and panic attacks. Michael is very smart but eccentric. You have probably met people like Michael all your life and labeled them various things. I like eccentric. He likes things a certain way and has difficulty with changes and becomes agitated if he feels like he is not in control. We take him out of his comfort zone every vacation and he generally starts the trip very mad at us. By the time we get home, he almost always says he had the best time of his life! He is a funny boy! It is a very big step for him to REQUEST going to visit Masha. We are very proud of him.

For those of you who are wondering about the significance of this trip, this will be the first adoption petition brought before any court in Moscow for a child with Down syndrome in over 2 years. We are thankful for this gift. It has been almost that long since we began this journey.

It has also been 2 years since I went back to Ukraine and picked up Lera and brought her home. Isn't it amazing how 2 years changes everything?

From this:
To this:
And from this:
To this: