We Are Home

Ok....Can you believe it??? We have been home, safe and sound, since July 2nd. And, I am just now updating this. But, we have our sweet little boy home with us. It is hard to believe that we were finally rewarded for all of hard work by getting our sweet little angel home. ALAS!!!!!

We have not been the overly cautious, limit the stimuli parents. But, that's just from realizing that he is great in all kinds of situations. We got home....we celebrated his US citizenship by introducing him to 4th of July festivities. He loved the fireworks. Incidentally, even though I had tried forever to get him to say "mama" in Russia, I'll always have fond memories of Independence Day because that is when he learned it and just kept saying it over and over and over!!! Yay!!! (By the way, he is not short on vocabulary now and we get to hear mama all the time during his little bouts where I refuse to not hold him 24x7 and then all I hear is "mama" "mama" "mama")

Then, in the midst of all the great news, we had a bit of bad news. My poor Mika Girl (who I'll always call "my puppy") passed two weeks after getting home. But, thank goodness I was HOME.

After that, we had a family vacation planned to NY. I was going to do the Ironman Tri which my mom was coming to spectate (from NV to NY). However, I skipped racing (my training had been a little less than expected) and we went to have our first extended family vacation. Zachary was great despite putting him through the 13 hour car-ride. Sorry Zac!!! But, your Grandma and Grandpa wanted to see you, as well as my Aunt Carole, Uncle Merle, and cousin Kendra and her kids Rome and Madison. How cool that they made the trek to meet up with us!!! We had a great visit.

After that, Zac was progressing very well. In the short time home (now only 6 weeks), here is his progress: He says "NO" to everything (bound to happen); he says lots of "dada" and "mama"; he says "go"; he waves hi/bye; he does patty cake with the clapping/rollng his arm (part he loves); points to his nose when you ask where it is; has learned to LOVE bathtime; has went swimming even in Lake St. Clair; uses a spoon and a sippy cup....that's just to name a few. We are so happy with how fast he is learning and how much he seems like he just wants to learn!!!!

We also had, last week, a Welcome Zachary/Belated 1st Birthday celebration. Thank you everyone that came out to wecome Zac and celebrate his homecoming and belated 1st birthday (even though we really are way past that this year). We ended up having over 100 guests. Zachary was soooo good. He let all of our gracious friends/family welcome him home and was such a sweetie/ham when we belatedly celebrated his birthday. Here's a picture of him with his 1st birthday cake....

I have returned to work and Zachary is at pre-school. He is learning really quick from other kids. At the outset he did not know how to eat at all from a spoon. So, at home I sit and feed him. I think our son is living a double life. Today, I picked him up and he was eating from his own spoon, by himself, sitting at a little kid table (no high chair). How amazing!!!!

At any rate, that's the short update....