Proud little boy/ what a photo can tell you

Look who's so proud of how straight and tall he's sitting all by himself!

Duplo bins have proven to be a great size for Krassi to work on this skill. The height is right to give him a good solid 90 degree angle at his knees, and there's room for him to prop with his hands on either side of his little bottom. He has to work SO hard to do this, but he is so very proud of himself whenever he does one of these "big boy" sorts of things.

I look at that photo, too, and realize how very deceptive a photo can be. It's easy to paint a rosy picture of "real" life with photos. I mean, seriously, how could life with this boy be anything but smiles and giggles and delight, right? I tend to not take as many photos of the not-so-pleasant moments. ;) Partly, of course, because I'm usually pretty occupied during those moments, but also because those are not the moments I choose to remember.

There's a video of before and after photos of children from Krassi's orphanage that simply cycles one of the child's referral photos followed by a photo taken (and shared with permission) of the child after they are home with their adoptive families. One of the biggest differences (and I use the word "one" on purpose, because it's definitely not the only significant difference, if you're interested in checking it out!) is that in the "after" photo the child is almost always smiling.

Everyone looks better when they're smiling - just look in a mirror and test it out if you have any doubts! But as I thought about it, a few things came to my mind. First of all, the photo of the child (my child, our child) that you see above is a photo of a child who was described in his referral paperwork as one who "rarely smiled." I have to admit that with all of the other scary things that were in that document, the simple fact that he rarely smiled was one of the scariest things for me. As I look at my beaming son, I am reminded again how little a two page document can tell you about who a person is.

A second, and no less significant thing, though, is that all of the "after" photos are taken by that child's family. I could just as easily have shared with you this photo:

If you ignore the fact that there's a smiling mommy next to that boy, you'd get a very different read on him. Part of being part of a family is that your mommy and daddy are willing to take the time to take a bunch of photos to get that good one. ;) And once they get the good one, that's the one they want to share with others. "Look at my son! This is how I see him when I look at him. Isn't he delightful? Does he fill your heart with joy the way he does mine?"

So I have to leave you with this one again.

Because this is the little boy that we are so glad is our oldest son.



[For those of you who are interested, a website has recently been created to help benefit the children who are still living at the Pleven orphanage. The current director has a really neat vision for the future, and also good news is that the former director, after a two-year process of being removed from her position and then appealing that decision, has had her case heard at a higher level court which has determined that she will not EVER be given the chance to get that job back. She is not allowed to appeal the decision any further!!!

Here is the link: http://www.plevenproject.org/ and here is the page where you can see the video of photos I was referring to above: http://www.plevenproject.org/the-present.html ]