32 pounds, 7 ounces

Guess who gained a pound and an ounce in the last five days?

Yep. ;) It wasn't me - it was Krassi. That little guy just keeps packing it on. Both Matt and I were commenting a day or two ago that he doesn't look nearly as undernourished as he did when he first came home, and it's been just three weeks since I picked him up and just over two weeks home.

Yes, under the new director he was much better fed, and added 6 pounds to the 22 pounds he weighed on his eighth birthday, but at this rate we'll have accomplished in six weeks what they did in 15 months.

My guess is that the quality of the food we're giving him is better than it was, but also that when you have limited time to feed many children that you can't always spend the 45 minutes that it takes to fill that boy up (or more for other children who were with him! One family I know reports spending almost 2 hours per feeding.) But even more than that, years and years ago I learned that it doesn't only take food to grow, but that children who are not loved fail to produce the hormones necessary for growth. Learning that was my first exposure to the reality of many institutionalized children who are so neglected that they can not grow, regardless of how much or what they are fed. We're making sure to fill Krassi up with all of the good stuff that we have to offer him, and so far its working!