It's Offical!

As of August 3, Mack is irreversibly ours to love forever. We were fortunate to be able to complete our court hearing over the phone rather than having to travel back to Florida. The judge asked us a series of questions including "Do you love your son as you would a child born unto you?" At that moment, I was covered with the strongest wave of emotion. In just four months, our son has become the most important person in our lives. The amount of love I feel for him is completely overwhelming. Fighting back tears, I squeaked out "Sir, I can only imagine I love him more." and that was it. Case closed, and our adoption is final.
That night, 40 of our closest friends and family members helped us celebrate the momentous occasion. It was a nearly perfect evening. Costco was kind enough to rush a cake order for us, but unfortunately two out of the 6 words on the cake were badly misspelled. The Costco cake maker and I had a ten minute discussion on exactly how to spell "Official" and she still got it wrong. Oh well, it will definitely be remembered!

I will always remember the light, airy feeling of knowing that no one could ever change the fact that he is ours. My son has shown me that is possible to love stronger, deeper, and more completely than I have ever loved before.

Mixed Emotions.

After five months off of work with my son, it is time to go back. While I am cutting down my schedule, I still feel this blanket of guilt for leaving him with a nanny.

In reality, I've learned that parenting is synonymous with guilty feelings. For example, just this week my son began teething. My husband went to the grocery store and came back with everything in the baby aisle that had anything to do with teething. One of his finds was a "homeopathic, natural" teething pill. I was a little nervous about using it, but the results were nothing short of a miracle. Within ten minutes, or little bundle of grumpiness was fast asleep. After two nights of using the miracle pills, I decided to ask around about a few of the ingredients. The main ingredient is Belladonna, I quickly learned that Belladonna is a sedative used before surgery. Crap! I had been drugging my child! Lesson learned: just because it is in the baby aisle, doesn't mean it's safe. Guilty.

More confessions: I feel a sense of peace and relief when my baby takes a nap. In fact, I would label the feelings as extreme jubilation. This makes me feel guilty. I also celebrate when dinner time rolls around and I can have a cold glass of Pinot Gris. This makes me feel guilty. Part of me is looking forward to going back to work... guilty.

Ah, the joys of parenthood.