My Son's Asleep

What a weekend.

It rained.

It also rained on the day we drove downtown to get married three and a half years ago, so we had a good association with rain in L.A., now it’s made permanent. The press conference was at 1 o’clock, and we were the first court case at 1:30. We arrived at about ten after, and the first person we saw was my brother, Mikey's Uncle Moosh, holding a Buzz Lightyear mylar balloon for Mikey. Buzz Lightyear is Mikey’s latest obsession ever since Disneyland, and he calls him “Eyte Ear.”

On the fifth floor, the press conference was behind schedule, but all our friends had arrived early, ahead of us. In addition to Uncle Mikey, Aunt Kelly, and Cousin Natalie, we immediately were embraced by 25 other local friends who insisted on being in court in the middle of a day on a Friday. Susan and Lee Cummings and their son, Mikey’s buddy, Lanyon arrived shortly thereafter to Mikey’s delight, and just in time since Mikey was in the middle of his normal naptime and feeling overwhelmed.


The actual hearing was quick. After the conference, we went into room 419, where Judge Michael Nash made a speech, and then the actress Nia Vardalos asked us some questions, to which the answer was always “Yes.” The court asked us for our names and to spell them, which I stumbled over, and then to identify our friends in the audience and I drew a blank. Mikey grabbed all the stuffed bears in sight and fell out of his chair with a thump. When Nia Vardalos started crying during the questions, Ian lost it too. Basically, it was a shambles. A glorious shambles.

Afterwards, we had a couple interviews with local and national newspapers, and Mikey’s lawyer Cynthia Billey and all of her associates at the Children’s Alliance made sure the paperwork was all done and we were out.

On Saturday, we packed up the car during Mikey’s nap, and then as soon as he opened one eye, he was out in his seat, being whisked away again. He said, drowsily, “Home!” But we said, “You’re going to a party at Theo’s!” And he said, “Theo?! Party!” and got very excited. At Theo’s (and Graham, Ali, and Sophia Bradstreet’s) home, we had a party for most of the people who came to the court hearing, plus the Bradstreets and a number of other folk who couldn’t take off the middle of the day for the court but wanted to celebrate. Among them was Ian's boss Norman and Lyn Lear and their family, and another of Mikey’s attorneys, his education advocate, Sasha Stern, also made an appearance, to tell us that cases like Mikey’s is the reason she can get out of bed in the morning.

It was a blast with champagne for the grown-ups, trampoline jumping for the young ‘uns, and high calorie, low nutrient snacks for all. We lost track of how many people Mikey got to surreptitiously sneak him a cupcake.

Today is totally low key. We went to the Farmers Market, had some tamales (Mikey’s two requests of today, reflecting the Most Multicultural Child On Earth was “Marmite!” and “Tamale!”), and picked up some exotic mushrooms for dinner. Mikey is theoretically having his first uninterrupted nap of the last two days, but in true fashion, isn’t interested in sleep now that he can do it.

There is finally silence in his room. My son's asleep.

It's Official: He's Legally Ours Now

Here we are at Mikey's adoption today.

Details to follow. We are celebrating now, no time to blog.

Happiest Place On Earth Adjacent

I went to Disneyland for the first time in my life on Sunday, and I suspect it won’t be the last time, given Mikey’s reaction. It wasn’t a trip we had planned far in advance. Growing up in Ohio near Kings Island with grandparents in Orlando near Disneyworld, my lack of amusement at amusement parks was based on experience. On Saturday, however, we were at a park in West Hollywood and met up with my friend and former head huntress Susan and her son Lanyon who is Mikey’s age, and she launched into a pitch on Disneyland. All my concerns about cost, age appropriateness, and lack of alcohol were addressed and dismissed, and once Ian had turned, I crumbled. So Sunday morning, we left at 7:15 and breezed down to Orange County 45 minutes later when the park opened.

I was in the front seat looking for a parking space, and Ian was in the back with Mikey. I heard simultaneously Ian say, “Oh … dear,” and Mikey burst into tears.
Mikey, it seemed, had greeted Disneyland by vomiting down his shirt.

He was fine, so we changed into his (only!) spare and met Susan, Lee, and Lanyon at Jamba Juice where Mikey had a smoothie to make up for the lack of food in his belly -- and it went all down his spare shirt. This is before we made it through the ticket gates.

So Mikey wore Lanyon's spare shirt, and we went into the park. Lanyon was content at sitting in his stroller, grinning, and saying, "Disneyland! Disneyland!" while Mikey had to be out of his stroller, racing around in the crowd, saying, "Wow!" We saw our first cartoon character, Buzz Lightyear, the hero of Toy Story 1, 2, & 3, and Lanyon said, "Buzz!" and Mikey said, "Ahhhhhhh!" and ran into my arms. Not a big fan of people with masks over their faces, and no idea who Buzz Lightyear was.

We educated him by taking him on his first ride, which is a Buzz Lightyear ride where you fire lasers at the evil Emperor Zurg while spinning in your cart. You can actually control the spin with a lever, so Mikey saw to it that we were constantly spinning. The whole time, shrieking with joy. We also picked up a Toy Story 3 tee-shirt, so Mikey would have a commemorative article, and Lanyon could have his spare shirt back.

That was the theme for the whole day. He has a blast. He high-fived Sully, the giant blue monster from Monsters Inc., he sat through fully 3/4 of a Disney show which felt like 4/3rds of one as Handy Manny droned on, he went on the merry-go-round five times and six or seven other rides, he ate and ate and ate. Many highlights, but when he and Lanyon held hands and ran around giggling, it was not only one of our favorite parts, from the Oohs and Aws of the crowd, it was the favorite part for many strangers. We're going to sell this video of them to Disney, or we should.


He fell asleep in his stroller at 2 pm, and we drove back. And then we learned at home how to wash vomit out of a car seat! Talk about a happy ending!

Actually, the happy ending or happy beginning occurred last night when Mikey’s lawyer notified us that she had received official confirmation that we will be at the courthouse adopting Mikey on the 19th at 1:30 pm. We will be the first on the docket for National Adoption Day. Hooray!