The Shallow End

Another Birthday?

Today was a very nice day, most of which was spent celebrating Julian's birthday again. Our favorite babysitter wanted to throw him a party and invite several other children that she babysits. It was very sweet and for Julian, a rare encounter with his peers. He likes them. He adapted easily and welcomed the pushing, pulling, giving, grabbing and kissing that began the moment we walked in the door. I, on the other hand, discovered my inner germaphobe and quickly got out the baby wipes. But I particularly love this photo of the 4 of them on the couch together (where else but the Midwest do you get a John Deere tractor throw as the back drop

Which one is not like the other?

We also sat for his one-year portraits today, and I have to say that JC Penneys does a very nice job. I especially like that they allow you to download the (lower resolution) images to share online...we put together a couple of collages that I really like:

Bathing Beauty

Eyelashes

The most fun part was the sitting itself. Sparky is a natural poser. He was very patient throughout the whole thing (unlike the baby that followed him who had to leave early for all his crying) and smiled on cue in this shy little reserved grin:

Cruiser

But the best part of the day was spending it with his mother. She has taken a turn for the better and we are cautiously optimistic (we've been here before). She decided a few weeks ago to pursue in-patient treatment for her addiction. It's been several months now since we evicted her and told her that she was no longer welcome to live with us unless and until she checked into rehab and commited to a lifetime of recovery. Early on, there was no indication that she planned to do this and we were heartbroken that she rarely even called to check in on her son. She seemed to take the eviction as a release of her parenting responsibilities and the ticket to freedom that she wanted. We became his legal guardians with no contest (Guardian Angel 1 and Guardian Angel 2, we call ourselves, all humility aside :-).

Her entry date is July 19. We plan to drive her there ourselves so that she knows she has our love and support. While this is only the first step before she can safely parent her son again, it is the biggest one and she seems very happy for the first time in a long while. We are encouraged and glad that she has chosen this path and more importantly, that she WANTS to spend time with her son. We are prepared to continue parenting Sparky until he is 18 (and beyond) if that is what God wants us to do, but we also know that having his (clean and sober!) mother back is even better. We have no idea what the future holds, but we pray every day that she is released from this sin to live a healthy life with her son. I have absolutely no desire to put him in the middle of a custody battle like his mom went through, at this critical stage of life.

It's days like this that I realize how important it is to spend time with family and friends. God is good.

Labels: Baby Spartacus

posted by Gwynne @ 10:29 PM