It’s been almost a year since T. turned our lives upside down in the most delightful way. Today, a judge told us something we already knew – that we are a family.

My wife and I fell in love with T. before we even met him.

It started with a phone call and then an e-mailed picture.

It was the picture that got us. He looked like family. At our first meeting with him the conversation focused on how quickly we could move him into our home.

T. has his challenges to be sure, but they are no match for his assets. He is a gift of love and fun and joy and beauty.

Before today, when I told someone we were adopting a boy, I never mentioned his Down syndrome. It was not out of shame or pity that I left this detail out but the opposite –not because it will give them the wrong idea about him –because it will give them the wrong idea about my wife and I.

There is the sense that people whose biological children are born with special needs have some challenge forced on them but people who chose to have a child with such needs are either saints or martyrs. To be sure, I’m no saint and my wife’s no martyr. He is in our life because we fell madly and deeply in love with him.

We don’t love him because of his Down syndrome and we don’t love him in spite of his Down syndrome. We just love this little boy.

It really is that simple.