Children at Heart Annual Picnic

This past Saturday was my agency's annual picnic for all of the past and future adoptive families. Ann, Ronan & I packed up the car (with way too much stuff we didn't need, like chairs and blankets) and drove (and drove) to Halfmoon, NY (just north of Albany) for the limited purposes of: eating, playing and getting as much information as possible out of the experienced parents. Well, we accomplished two of our three objectives-- there was no real "picnic" at our picnic. We hit crazy amounts of traffic, so we decided to stop on the way at the McDonald's rest stop to eat and let Ronan stretch a little.. Bad decision--it added an extra hour onto our trip.. But we still got there in plenty of time to play with the kids (Ronan's sole objective) and talk to some people. I met a few parents who I had been emailing recently-- they were incredibly nice and had some encouraging things to say. I didn't get to talk to everyone-- it was too overwhelming. At first, I wasn't even sure how I was going to talk to anyone, but eventually, I just went up to people and started asking questions. If nothing else, we have all now put a face with a name and I know that when I have more questions, the parents I met will be more than willing to help me out. I also got to meet my coordinator, Kathy, face to face-- again, nice because she has done so much for me during this process. And the kids were all over the place! They ranged in age from about 8 months to teenagers, and were from not only Kazakhstan, but Russia as well and maybe a few other places.. While I know some do have some medical issues, in general, the kids all appeared very healthy, and they were all just beautiful. It was very easy to imagine my child playing among the others this time next year-- and I'll be the parent dispensing advice!