I can’t even believe it’s been four years (and two months, because, well, the blog post I had intended to write on December 16 was derailed by this thing called “life” – let’s just pretend these reflections are not two months late).

We fell in love with Superman on Christmas Eve of 2012, and on Christmas of 2013, we were holding that boy we’d dreamed about all year in a hotel room in Guangzhou, China.

Every year on December 16, we celebrate Superman’s Adoption Day, the day we held him in our arms, not just our dreams, and every Christmas since that Christmas four years ago, I can’t help but replay those special first days in China in my head.

Superman came to us tender and tentative and sensitive and would break down if we even looked at him in what he viewed as a disapproving way.

But it didn’t take him long to settle in.

Before we ever returned from China, we saw glimpses of his joy and contagious belly laughter and the LOVE he had for others, even in the face of a broken past.

And oh, the miracles God has performed in his tender little heart since then.