11

November 12, 2022 Michelle Cuthrell

On National Adoption Day, we couldn’t help but celebrate the superhero whose story first changed OURS. THANK YOU, Superman, for showing us what “super” really looks like in this life. We know our beauty comes at the cost of your brokenness, and we will never take for granted the price you’ve paid to be a part of this team. Honoring forever the courageous mama who chose for you life. Love you to the moon and back.

From the moment he came into our home at age 2.5, we knew he was something super.

The boy we called Superman could do with four fingers what took me five and with one arm bone what took me two, and by the time he was 9 years old, this little warrior had undergone 11 surgeries and 14 casts and put us ALL to shame with a pain tolerance on the scale of Rambo.

(While Superman has spent two separate weeks of his life NPO — without food or water preceding and following major surgeries and hospitalizations — this weak girl can barely survive a late lunch before she has to apologize for all the things she said to other humans when she was hangry.)

His tender heart, tenacious spirit and contagious smile have captured our hearts from second one. But what’s been so fun this year is to see the boy we’ve adored and admired for nine years finally begin to recognize in himself the super we’ve seen all along.

At age 11, Superman has finally emerged from his former tentative stance of occasionally hiding behind his cape. Little by little, he’s now starting to believe that God indeed intended him to fly.

And FLY is the word we find ourselves constantly using to describe this fast-as-a-speeding-bullet boy.

Superman's 11th Surgery

October 27, 2020 Michelle Cuthrell

Not every superhero in our house gets our ear when he thinks he’s dying

Superhero 1, who can force himself through a 10-mile, uphill run with cramps and pain and blood dripping down the knees, makes the dying claim exactly every time in his life he’s ever thrown up. (The Peppercorn Incident of 2016 will also go down in history as the day a member of the spice cabinet killed not the 10-year-old mouth where it lodged but the ears of every member of the household who had to listen to banshee shrieking for the following five hours.)

But when Superman, who has endured 10 surgeries and more hospitalizations and regular medical procedures than all the members of our house combined, says he’s in physical pain, we know he’s not messing around.

On Thursday afternoon, that tough-as-nails boy doubled over in pain to the point of being unable to walk, and by dinnertime, he told us he thought he needed to go to the hospital.

When he emptied the contents of his stomach all over the E.R. parking lot, my shoes and his brand new mask in what can only be described as a fireworks display of exploding vomit, I knew it was more than a few aches and pains. (Superman: 1, puke-catching mask: 0.)

We spent Thursday night in our local emergency room, where doctors diagnosed an obstruction that needed pediatric specialty care. After an ambulance ride to the same children’s hospital where both Superman and Superhero 4 have had surgeries over the last four years, some of our favorite specialists let us know that, if they couldn’t resolve the issue in 24 to 48 hours, they’d have to perform surgery.

God's Best-Kept Secret

December 31, 2018 Michelle Cuthrell

We had just returned home from two-plus weeks in China.

We’d fallen in love with the boy we called Superman on Christmas Eve of 2012. And on Christmas Eve of 2013, we were in a hotel in Guangzhou, China, holding that precious superhero in our arms.

It may have taken 12 months for God to officially write this boy into our family’s story, but it took less than 12 seconds for all of us to fall head over heels for the vivacious 2 and a half-year-old who already felt like he’d always been part of the family.

Because I’m slightly obsessive about pictures, announcements and communicating fun news as quickly and loudly as possible, I had scheduled a photo session with our dear friend Sarah the week we returned from China.

I didn’t want Superman to waste one more moment than possible viewing pictures in our home that didn’t include his precious face.

And so, on New Year’s Eve 2013, our new five-person family gathered at a local park in the fog and the rain to capture the beautiful redemption story God had written.

In Superman’s life.

In OUR OWN.

Superman's Seven Years

July 26, 2018 Michelle Cuthrell

I look back at pictures and can’t believe he looks so little.

Those beautiful black-brown eyes. The chubby cheeks that have since thinned out. The contagious smile that, even from age 2, could light an entire city with one little flash.

All in one tiny, perfect package our family waited one what-felt-like never-ending year to meet.

Our prayed for, longed for, perfectly and wonderfully made Superman.

Today, turning 7.

The Flight of Superman, Four Years In

February 21, 2018 Michelle Cuthrell

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.

Blog