Getting to know one another

I don't know if anyone can prepare another for adoption. Especially prepare them for a child of 5 who lived his entire 5 1/2 years in an orphanage.

I thought I had read and talked to everyone I needed to prepare us....but adoption is something one must experience for themselves. Everyone can tell you what "might" happen....but every child's situation is different.

We have now been home for 1 week 4 days. The first few days home were ROCKY to say the least. I guess I was so tired and my "time" in Kazakhstan was overwhelming! I know that Quinn was excited to finally be "here"...whatever that meant to him....he was finally "HERE"!!

He is starting to learn the rules of our home. We have explained to him that he lives with just us now. We are a family. We know that he might not understand that just yet...but he will.

We hired a teacher to help him with English. Both Tyler and I feel this is extremely important right now. The teacher was surprised how happy Quinn is. We told him that was what we first saw when we met him....his happy smile and laugh....even though he lived with 16 other children (all groups were about this size) with no real mommy and daddy.

Right now Tyler and I are taking his "One Day at a Time". Tyler and I are also seeing a counselor as well to help us with our new addition to our family. We need all the help we can get to make this as smooth as possible.

A few have asked how Parker is doing. I must say Parker is handling all of this really well. Parker calls him his brother and accepts that this is where Quinn belongs...with us as a family.

We have heard that 6 months is a marker for these children. Soon Quinn will be understanding us better and his memory of orphanage life will fade into a distant memory.


Sorry Tyler has been so busy and promises to put some photos up soon!