Little Tastes of Reality

A little sleepy and a little crusty the morning
of his 12-week birthday.

This has been an interesting few days. In addition to a little boy asking "Does he have a dad?" the young woman selling me a stove asked, "Does his dad have dark hair, or did you adopt him?"

The agency also requested an update from me for the birth mom. I'm finding it almost as hard to write as that initial greeting card for her in April. I don't know how's she's feeling about everything so it's hard to know if gushing over him will only make it worse. Would it be easier to hear that he's just an ordinary baby who eats, sleeps and poops, or does she want to hear how perfectly amazing and unique he is? Will she have more regrets if I tell her how he's a funny, easy little guy who gets compliments on his skin tone and big eyes everywhere he goes? (Does she even have regrets to begin with?)

These are all questions/situations I knew I'd have to deal with eventually, but maybe I wasn't quite prepared to get them all in the same 48 hours. I still haven't perfected my response for strangers who outright ask about Felix's dad - especially kids. The young boy in the store didn't seem to know what "adopted" meant, so he kept asking the question over and over till his parents gently guided him back to their cart, without offering an explanation of "adoption". Hopefully it's a conversation they had when they got home. Of course, it's good I'm getting these questions so Felix can grow up hearing confident, natural responses that send the message "It's no big deal."

Switching gears: We house sat for my parents this weekend, and Jayda howled in her kennel one morning like I've never heard before. Then, suddenly, Felix howled. It was hilarious! I immediately Googled "baby mimicking sounds" and learned that it's not at all unusual for young babies to mimic sounds very closely. This explains why it sounds like he's saying "hi" back to me all the time. The sounds he's making don't have meaning for him yet, of course, but it's pretty cool to see him take such an interest in language.