The first time ever I saw your face...

One year ago at about this exact moment my son slept peacefully on a woven mat resting his wee head on a pink pillow. His loving nanny, Lien, hovered nearby keeping the visitors at a distance. As he slept (and then woke up) he quietly posed for his very first photos.

One year ago tomorrow I saw the face of my sweet baby boy for the first time on a computer screen in my classroom. I knew before I opened it that that photo file would change me forever. On the other side of the world from that sleeping child I became a mama with one simple click.

Here is part of one of the messages I received from Ben's first photographers...

R and I saw the baby boy that is going to the next CB family in line for a boy. So I am pretty sure that I have met Baby Ben. This baby is only 16 days old. He is wee and lovely. I took some pictures but have not downloaded them yet. I would have rushed to do it earlier but R said that she had sent you some.

I'll be in touch tomorrow after I see Zack and Ben again. I will try and snuggle Ben but he is so small and the nanny is right on top of him. I had to ask specifically to see him as he was in another room.

I learned so much from that first photo and the 12 others that followed it as I studied them endlessly. I knew that...

Ben's little left ear is truly delicious. It has a bit of an elfin point to it (though at the time I didn't know that it is in fact different than his right ear).

When it is 90 degrees in his orphanage room and you cover him with thick blankets (or it is 70 degrees in his bedroom and he has no blankets...) he sweats like a grown man while he sleeps and his thick sometimes wavy hair becomes dripping wet.

He is quite fair and beautiful and has a sweet kissable mouth that is always open when he sleeps.

From subsequent photos I learned even more about him and quite a bit about mama...

Newborn infants with red eyes can cause sleepless nights for their mamas half a world away. I worried about sweet Benjaminh's eye after seeing this photo.

Now I know that he rubs at his eyes whenever he is tired and since the visitors had woken him up he was clearly tired...The little Manh scratches himself. Wee socks on his hands protected him from self injury.

Now nail clipping sessions nearly every day combat the nails that grow almost as fast as his hair. He particularly seems to scratch the inside of his left ear when he is going to sleep.

I learned from those photos that you can be great distances from your children but your mind is never far from them at all. I also learned that mamas with new referrals should NEVER place 8X10 copies of their first glimpse on the passenger seat while driving home...they might hit something in the Foodland parking lot. Like an Acura...

There is so much more that you can never learn from a photo...
Sweet Benjaminh is just that. So very very sweet.
He is at this point in time a very easy child to parent. He is loving, happy, precious and a such a blessing.
Being mama to sweet Benjaminh is everything I ever hoped for and so much more and as I head to bed tonight I can hardly wait to see what tomorrow will bring.