Friends, Fun and Food

My friend Grace invited several of her adoption friends to her church's food festival on Saturday (and blogged about it here) It was a-m-a-z-i-n-g for so many reasons. The food being one of them, of course, and the company another. I love getting together with other adoptive families. I finally met my bloggy friend Kala and her sweet son in person, and met Jen and Becky, two other ladies who are currently waiting for their babies to come home. We ate delicious Korean food and talked about all the things that only adoptive parents understand.

But for Ben and I, there was another reason why this day was so special.


Things started off on a little bit of a rough note for us. Ben and I arrived a little early, as always, and wandered through the building and while we were waiting for Grace to finish her shift and for everyone else to arrive, a very nice man gave Ben a balloon. Unfortunately in the process of doing so he looked at and - gasp - touched him, which was enough reason for a mini-meltdown.


At that point I was not looking forward to spending any amount of time at the festival with a clingy, crying child. I had injured my shoulder earlier this week (funny story, it happened during a nap) and was completely out of commission for two days, so the prospect of having to lug the toddler around in my arms was not appealing.


And then a miracle happened. I put Ben down and at first he walked around a little holding my hand, and then all of a sudden he took off running and laughing into the crowd! I know this sounds like typical toddler behavior, but Ben usually does not let go of mommy when there are others around. It was so special to see him so comfortable that he was going up to people, even other kids, staring at them (and their food) and laughing when they talked to him. It may have been slightly annoying to everyone else since it was pretty crowded, but I wasn't going to ruin his new found freedom. Later in the day he even let Grace pick him up and hold him and walk away from me. It sounds so silly, but it was such a relief to see that he is so much more comfortable now.


A picture like this would have been unthinkable just last week. Yes, this is Ben in close proximity of Matthew and he is not crying!!! (Thanks Grace for letting me use your pics).