He's Growing Up So Fast

We've now reached a few crucial milestones with our sweet Alex. He turned 10 months old and also reached the three-month mark since he's been home with us. On April 15 (3 months exactly since our "Gotcha" Day), Alex took his first "real" steps. While we're thrilled beyond words at how exciting this step is, I can't help but feel that the time is passing so quickly.

When Alex arrived here, he was really only drinking bottled formula and a bit of rice cereal and was sitting up, but would still topple over from time to time. Soon after he came home, he was doing the soldier crawl, and it feels like we've just whizzed through the stage of him crawling, then crab walking, then cruising along furniture, to taking his own steps now. I'm sure it's the same for all parents, and we all wish there was a *pause* button we could use for different stages, but it's still bittersweet to have Alex turning into a little boy so quickly.

For the past few weeks, Alex had been letting go of furniture and toppling forward, but I didn't count it as real steps because it was more forward momentum, or falling forward while you take a step or two, and not an actual attempt at getting from one place to the next on somewhat steady feet.

In the newest album, I have pictures of his first steps (with him grinning and squealing in delight the entire time lol), and at that time, he could do 2-3 steps before resorting to a crawl or losing his balance. Now, only a couple of days later, he's able to walk across the family room, and can even correct himself if he starts to lose his balance. Granted, our family room isn't huge and he falls an awful lot still, but it's still so amazing to us to watch his progression and learning from day to day (The second set of walking pictures were from tonight where he was walking across the room to me - not sure what the interest in the sock is, but he seemed to have fun putting it from his hand to his mouth as he walked *chuckles*).

We've also been having fun with Alex learning to point out things like our nose, eyes, mouth, etc. He's picking up new things everyday, and he seems to understand so much now. He understands if I ask for a kiss or a hug, and it almost makes me cry each time he cuddles up for a hug from either of us.

We've been out and about with Alex a bit over the past couple of weeks. We attended another Seoul-Mates gathering (playgroup for families adopting from/who have adopted from Korea), and that was lots of fun, although we didn't get as much time to visit with people as we'd have liked to as we had plans in Toronto that day as well.

We've seen Grandma Rice a couple of times in Toronto since she's been in town for the past week, and we also got a chance to see Chris' sister, her daughters and her boyfriend. Our niece, Sarah (on Chris' side of the family - so you're not confused), has decided to do a speech for her school project on how she got a cousin from South Korea, so she's been busy gathering information on the adoption, and pictures of Alex.

We also had a delightful dinner with friends of ours, Willem and Christine who also adopted a baby from Korea. They are one of the first couples we met in this process, and we've kept in touch ever since. Their son (also named Alex) is now 19 months old and he's an absolute doll. We met up in Cambridge and went out for a Korean dinner at a new local restaurant. The staff were all so nice to us and the boys, and the food was wonderful. I included a couple of pictures from that dinner in the newest album.

Our only other big news at this time is that we'll be going to Walt Disney World in 3 weeks. Kathy, Steve and the girls will be down there for 9 days, so we're flying down and spending 4 days with them at the parks. It'll be Jennifer's 10th birthday there, so we've promised to take her onto the Tower of Terror!