Double Wow! It's now been a year and a half since bringing Maxim home from the orphanage in Kyiv. What excitement, change, and yes, a bit of fatigue he's brought to us! But it's overall still a wonderful experience and one I would strongly recommend. Wish we were young enough and endowed enough to do it all again.

As you can tell from the picture, whatever babyfat that was left on Maxim is now completely gone. He's grown much, much taller and much thinner. We figure he thrives on the freedom to run about freely and it turns out he's a very active youngster, very interested in sports too.

On the school front, Maxim is proving to extremely bright, especially in math. English for Maxim has come easily, though of course, he still has a way to go to be totally fluent. But there are no conversations any more where anyone doesn't know what he's saying or that he doesn't understand what's being said to him. Some awkward phrasing to our American ear still occurs and he still maintains a bit of his foreign accent. The accent is rather cute so I kind of hate to see it totally disappear someday.

Max is still a very sweet natured youngster, but occasionally, he shows his "all boy" side and tries to let us know that he is the boss (NOT!!). He's still a bit lonesome for all the children he was surrounded with in the children's home; here our other children are in college or grown, though he does now have a new niece who he hopes will grown faster so she can play with him.

I always hope that I will update this every six months, but time gets away from us, and we get absorbed into life with Maxim. I suppose, too, that one day he will ask me to stop writing about him. So life will tell when we will have another post.

Good luck to all those reading this who are on their adoption pursuits.

Charlene