A year ago today we boarded a plane in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and returned home with our son, Milo. Our 19-month adoption journey had finally come to an end.
He’s looking pretty wide-eyed and freaked out in the picture, probably because he threw up an entire bottle all over Abby shortly after we took this picture. Yeah, nothing like gearing up for an 18-hour flight with that soaking into everything. All the burp rags we brought for the entire flight were instantly soaked.
Of course if that’s the only complaint you have on a crowded transatlantic flight, consider yourself lucky. We did. Aside from the gag reflex, we were sitting in the bulkhead seats with plenty of leg room and a bassinet for Milo. It doesn’t get much better than that.
A lot changes in a year.
Today Milo is an amazing little goofball. He loves to laugh, be tickled and throw things down the stairs. Seriously, he emptied the entire contents of our old Tupperware drawer down the basement stairs today. We’ve now designated it the Milo drawer and stopped storing the Tupperware we actually use in there.
He wanders the house with a random spoon or fork in his hand. The cloth diapers we use as burp rags are his teddy bear—he won’t sleep without one. The other night he was crying and I came down to comfort him. I picked up the burp rag he’d thrown out of his crib and gave it back to him, but before I could reach over to pick him up he’d rolled over with the rag and fallen back asleep. I stood there in shock, expecting him to start crying again, but he was out.
Last week I heard a 
