Lots going on lately! I can barely remember what it all is. That's probably why I chose to tell the story of the crow and the corn muffin. Trivialities are easier.
Yesterday morning, the three of us showed up at court bright and early to readopt AwesomeCloud. Two families were ahead of us. There was a lot of waiting, and our agent, who'd planned to meet us at the courthouse, was late. After a while, I took Cloud outside for some elbow room and tried to reach her by phone. When I finally got through, she told me she was having an emergency. Fair enough. An adoption agent with many clients and a family of her own is actually highly likely at any given time to encounter an emergency. My husband was nervous about going ahead without her, but it turned out that the hard parts were all done and we just had to stand before the judge and smile a lot and look cute.
At one point, the judge said, "Someone is supposed to give a speech." He looked around, and probably realized that our agent had volunteered to give the speech. Finally he turned to the two of us and said, "Now you need to say a little something to convince me this adoption should go ahead."
"Well, the adoption's already legal," I explained. "However, his birth certificate is in Chinese, and people have kind of a struggle when dealing with it, and so we're doing this to update his documents so they're in English. Also, his birth certificate says he was found, not born, so we'd like to change that."
(I'm paraphrasing. I can't quote anyone verbatim, not even myself.)
The judge seemed pleased with that. He noted that AwesomeCloud was very clearly a member of our family, which is always nice to hear. Cloud was in fact behaving very well. Not extraordinarily well beyond his age, but certainly well enough to make people smile.
(Oh my goodness, this kid attracts so much doting attention. Some of the clerks and attorneys passing through the waiting area stopped and made lengthy conversation with him (and us)! It was Lonely Grandmother City! And even the people who didn't come right over and coo over him cracked a smile when they saw him. Even when he was crying. I am ever amazed by the way his charm descends upon strangers like a cloud of bubbles. He is going to love love love everyone as he grows up! I'm glad. I don't know how I'll teach him stranger discernment, but social confidence will serve him well throughout his life, much better than social caution ever will.)
Immediately after that was Cloud's last day of 'school', where his 'teacher' (who is really a speech therapist, and it's really just half-hour sessions of therapy, but it's in the preschool building so I call it school) gave us some potential good news about real preschool for September. Cloud's test scores had to be below a certain level to qualify for preschool, and they were a bit too high. His last therapist recommended him for preschool, but scores are scores, and there was nothing we could do to hide the progress he'd been making.
"Because I want him to" is not a real reason. Neither is "because I can't afford private preschool." I mean, we probably could afford it, if he only went once a week or I found a second income. Or he quit kung fu. (Noooo! We love kung fu!)
I'm happy his scores were high. I'm not saying I wish they were low. And since he is naturally outgoing, he didn't freeze up during the evaluation.
Before all this, we trekked up to Waltham to see a specialist. I was dreading the trip - the last MD we talked to from that office was very unpleasant to talk to. He and I just didn't connect. But this time we saw a woman, and not only was she delightful, but she gave us more things not to worry about with Cloud's health. I love the absence of bad news! It's as good as good news! But it was a long trip, and the next day we all had travel fatigue.
Potty training has begun in earnest... um, sort of. We have a plan. It's not a very detailed plan. It's actually kind of vague and uninspired. I bought some stickers, though, in case Cloud suddenly decides to get potty trained.
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