A little over a year ago...

I'm a couple of weeks behind on this post, but better late than never.


After receiving Eden Weyni's referral in early July, we were at the top of our agency's list for a baby boy.  We waited and waited for 6 weeks before we know who our son would be.  The day before we got a referral, I was struggling greatly with the wait.  I wasn't trusting God in His perfect timing.  Matt had friends over that night, and I was out walking and praying, asking forgiveness for my lack of trust, asking God if we should be open to an older boy instead of a baby.  Somehow, while praying, I knew that I was struggling so greatly that day because there was a mom in Ethiopia saying goodbye to her son.  It seemed kinda weird to me, almost as if I was making it up because I so badly wanted a referral.  But, no, God was just reminding me to trust Him.  When we woke up the following morning, we had a message from our adoption coordinator.  "A toddler boy, 1 year 10 months old, was brought in by his birth mother today.  He is not a baby, but I wanted to know if you were interested and wanted to see his picture before we referred him to another family."  I knew before seeing his picture that he was our son.  When Matt read the email, he was very excited about the prospect of a toddler instead of a baby.  Here are pictures of that sad little toddler boy, our Tobias Alazar.

We asked if they could get us some new pictures, pictures where he wasn't crying and without drool coming out of his mouth.  A reasonable request, right?  These are the pics we got a couple of days later.  A clean boy but still very serious and sad.

 When we visited the children last September, Tobey still had the same serious face.  He didn't smile, didn't laugh.  When he came home, one of the first things Matt said was, "He doesn't laugh.  Even when being tickled, he doesn't laugh."  The last six months have been difficult with him, lots of defiance, screaming, crying, whining, etc.  Over the last month, however, he has turned a corner.  He finally trusts us and has settled into our family  Yesterday Tobey and Kai were playing together.  Tobey was spread eagle in a doorway so that Kai couldn't get past.  He was laughing hysterically.  While I have heard him laugh many times, it was the first time it really hit me.  He laughs a lot.  He is a happy boy!  I apologize as Matt is away with the camera and I don't have anything really new or recent, but here are a couple naked pictures of our happy boy.

Tobias Alazar, we love you and are so happy God brought you, a toddler boy, to our family!