...and so the summer comes to an end.

So, still working on that dad rotation, but we'll get things more regular soon. Wanted to do the big overview thing, just to catch everyone up.

Back in the middle of summer, the big event was Siddha's baby banquet at Imperial Mandarin. We had over 30 people from around the globe attending, including Siddha's A-kong and A-ma from Taiwan, cousins and aunts and uncles from up in Northern California, and pretty much everyone we know from around here, with aunts and uncles, grandparents, Poppi's, and the like. We spent almost three hours running the staff ragged (we tip well though) with a pretty constant flow of food and orders. They gave us their entire back room, so there was even space to let the kids run around and go crazy. They handed out ballons and everything, so we couldn't really have asked for a more kid friendly space. Megan hand-baked cakes for everyone, and even an extra little one for Siddha to mangle, so we got to do the traditional "baby-destroys-cake" thing. Overall an excellent time, with many gifts and well wishes given and received.

June was further enhanced by a visit from Grammy Jo, who came down from Idaho and her little private ranch, with the horses and the dogs and stuff, to hang with the kids and the family for over a week. We got in lots of family events, gave everyone a chance to reconnect, and gave Grammy Jo a little Siddha time. All in all, everyone seemed to click together just fine, and we're already talking about coordinating 2011's visit with a trip we may be taking up north. We did get a chance to visit the world famous San Diego Zoo, where much fun was had by all. We checked out the elephants, did the reptile house, and even took the Sky-Fari up and over the whole she-bang.

Summer's drawing to a close, and with it that means the kids are going back to school. Tre's starting at Birney, like we mentioned before, and he's really excited about it. There's an orientation next week that the boys are going to, again, just to meet the teachers and go over the general schedule for the school year. He seems excited, but since he's never actually been except for the tour, I think kindergarten is still very much a vague concept for him. He keeps asking about how long he'll be in school, about the other kids, and the like. I think it'll be good that Nani's going to the school with him, and Siddha will even be there before he leaves, so we have at least a few supporting faces, and hopefully he can do the same for them, since he'll be older. Because of his background, in preparation for school, we took Tre down to the Sylvan Learning Center to have him tested in terms of his reading capability. Turns out he's doing fine, he's well within the average competency. We got to talking though, and for all of us, the ability to read well ahead of the curve in school made things a lot easier all the way around. So, in light of that, we decided to go ahead and put him in a program with Sylvan. It'll take a few months, but he'll be almost a year ahead by then, and it seems like the boost can't do anything but help him out in class, and we'd all prefer that school was easy for him. It seems much more likely to be successful.

Siddha has started going to SDSU Children's Center somewhere between 1 and 2 days a week. Now that she's started walking almost the whole time, we've got our choice of locations. As usual, there was an exhaustive couple of weeks of research and tours, but we settled on the Children's center due to the uniqueness of their program and the fact that the days and hours were so flexible. Siddha herself is doing great. She's gotten up to 50% percentile for height, and her head is still huge, but her weight is still pretty low. She's definitely healthy, and incredibly mobile, so obviously doing fine despite the statistics. She's gotten like, half a dozen more teeth in since the last post, and she's in the process of cutting both her upper and lower canines. She never does anything in half steps, our girl, no she doesn't. This, of course, has meant a lot of grouchy baby and sleepless nights, but she's so damned cute the rest of the time that its hard not to forgive her. Her vocabulary now occasionally includes "Tans!" (Thanks) and "Tan kyuu" (thank you, we think) at Torrey's urging. Courtesy starts early, apparently.

It's been a pretty full summer for everyone. The kids are starting their second batch of swimming lessons (Tre can swim back and forth across the pool completely under the water now) and they just wrapped up a couple of weeks of summer camp at the Joan Kroc Center. I think the themes were Cowboy's and Rockstar's, respectively. Tre had a blast, and there were quite a few other kids from our little posse as well, so it was a good chance to reconnect and give them plenty of time together. Additionally, we're doing the annual water park trip on September 12th (come by if you're free, we're getting a family-sized cabana), and there's the Family Matters Picnic the next weekend after that.

The Dad's got a bit of vacation time at Gen Con this year, the greatest 4 days of gaming! We head out to Indianapolis for a weekend of pure geek-age and shopping. We spent some time on the floor, visited some events, attended some seminars, and I got to see a ton of video game music performed live by the Indianapolis Symphony and a full choir, plus classicly trained opera singer and flautist. Good times all around, and the kids had a great weekend with the girls, and Tre attended a Theater Tots session as well, so everyone got to enjoy the time.

My brother Joe just left earlier today after being out for a week. It's always nice to see him, and give the family a chance to reconnect. He hung out with Dan and Megan, when to some shows, got a chance to catch up on his sleep, and played with the kids. He's apparently deciding on whether to move up to Seattle fairly soon or stay in Salem and apply for the welding program at Chemeketa, which is apparently known far and wide for it's welding program.

All in all it's been a hectic couple of months, but full of good events. Check the Facebook and the Flickr links, because we've uploaded a couple pictures in the last couple of months of various events and kids, so check them out. We should be more regular moving forward, so look for another post within the next few weeks covering the first part of the school year and fall transitions.

I'm Back!

We've been doing a rotating daddy schedule for writing up on the family blog and I'm back up in the rotation.

First off - everyone please join me in welcoming to the world Elora Violet Grilly 7 lb. 13 oz. - 19.5 in at 7:58 am on 4/26 to Chris & Devon Grilly! The Zoo is delighted to have another geek spawn in creation. Great job Devon and Chris! Hopefully they were bring her to the west coast sometime soon so we can see her in person.

Tre's year at UCP is winding down to a close but it has been a great thing for him and us.

We had decided to give him a year more before kindergarden to give him the chance to get a little more socialized and it has worked wonders. The Tre we have now is vastly different than the little boy that showed up at our door almost 2 years ago. He is responsive and engaging - he seeks out relationships and is able to narrate his experiences to us. This might seem fairly ordinary to a lot of you but these have been challenges for him and to see him leave this difficulties behind is inspiring.

His school for next year is Birney and we're all pretty jazzed about it. After looking at a lot of schools (don't even ask how many >.<) I think this will be the best fit for our kids (Tre, Nani and Siddha) though the only downside is they will be going to Middle School (barbaric in my opinion) but we'll see how it works out. The school is an International Baccalaureate Organisation's Primary Years Programme school with a track of an IM Middle School and High School. Birney in the past had a terrible performance record for academics but this program has seemed to turn the school around. They have made incredible strides and seem poised to continue their success.

Siddha has fully embraced mobility as a lifestyle. She pretty much in motion from when she wakes up in the morning until she crashes from exhaustion at night. Her vocabulary has grown from "Da Da" to include "Mum Mum" (her favorite baby snack food) "Yah" "Bye" "Hi" and "Wow" (from hearing us saying it a great deal). She now growls as she crawls around the living room which delights me to no end. She has a host of strange cries and calls that she makes all the time while going about her day.

She is loving to eat all on her own. We set her up with a small bowl of whatever we're eating (sans the spice) in small bits and she goes to town. She has made the transition from bottle/baby food effortless. She tries the food and pretty much knows when she likes the sample or not. If disagreeable she digs it out and places it aside on her high chair tray. Even the occasional choking or gagging is pretty mild experience. She reaches in again on her own and pulls out the food without much fanfare.

She is still a wee thing (3% for weight and 15% for height) but her head is a little challenging (85% for circumference) right now. The clothes that fit her end up not fitting over her head so buttons, snaps and zippers are very in for us. She has four new teeth coming in on the top of her mouth to match her two bottom chompers so I think eating will become even more interesting for her when she has an actually bite. She is prepping for walking by lurching from one object to another and taking risks standing with only one hand or sometimes no hands for a few seconds.

We are getting ready for summer vacation here. We decided to not enroll Tre in the UCP summer program to give him the chance to hang out with his non-school friends (Nate, Nia, Gabriel and Emma to name a few) over the summer. We signed him up for some summer camps with same friends for two weeks. We also are planning a weekly trip to the farmer's market here in town. We also have our yearly trip to the water park as well - a family favorite for all of us. The Dads are taking a mini-vacation to GenCon to geek out and get some non-kid time over the summer. Thanks to the Aunties for watching the kids while we go to the convention!

Keep an eye out for the invite to Siddha's baby banquet for her first birthday. We have sent out invites far and wide in hopes of gathering a huge host for the event and enjoy the food at Imperial Mandarin (thanks Lae Lae & Rowena for the suggestion). I am so glad that Leng's parents will be in town for it and get to see Siddha (along with the rest of the kids). My hope is that we can get our kids really comfortable with Leng's family so that they have an even larger family to support them and connect with. Leng's parents have been incredible about this whole blended family structure and it has been a pleasure to be able to see their relationships with our families grow and deepen.

We took a weekend trip to Disneyland with several other queer families and had a blast. We drove up and stayed at a hotel near the park to maximize our time at the parks. We also went to California Adventure one day as well and I throughly enjoyed it. I thought it was a great place for the kids - they have an area themed after A Bug's Life and the rides were perfect for Tre. Exciting but not too scary worked for him. He ran all around with the two other boys that came on the trip. They formed their own pack and pretty much never stopped running until bedtime. It was great to have some many extra adults around with the kids - people were able to sneak away for rides and attractions and adult conversation was readily available which on kid trips is a lifesaver.

The boys threw me a lovely birthday BBQ along with Megan whose birthday is the day after mine. I think it was a wonderful success. We ended up with about 30 people (kids included) and a self serve shish-kabob manned by Grill Master Bill. One of things I have always enjoyed is filling our house with people and food, it's a magical combination. :) It was exactly the kind of birthday I was looking for - friends, family, good food and kids running around crazy in the background.

I think that's covered most of April's events for us but we do have a backload of photos and videos to get up from the last few months which I will try to do over the next week or so. Feel free to harass me via phone, text or email to get them done. :) As always I close with a warm invitation for any and all to visit us here at the Zoo - we welcome the company. :)

Winter à la San Diego

February started with me (Bill) heading to Tulsa to help with my Dad's estate. I helped Sara get done a lot of things that either needed a helping shove, or needed to happen while she was at work. I helped get the plumber out to check on things and we got the furnaces inspected. I also sifted through a lot of things from my childhood. I still had a bedroom in the house I grew up in when my parents moved out of it. So we boxed everything up in the move and put it under the stairs. While I was in Tulsa was the time to clean it all out. I had a lot of memories come wafting up while doing it, and I ended up tossing out a lot of stuff.

Unfortunately for the family, I had only been in San Diego for one week after going to Cupertino. So I was out of town two of those three weeks. This threw off everyone's schedules. Larry and Torrey had to cover more kid care, and the kids felt the disruption to their schedules.

When I got back, both Tre and Siddha were REALLY REALLY interested in me. Clingy, actually. I found this disconcerting. I've always used space as a personal defense, never letting anyone too close. And here were these two, short, needy people steamrolling right up to me! I was a bit out of sorts, but I also kept in my mind a mental talisman I plan on keeping for their childhood - I know that in ten years I won't be anywhere near this cool. So I'm making sure to enjoy it while I have it. :-)

And it's really not that bad. :-)

I feel this has also been a big month for both kids. Tre's verbality has taken off. He's now telling lots of stories. He's been asking a lot more about how things work. He's moved past just asking what eats what (with an eye for what eats Treontes) to just examining all the connections in the world around him.

I feel UCP is really paying off. He's been growing and changing, but now it's showing vividly. He's still exceptionally silly and goofy, but there's a new depth to it all. And I love it. Earlier in the year, I felt he was behind his peers at school. Close enough he should be there, but behind. He now feels like he's really solid, and ahead of his peers in different areas.

Speaking of solid, Siddha's now feels a lot more solid to me. That sure came out weird. Before, she felt like a baby. Something small, something fragile. She doesn't feel that way anymore. She now feels like a small, compact, complete, solid person.

This last week has been a big change for Siddha. She's now MOBILE. All-caps mobile. For a few weeks now, she's been moving around. Sunday afternoon, though, she started booking around the room. We had folks over for gaming, and all of a sudden she was crawling under the table. She explored every corner of the room. Zoom zoom!

Monday, we heard a shriek of GLEE as she got around the corner from the living room into Tre's room. Tre's un-babyproofed-room.... The baby gates went up minutes later. :-)

New Year at the Zoo

So, it looks like it's time for another update from the Zoo.

I think it's been long enough that I probably need to recap from what, late November? So, first things first, obviously, Thanksgiving.

Torrey's sister Angel was nice enough to invite us out to share Thanksgiving with her, so we took about a week or so off and went out to Ft. Hood, Texas. Despite being on a military base her house was fairly roomy (4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms), and there was plenty of space to stuff the whole family in. We had a good time hanging out with the nephs (nephews and nieces) while Angel was at work, and she actually physically cooked a huge spread for the evening meal. All the classics, and a few others, were laid out, piping hot and delicious. (I'll link some pics later :) ) We also hit a wonderful Japanese buffet that had like, 5000 different items, including actual steak, Korean steak, and fresh sushi.

After Thanksgiving was Christmas time. Everything was super hectic for about a week at the beginning of December, since our Thanksgiving trip had eaten up alot of the time we usually used to do things like put the tree up and go Christmas shopping. So, we gathered it all up and did it all that first week we got back. Bought our tree, decorated it, and bought presents for pretty much everyone that first week. Like I said, it was a little hectic, but it was nice to just kick back for the next couple of weeks and let the frantic last-minute scrabbling happening around us :D

Christmas was wonderful. This was the first year Tre had been in the same place for more than one Christmas, and it was fun explaining to him time and time again that yes, we were doing Christmas again, and that we'd do it again next year. We had a bunch of gifts from Santa, in addition to the family, and we tracked Santa via website across the US, and made sure kids were in bed before he arrived ;) Our family has the tradition of having a big family dinner on Christmas Eve, so we have everyone come over then, and we exchange all the gifts from those people on Christmas Eve. So we kinda had two Christmas', with all the exchanges that go on the night before, and then the extras (from Santa Claus and immediate family) on Christmas morning.

Our standard intended-to-be-lowkey-but-turns-into-a-25-person-gathering ensued on New Year's Eve, with the initial invite turning out quite a number of people. We had a good time though, playing Wii Fit and Rockband and trying out new appetizers, and clanged glasses and kissed as the ball dropped on delay from New York XD

January has gone by in quite a blur. Bill was out of town for a week, so that was a steady stream of kids-kids-kids. Additionally, we got called for an emergency placement, with a nine year old and a 4 month. It was definitely short notice, and due to the way they were being passed off we had to run out and pick up a number of items. Not a big deal, just something that goes with the emergency placements. We talked it over, and agreed to keep the kids for a month. We thought that was about the extent of what we could handle. The boy was a little hyperactive but a nice kid, and the little girl was in her slug phase, so not much of a handful. Despite our agreement to take them for a month, it turned out that we only had them for about 5 days. Thankfully, they were reunited with the Mom, who was happy to have them back. It was an interesting experience, and it was nice to see that we may have had to stretch a little bit, but that we could handle four if we had too.

So, that's been the last couple of months in a nutshell. I'll try and hop back on in a couple of days and add some pics and videos in were appropriate.

- Woolly Turtle

Pre-Thanksgiving Leftovers

So, not a lot of new stuff to put up right at the moment, but I did want to do a bit of follow-up from the end of October. It was fairly busy, and we did have at least two big events that I wanted to mention.

The first was Don's (Torrey's Dad) 50th birthday party. The whole

family spent most of the day at Don's condo, mingling and celebrating the man that raised Torrey. Torrey has done so much to help all of us, and he lays the praise squarely at Don's feet. I've heard him tell time and time again that if it wasn't for Don adopting him, he knows that he wouldn't have the happy life that he has now, and wouldn't have the resources to help all of us the way he has. So, besides being a great Grandpa and good friend, we have all that to thank Don for as well.

It was a pretty gala event, with a towering cake and a ton of guests.

Michael Ramirez did a lot to set up and organize the event, and we all chipped in before hand with a little elbow grease to help out. There were somewhere around 40 guests in Don's condo, so moving around required a good imitation of salmon swimming upstream. Highlights of the party included a video montage of all of Don's guests commenting on Don and their history with him, and Siddha, who was, as usual, the hit of the party.

The other big event at the end of the month was Halloween. The family as a whole has a good time, even though Torrey usually ends up working at the Costume Shop, which is

a good family friend of ours that is understandably swamped around this time of year. Everyone had a good time, with the kids Trick-or-Treating just before sundown around Lisa's neighborhood and scoring a ton of good loot. Lisa decorated her house, and was apparently so scary

she managed to keep a few of the younger kids from even making it to the door.

The kids costumes were adorable in their costumes, and even Lisa and Bill got into it. If

this was a photo blog, I'd add in a couple of dozen

great pictures we took of the kids in costume, Dan and

Megan in their amazing Daphne and Velma costumes, Torrey in his

Fabulous Fire thing, the house in all it's spooky Halloween glory, etc etc etc. But, if you're read

ing this, more likely than not you have our Flickr links with all the photo's up there. If not, look up on the right at the small montage of images,

and click on it to go to our photostream. Between use and the girls we probably have a hundred pictures up from that night, so there's plenty to go around.

Anywho, I'm going to leave it off there for now. I'll toss up another post fairly soon covering Tre's birthday party(ies) and the 54th Street Zoo Adoption Day gala.

And the season of Feasting and Pumpkins is upon us!

Good afternoon! You're regularly scheduled blogger couldn't be with you, but I'll happily be filling in.

It's been a couple of months since our last blog post (not that you'd have known it around here, time just flies when you're busy.) September was an excellent month. Tre started school at UCP (Unitarian Cooperative Preschool), which is a co-op preschool currently at the local Unitarian Universalist church (affectionately referred to as UU's). For those of you not familiar with a co-op school, they basically use time and effort donated by the parents of the children attending the school to off-set or reduce costs, allowing them to focus more on the students than on budgeting. It also works to create a greater sense of community, as the parents work together and teach each other's children in class. Tre's been thriving at UCP, and the fact is evident just in his attitude about school and the responses we've gotten from his teachers and the parents that have worked with him in class.

"Do I go to school today?"

"Why don't we go to school today?"

"Can I go to school tomorrow?"

To go along with the sense of a shared community that UCP fosters, they also have a number of social events, either to address administrative issues with the school or just to further the ties between the various parents and children. For instance, between mid-August and the beginning of November, we've had three potlucks and group outing already. It's a little different for those of us used to the public school system, where you never met another kid's parents unless you were friends with them, and the parents certainly didn't get together with your teachers on a regular basis to talk about things and plan out the agenda in the classroom. But, like I said, Tre's obviously thriving, and it's work we're all happy to do for him.

Another big event in September was Carol's (Bill's sister) wedding. She married Jay, her finance of several months now, up in Portland. The wedding was fairly low key, just friends and family, and unfortunately obligations and costs prevented us from taking the whole family up. However, Bill was able to take Siddha, so the Butter Bean got her first plane flight. Aside from a little of the normal grumpiness, she performed admirably, and she was a huge hit at the party after the wedding. She made the social rounds for hours, and Sara (Bill's other sister) commented she was the "hit of the party."

Towards the end of the month we wrapped up with the Annual Family Matters Picnic. The biggest thing I appreciate Family Matters for is their ability to create events that kids can relate to even outside their queer family's, but also an event that kids can relate to internally, since all the other kids there have queer family's too. I know a picnic or a BBQ isn't really anything special in and of itself, but being around other queer family's always allays some of my worries about sending my kids out into the world outside our home. Let me see if I can articulate it...I want a place where my kid feels don't feel different because they've got gay Dads. I also want my kids to experience normal things, but I don't want to have to deal with the potential issues of going to straight gatherings with my alternative family. Family Matter's picnic is the perfect combination. Normal activity (jumpers, face painting, bbq, and all that good stuff) with queer parents. Bill even got some footage of Tre and Nani going down the big slides.

Now that we're reaching the end of October, it feels like a profoundly full month. One thing to note about our blended family is that we've got a ton of birthdays in October. Don, me, Dan, Lisa, just to name a few. I think there's about four more as well. We've got more birthdays in October than we do in all the other months combined, I think. So a lot of this month flashed by in a series of birthday parties and events, like dinner and Dave and Buster's , dinner at the Dumpling Inn and desert at Tea-n-More (cute little tea shop on Clairemont Mesa Drive), and then a birthday trip to Bates Nut Farm. The farm is also a pumpkin patch, and they had a huge sort of fair like assembly of tents, games, arts and crafts, not to mention a straw labyrinth and pony rides, and pretty much fair food. They had a jumper slide there, and of course the kids wanted to ride it. I was surprised though, because Tre got to the top of the stairs, and then just waited for awhile instead of immediately coming down the slide. I figured out a few minutes later that it was because he was waiting for Nani, who's a much smaller child, to make her way up the line and get to the top, at which point they went down together. It sound a little cheesy, but I was really touched that he took that effort on his own.

Anybody who knows Tre also knows that he's not the most comfortable kid around animals. I'm not sure what the source is, but he'll just about run across the street to avoid walking next to a dog, and I'm pretty sure the cats are okay only because he has to live with them. So, I was pretty blown away when he immediately decided upon arriving that he wanted to ride the pony ride. Bigger animals == more comfortable? That I was not expecting. He was a trooper though, and didn't even get upset at all when we put him up there and strapped him in.

He went the whole time and had a blast. Who knew? We're pretty sure the way they were chained to the merry-go-round piece in the middle they may have seemed more like amusement park rides than animals.

Immediately after the BNF we followed up with another Family Matter's event, the indoor Halloween Carnival. Siddha was absolutely adorable in the lady bug costume that our friend Katy bought us, and as you can see, the Batman Tre took his cupcake making very seriously. Nani was also there, resplendent in Hobbit Gear. For all the reasons I described above I really enjoy these sorts of events, and the kids had a great time as well. It was a bit of a long day though, and pretty much every crashed after we got home.

Have I mentioned that for most of the weekends in October Torrey's been working at a family friend's costume shop? So not only have we been winging it short a Dad with a bunch of these events, but Torrey gets home beat from wrangling customers all day too. I have to admit, I'm really glad that one of us wants to stay home and take care of the kids. I can't imagine what we'd do if we got to the end of the day and all of us were wiped out from working full time jobs.

As a note, Tre went to no less than three pumpkin patches and two Halloween fairs/carnivals this month. The boy gets around, no doubt. And it helps that we've got a loving bunch of people surrounding us that all want to take our kids out and have fun with them.

As Siddha Bidda Butter Bean (our personal favorite pet name for the baby) gets older, Tre is starting to find her more and more interesting. It's obvious the feeling's mutual.

She spent about 20 minutes altogether, just watching Tre bounce around the room and laughing her head off. It's nice to see that Tre gets a kick out of entertaining her too. It bodes well for the fact that they'll be living together for at least the next 13 years.

We're preparing, as I write this, to head on over to the girls and take the kids trick or treating around their neighborhood, and then retire to their house and watch movies and hand out candy to the kids that come around. There's just not a lot of kids that come by our house, so it's become a bit of a traditional to go over to Lisa's. Tre's anxious to wear his Batman costume again, and we've got this adorable Godzilla costume for the baby, so look for pics to go up on our Flickr page pretty soon.

Changes, They Keep A-Coming

Once again I find myself scrambling to post something before the month passes me by. We've been coasting along on the new-daddies-to-a-newborn track fairly well while still letting the Boy know he is an equal part of our lives as the Butter Bean. The support has been awesome and our families have been a huge part of our success.

I put up a HUGE batch of pictures to Flcker so feel free to take a look. I hadn't realize how many pictures we had lying around to be posted, it ended up being a few hours of work but well worth it. It gave me the chance to actually relive the last few months over with a little perspective and it was awesome to see all the little things I had missed in the moment but that had been captured by the camera.

We took our trip to Santa Cruz and had a blast, it had to have been the best wedding we've been to to date. It was relaxed, intimate and so approachable. We felt like we had stopped by a friend's house and happened to come by during a great party. It was a mini-reunion as well - seeing many of our Northern California friends we hadn't seen for some time. The ceremony was sincere and honest - perfectly reflecting the couple. It was fabulous to take the whole family to all the happy places we know in Santa Cruz and weave them into those memories.

While up north we got the chance to swing by Apple and let people see the new baby and meet Treonte. He had a a great time - they have walls in Apple you can draw and write on. I posted a video of him being his happy self while we were there. Bill's co-workers were all incredibly eager to see the kids and we got waves of geeky support and love while walking the halls in his building. They had all pitched in for a portable crib and it was welcome addition on the trip. Babies have so much......stuff for lack of a better word and having a mobile command center for it all made the whole experience pleasant.

Siddha is vocalizing left and right. The loon-like calls and whimsical sing-song cries now greet us in the mornings and call us to task through out the day. She is not a baby prone to crying but rather she will give one disgruntled yell and then wait to see if we respond. I spent an afternoon watching her where every time I was not in line of vision she would call out and smile when I returned. She's smiling, laughing and grabbing things to taste them. She spends her waking moments now aggressively interacting with us and her environment. She is almost sleeping the night through so we're all very happy about that. She was put on about 3 lbs and 3 inches (1 inch/lb per month) since birth. She is doing great and is a content little person.

We have an appointment next week to start the official adoption process with Tre. The waiting period has passed for his birth parents to file an appeal and now we can start getting all the paperwork in order to present to the court. Our social workers think we should have the adoption finished by late October at the latest. We're trying to be excited but guarded about it. I know it's going to happen but who knows exactly when. The idea of being able to say Tre is our son in every sense of the word is intoxicating, I literally reel from the idea. To know he is our son and that no one can take him away on a whim is profound. Having been in foster care over half of my life and having once faced the daily feeling of impermanence, I for one will sleep more peacefully when he is adopted. It will also be wonderful to say to Tre that NOW he is adopted.

We still haven't had a chance to visit Deisha & Darnell but I am hoping to set up something up in the next month or so. I know I want to see how they're doing and give Tre the chance to see that people don't always leave your life forever. It will be a great chance for D & D to see the baby as well since all they saw was a very pregnant Leng. Our hope is to get together with the Baileys (Bill and his kids James & Jasmine) and them. To have a reunion of sorts with everyone in that area.

We went to Soak City again this year and had an excellent time. We invited several different families (Lae Lae, Rowena, Nathaniel, Katie, Nia, Lisa, Leng, Nani etc) and rented a cabana by the wave pool. We arrived just as they opened and left shortly before closing. I don't know how many of you recall the Boy's fear/anxiety around water but he is completely different child now. He eagerly went from activity to activity, relaxed and open to trying new rides. I love seeing him trust the world around him and looking to participate in things as fully as possible. Seeing children with crushed spirits carries for me a lingering sadness, it breaks something inside. To watch him breathe and live has been a gift. We have enjoyed this outing so much that it has officially become a Family Tradition.

My dad and his boyfriend Michael took the Boy to a baseball game and it was an outstanding success. My dad has really come through for me as a grandparent. I had little doubt that he would but I hear the horror stories of estranged relatives or open bias against adopted children. The struggle to have the children included and given equal consideration as biological family and I am glad to say I have had no such problem with any of my family or Bill or Larry. Even my dad's friends have made Tre the official mascot for Queerspawn and make him the center of the their world when he's around. I love my queer village.

That's all for now and as usual we welcome any and all to visit or make a connection with us down here in San Diego. I will be trying to make more connections myself in the next month with all of you. Till the next post, be well.