Sometimes it is helpful to look at pictures when you get "frustrated" with things going on in life. Logan has been a very difficult potty training "sell" and I try to just take a deep breath and know that one day it will be mere memory.

So today my Love Thursday is dedicated to Logan - my baby....



This picture is from one of our visits at the baby house - it brings joy and happiness to my heart. Logan was 10 months old when we met him and arrived home one day before his first birthday. Logan would love to dance and laugh - but if I joined in on the laughter - he would stop to study me. As soon as I stopped laughing - he would continue his dancing and laughing. It amazes me - Logan is one of those children that just looks so different when he smiles - he truly has a smile as big as his face!

If you have read any of our adoption journal on our website www.thekeilins.com you'll see that Logan bonded/attached to me with little interest in Larry. He has come a long way since that time - but still seems to "favor" me over daddy. Which is only fair - since Max seems to favor daddy over me. I know developmentally throughout the years - this will change back and forth - I know they get their "needs" met by the parent that they need to learn from at the appropriate time.

Logan has certainly shown us as parents that it is not our parenting style that totally shapes them - but something that they are born with. Max is secretly known as my sanity saver child - because Logan and Becca are both very strong willed and independent minded children. I had thought perhaps Becca's life circumstances (adoption at an older age and then my divorce) helped shape her "will" - but I can definitely see through Logan that maybe that "will" is what they are born with. He entered our lives the youngest of our three children - but I think will be our strongest willed child to date! While Becca was strong willed - she was happy go lucky. Logan can definitely take on a "negative" undertone and I can't convince him to "think" any other way. ;-) So many people tell us how polite and considerate Max is and he must mirror what we do at home - well - I just wonder what they'll think Logan "sees" - it often amazes me on how he sees the glass as half empty - when everyone else in our family can "see" that is it half full. I remember Becca's pediatrician telling me that if I can get through the younger years - I will have a leader in the future - my hope then and even now - that they lead in a positive and good way.

So today on Love Thursday - I set aside the potty training set backs and LOVE Logan for the smiling, laughing, dancing baby I met back in April of 2004.