Happy Gotcha Day Cainan

4 years ago today, Mat and Aunt Betty were in China meeting Cainan for the very first time.

A little 14 month old boy with a level III cleft lip and palate who stole our hearts immediately.

The first year was a big learning experience for us - learning how to deal with a little boy who had never experienced anything.  And I mean - NOTHING.  Not food that wasn't rice or formula.  Not grass, or sand, or toys, or the English language.

 

This is the first picture of Cainan when he was found.  He is about 3 days old here

It was fun to watch him grow and experience those things.  We needed to treat him very much like a newborn at first.  If you go back to the VERY beginning of our blog and read forward, you can read about Mat's time in China and what our experiences were first like as a family of five.

He was always a happy boy.  Bouncy, sweet, quiet.  He needed so much that first year and we had another child only 33 days younger than he was.  Virtual - and immediate - twins.  It made life interesting and challenging all at the same time.

 

This was Cainan's adoption photo that we received

After the first year, he started to change by leaps and bounds.  He went from not even crawling to walking to running in a matter of months.  He started to love the sand and the grass.  He started to speak.  He started to play.  And he just melted right into our family like he was always there.

4 years later and 7 surgeries later we could not love our boy any more.  He is our son.  He is our family.  And we can't imagine life without him.

Happy Gotcha day our sweet Cainan.  We love you to the moon and back.