6 months

Today is six months from Andrei's adoption date, so here's a little update on how we've all been progressing.

Andrei is doing phenomenal. His English is so much better than I ever would have thought. It's not perfect, by any means, but we fool strangers on the street regularly. There are less than 10 words that he still says in Russian, and his English grammar and sentence structure is getting better every day. When he doesn't know a word, or says a new one in Russian, we ask him to explain and he shows us or finds a way to describe it in English. I'm amazed at how quickly he's picked it up.
He has started processing feelings about his birth parents. He tells us stories about them (which can't possibly be true) - about his 'father' who gave him a motorcycle, and then was Superman but died. He talks more about his birth-father than about his birth-mother. He keeps insisting that they are dead, but we tell him that they're not, and I think that makes him sad (because he doesn't understand why they're not with him - not because they're not dead). I can see he's conflicted. It's hard to know what to say already, I really don't know what to do when the big questions start. Brent and I pray regularly that God heals his heart, and that we help him feel loved and know how to answer his questions.
Socially, he's the most extroverted child I have ever met in my life, which is pretty ironic considering I'd just as soon be by myself all the time. He talks to everyone and anyone, says "what's your name you", and tells them they have nice hair. We had to tell him to stop yelling hello to people in the cars next to us at stoplights. Now that it's summer I'll hopefully be able to find more kids for him to play with.
All in all, he's doing so well - a friend asked how long we've been home - a year, right? It feel like forever already - like he's always been ours.

Brent is a phenomenal father. I'm so lucky to have him, and so is Andrei. He definitely balances out my tough side, and he and Andrei play and tickle and fight and get along so well. Andrei has started calling him 'daddy' instead of 'papa' and Brent says it has made it more real to him, but I think he's been great from the first minute. :)

I've been doing good too. Better I think. I'm dealing with dreaded 'mommy guilt' now and second guessing myself at everything. I think that partly comes because I'm playing teacher role too. But I can see lately where he's been learning and that encourages me. I think parenting is becoming pretty much everything I imagined - except a little more hyper than I thought...

Right now he's at kid's church so I will finish this post and get back to enjoying my night off. :)