The newest brother...

Alex loved making a snowman!

Many of you have kept up on my parents progress through this most recent adoption and rejoiced with them when Alex finally made it home.  Since then I haven't really had much to update on because I haven't been able to meet him myself, but now I can fix that!!!

Alex had a challenging start when he first came home, he ended up pushing the other children away and making life relatively hard for himself by insisting on doing stuff his way, but he has grown a lot since then and some better qualities are showing through. 

When we first got to Mom and Dad's Alex was very quiet, we got hugs and he would answer our questions, but he didn't initiate conversation.  We were surprised at the kids descriptions of how active Alex normally was and after a week or so he must have gotten comfortable and we could see what they were talking about!  He is constantly moving, and once his shyness wore off he always wanted to know what you were doing, whether on the computer or cooking he had questions!  He also loves television and video games!  As soon as he would get in from chores he wanted to know if it was his turn to play, Mom had to limit him some but we all got some fun in, especially with some of his new games from Christmas!

His English has improved by leaps and bounds, and apparently he learned really good phonics skills while in Ukraine.  Chris and I would be taken off guard when he would sound out a long or unfamiliar word and then ask us what it meant!  While he doesn't have the vocabulary to match the phonics yet, the phonics will really help as he continues to learn how to read English.

His relation skills with the other kids has also improved, but they are somewhat hesitant around him now due to his earlier behavior.  I knew this would be a possibility and that this will pass as Alex continues to become part of the family, but it is still hard to watch sometimes.  Some exciting improvements however include his heartwarming concern for little brother while he had appendicitis and how much he has started to play pretend with Hannah.

In short it has been an intense adjustment for the family, but it is all part of the growing pains of adding a new brother, and the joys of seeing him interact positively are quickly outpacing the hard times.