Julian-3.5

 

Julian, well I already used up most of the pictures I had of him in his adoption post, but here are a few more. Julian still loves robots, spider-man and the color green. Julian is very easy going, quiet and compliant for the most part. He can sometimes be easily overlooked amongst the louder and more demanding children, but I try to make intentional 1 on 1 time with him. 

Julian loves his bear lovey we gave him, his fox we that he got as a gift on adoption day, and his paw patrol dog that he came with. He is very attached to his possessions and is the only of the kids who cares about stuffed animals.  He gets along well with the girls and loves playing with Israel but the boys do go head to head often. He likes to play outside, ride his bike, and go places. He was very behind "academically" (if you can even use that word for a 3 year old) when he came to us, but he is improving. I feel strongly that play is the most healing and important thing for him at this age, so letting him play and working on bonding with all of us is what my priority is for him right now. 

His new haircut- he loves to get his haircut and is always asking me to cut it. 

He looks so handsome and grown up!

Julian is such a joy in our family, and it is crazy to think about sometimes how much everything had to line up perfectly for him to come to our family. I won't lie, adoption is not easy, especially when it's not infant adoption. Sometimes I get sad thinking about all the things we've missed in his life, and all the mother/child experiences we never got and some normal kid experiences that we still haven't had. I've never taken care of him when he's sick, he's never slept in our bed with us, we haven't celebrated his birthday or Christmas with him yet. We missed all his babyhood and all the milestones that go along with that, and we have hardly any information from that time in his life. Obviously he has a lot of trauma from his past and all the losses he's had in his young life. Sometimes in the day to day of taking care of him I forget these things, he's so resilient that most of the time it doesn't show. Adoption comes with a lot of extra feelings and mom guilt. Luckily he has a great therapist that comes and helps him work through the hard things and helps me work through everything about adoption too. We are so grateful for her! 

Even with the hard, Julian is such a blessing! He is very sweet and adorable and we are so grateful he's ours.