M.O.B Blog Hop!

We brought our son home from Guatemala four years ago, just a week or so after his fourth birthday.

He rocked our world.

Before that, our family had consisted of my husband and me, a teenage foster daughter, a daughter through birth, and (not pictured) my teenage sister who had lived with us for a couple of years. Lots of girls. No young boys.

By the time our son came home, my sister had long since moved out to go to college and be on our own and our foster daughter had grown-up, gotten married, and was also out on her own. For about 6 months before we brought our son home, it was just my husband, myself, and one quiet and sweet little girl.

And then I got my first glimpse at what having a boy was all about. This is us on a playground in Guatemala, the day after we met our son. My husband's expression pretty much sums up how ready we were for an active little boy.

(If you have an hour and a beverage of choice, and would like to read the journal I kept for the week we were in Guatemala, you can find it here.)

Granted, when he first came home, he was so small and so scared. Poor little guy.

But it didn't take him long to adjust, come out of his shell, and let us know that he was "all boy". It's hard to believe that these photos were taken only a couple weeks after he first came home. He seems like a different child than the small frightened face in the photo above.

The journey hasn't always been smooth and easy. But it has been rich and rewarding.

In the years since, I've been doing all I can to be a better mom to my boy. That's required a lot of patience and support, and not a small dose of humility. I still remember going up to another mother of boys and asking her, was it common for little boys to miss the toilet every time, or should I be concerned?  (Yes, she said. She said she had to clean her bathroom every day to keep it from smelling like a truck stop urinal.)

I am blessed to be able to homeschool both my children. My daughter, Sweetling, is now 13 and my son, Toa of Boy, is now 8.

On my blog, I try to post about activities, both school and recreational, that we have done that I think other families might also enjoy trying. I occasionally put a recipe up on my blog as well, and since I'm no cook, any recipe I can make is gotta be easy and pretty fool-proof.

I'm really looking forward to linking up with some other Mom of Boy blogs, because I know we still have quite a journey ahead of us!