Big, light-brown eyes fringed with thick, black lashes.  A strong Grecian face with high cheekbones, a straight nose, thin lips, and small, delicate pink ears.  Thick, luxurious black hair that falls to just above his shoulder in a mass of curls. 

He is absolutely adorable!

Hard to believe that we have had Kason Alexander for the past two years.  We adopted him in 2008, but we started the process back in 2001.  Took that long for a child to be found (and that's not counting the home studies we had to have, countless questions from the adoption agency, the police, our caseworker, other people ... ).  It was extremely frustrating; we thought for a while we would never get our child.

Then the call came.  The adoption agency informed us about a little two year old boy from Greece who was an orphan; he lost his entire family in a plane crash.  There were no other living relatives.  The case was of high urgency.

We told the agency we would adopt him.  We would become his family.  There was no way on God's green earth that we could say no, especially when the agency sent us his picture a few weeks later.  We were instantly in love.

After we got through all the beaurocratic red tape, preparations began in earnest.  We got the extra bedroom ready by buying little-boy clothes and toys, a child-sized bed in the shape of a baseball, sporting equipment (on sale at the local thrift store), and so forth.  We wanted our little son-to-be to have what he was probably denied in his home country.

We waited, and we prayed in the long months we waited for Constantinos (we decided later to Americanize his name to Kason Alexander Constantinos).  Finally the happy day came when we were told to pick up our son at the airport; he was due in in only a matter of hours.

We nearly broke our necks racing to the van.  We broke all speed records trying to get to the airport.  We were both a bundle of nerves.

The moment where we first saw Kason Alexander was a day I or Gary (my husband) will never forget.  We both started crying, especially when our adoption caseworker introduced him to us as his "new mommy and daddy".  Little Kason ducked behind her leg and started crying. 

He was beautiflul.

We took our crying son home, where we let him explore his new surroundings.  We ddn't force him; we just let him wander around and take in his new home.  He couldn't speak English yet; the only Greek word we knew was the word for "Hello":  "Ya sou".  He chattered a mile a minute in Greek, especially when he saw his new room.  He loved it.

We were up with him all night:  he kept having nightmares.  We held him, talked to him softly, kissed him, and told him that he was safe now and that we loved him.  He didn't understand a word we said, but eventually he settled down and fell right to sleep, exhausted from his new adventure.

Now Kason is four years old and growing like a weed.  He is extremely smart and has introduced us to his favorite Greek dishes, which we are more than happy to prepare for him.  We have since legally adopted him; he became our child last month, and his English is nearly perfect.  We are extremely proud of him; he is our world, our everything.

We are in the process of adopting a little brother or sister for Kason.  We would like for him to have a fellow playmate to hang around with, so he won't feel so alone.  Our story isn't done yet, not by a long shot, but Kason Alexander Constantinos Griffin is everything we could have ever hoped for in a child.