Freebirds

This morning I woke up hear to the sweetest little voice exclaim "Mama's here!" and feel a warm little body crawling into bed with me.  Simon looked so happy to see me and snuggled for a good 10 minutes.  Then we lay in bed and watched videos on the iPad until it was time to get ready for breakfast.

Breakfast was...hard,  for me.  It was the first time I'd been in the room with them while they were doing their thing and I felt like...a bluejay is what comes to mind, for some bizarro reason.  My role for most of this week is going to be "observation and encouragement" which sounds easy enough but...I wanted to chirp encouragement every 5 seconds and nudge things closer to him and pick up his pieces of food to hand to him and then would lose attention and try to talk to Laura about something totally unrelated and then pop up to get something and then sit back down and then almost fall asleep (I think from stress) and then try to shake myself awake and try to just BE with them.  It was really hard.  A couple of times Laura looked at me sideways and gave a barely perceptible shake of the head when I said or tried to do something that wasn't a good idea.  I didn't take it personally at all but also wondered what my threshold was going to be for (totally essential, completely appropriate, warranted) wrist slapping.  Didn't hit it tonight, so we'll see what happens tomorrow.

Overall things were so much smoother than they were last weekend.  No epic melt-downs, no huge fights, chowed on sushi in record time for dinner.  As Laura says, "we're in a groove".  (Oh, and she's feeling better!)

We kicked around the hospital until 1 pm and then we got sprung from the hospital for a full 4 hours!  It was amazing and a bittersweet reality check for me.  We decided to go to a place called "Pretend City Children's Museum" which pretty much blew my mind.  It was a lot like the children's museum in Portland, OR that I fell in love with this summer, but even better.  I'll let the photos tell the story in a minute.  We ate lunch at the hospital but we needed to do a snack at this place.  Our first meal outside the hospital since we started the program.  About 30 seconds into it, I realized it's like trying to get a kid to do math problems in the middle of a circus.  But I'll be damned if the kid didn't do it.

I felt like going to the front desk and getting on the P.A. to shout , "HEY PEOPLE!  LISTEN UP!  MY KID JUST ATE HIS WHOLE GODDAMN SNACK IN THE MIDDLE OF PANDEMONIUM!  Who rocks?  WE ROCK!  That's all.  Carry on."  Instead, I felt tears start to sting my eyes, looked up to see a Mom looking at me a little funny and went to the bathroom to have a good cry.

The magnitude of what we've been through up to this point hit me.  Recognizing that 99% of the other parents in the room don't have to put blood, sweat and tears and 25 minutes into getting their kid to do something as mundane as eat 2 pretzel chips, half a tablespoon of hummus, 3 tablespoons of apple and 6 ounces of smoothie hit me.  The amount of work Laura has been doing and the results we are seeing hit me.  It all just hit me like a ton of bricks.

I went out to find them and knelt down to be face to face with Simon.  I said, "Hey Simon, can I tell you something?"  He nodded, a little distracted.  I held his face with both hands and said, "I just wanted to tell you how proud I am of you. You are working so, so hard and doing so, so well learning how to eat.  You're amazing".  He looked me right in the eye, grabbed MY face, kissed me softly on the lips and then took off to go have some fun.

*cue tweety birds circling above my lovesick head*

We have a 6 hour pass tomorrow and plan to go to the zoo and then... then we have a special visit. Our sperm donor's mother (who lives 5 mins from the hospital with her aging parents) has taken me to and from the airport and is the one who loaned us her car this weekend. She's been so incredibly sweet and wanting to help in anyway she can.  The rides and car have been a god-send.

Last week when we set up the car-borrow, she asked, ever so cautiously, if it would be possible for her parents to meet Simon for 2 seconds when we return the car on Sunday.  They had heard all about Simon and...wanted to meet their great-grandson. How could we pass up a chance for a connection like that? So, tomorrow, on top of getting to get out of the hospital again,  Simon is going to meet the only great-grandparents he still has living. I sure dig this crazy California lesbian million-person family we've set up for ourselves.

 "It's totally sweeeet, Dude", as Crush the surfing turtle would say.

Officer Simon

Farmer Simon

Doctor Simon

Tow Truck Driver Simon

Jazz Man Simon

Dental Patient Simon