Standing on the Beach...

No gun in my hand, no Arabs were harmed in the making of this blog.

We just spent a week at the beach. What a way to recharge your batteries! No places you need to be, no phone ringing of the hook, ah. I could live there and just sit on the balcony of our condo and watch the ocean. The sound of the waves and watching them come in and go out is just so relaxing. I've been back to work for two days now, and I'm still smiling.

I think that one of the reasons I find the beach so relaxing is that the ocean helps to put things into perspective. The vast ocean makes you feel so damn small, like one of the grains of sand you are standing on.

I'm not really one to go too deep into the ocean, usually only waist deep, but this time I was carried away. I found myself out to my shoulders and just letting the waves carry me, up and down. It was almost like meditating. Just me in the huge ocean. Before I knew it, I felt like a kid again, just smiling and laughing without a care in the world.

I'm alive.

Funny Stuff

As a Huge Battlestar Galactica fan, I found this hilarious!

The Big Scare

I had only turned my back for a second. I turned back around just in time to catch the Mrs. in mid air, on her way down to the water. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the toy X was riding around on half in the water and half on the pool deck.

Then I found him. He was under the water and doing what he had been trained to do. I saw him roll over onto his back, and he was floating to the top -- just as the Mrs. scooped him up.

That moment made all the screaming, all the crying, all the frustration we went through with the swimming lessons worth it.

Biology

X is adopted. We have an open adoption in that we have met his birth-mother (BM) on several occasions and remain in contact with her through our attorney. She does not know our last name, nor our address or phone number. We send her pictures of him periodically and occasionally she asks to visit with him. It has been almost a year since our last visit with her. There is just one stipulation. She can not refer to herself as mommy. She is auntie. She is fine with this and really seems to enjoy these meetings. X treats her as he would any other relative stranger, at first cautiously, and then he warms up after a time.

The Mrs. always gets a little worried when she asks to see him. She thinks that BM must have some ulterior motive, that she wants something of us, or that she will try and take X back. I guess it is natural for her to feel this way -- BM has had some issues in the past.

She has a history of drug use, and was actually in prison when X was born. We visited her while she was in prison, before X was born and she was so full of hope and had so many plans for straightening out he life when she was released.

When we saw her last year (for the first time since X was born), she was close to being released and living in a halfway house. When we visited there, we had a bit of security as she couldn't easily leave, or have other visitors there besides us. She was still full of hopes and plans for the future. She had a job and said she was doing well.

A few months after that first visit, I ran into her. She was crossing the street and I was in my car. I had to do a double take. I could have just let her pass as she hadn't seen me, but I called to her. She was high. I was sick for her. I guess being back in the real world was a tough adjustment for her. I gave her a lift back to where she was staying and when she walked away from the car, I wrote her off, lost back to her old ways, either dyeing of an overdose or back to prison. Needless to say I was very surprised when the Mrs. said that they attorney had sent her a note and that BM would like to see us.

The visit went very well. I think it makes her really happy to see how well X is and how much he is loved. I like to think that we are a glimmer of hope to her. She has three other children who were removed from her custody, she doesn't know where they are, at least she knows about X.

We get something out of these meetings too. We do not intend to hide X's adoption from him. He will grow up knowing that we adopted him and how special that makes him. Despite this, the day will come when he will start asking questions about his biological parents. As he gets older, and hopefully, we continue with this relationship, that process will be much easier on him, and on us.