zi-NAH-boo
Zinabu. Zinabu, Zinabu, Zinabu.

We are approaching his five year anniversary of joining our family. Does that seem possible? It does not, to me. His arrival (and subsequent pain and adaptation to America and our family) still feels so palpable. So just yesterday. I marvel at a five year anniversary.

Zinabu is the light of my life. The most incredible joy-filled ball of energy and brains. He is still a little tone deaf, but he loves to sing funny songs as he follows me around. Yesterday it was, "We're doing the laundry one piece at a time..." When he wants to get his way, he stares at me with his enormous brown eyes and says, "You can't resist the puppy dog stare." And he still asks me eight million questions a day, such as, "Where does Daylight Saving's Time really start and what time is it really here if it's already midnight in New York?"

His brain is so mathematical. He is a living, breathing calculator. We are going to have our hands full keeping him happy at school, and he is going to be "one of those" kids. One of those kids in the double-double-triple-super advanced math classes in eight grade, riding the bus to the high school to take AP Calculus with a bunch of 17-year-olds. I can hardly wait to see what he'll be when he grows up. I won't be able to understand it because it will have something to do with quantum physics, but I am very excited.

And he is still very much a little boy. Needing my snuggles. Needing his PB&J without crusts. Needing kisses after reading books together. Needing to sit in my lap when he wants to feel close to me. Needing to show me his cuts and scrapes so that I am aware of his owie status.

I pray that his mom knew all this about him before she died. I don't know how she would have known, but I hope that she could look into his eyes and see all that potential and life and joy bubbling under the surface. He tells me often that he's so happy I am his mom now, and after I weep silently into his shoulder... I agree.