On one of the big Yahoo Groups for Ethiopian Adoption, there is currently a debate about how much information one should reveal about their children (adopted or otherwise) on a blog. The impetus for this rather-heated discussion came from a link to a blog written by a woman (Southern, uber-Christian) with 3 bio kids and 2 recently-adopted older kids from Ethiopia, who admitted that, after the euphoria faded from bringing her kids home and being greeted in the airport by 500 screaming white people from her megachurch, parenting adopted children was harder than she thought it would be. The reaction to her blog post on the Yahoo group was mixed — a bare majority admired her honesty, while others thought she was too self-congratulatory for undertaking the challenges she so valiantly outlined, while still others jumped all over how she posted pictures, used her kids’ names, and revealed personal details about them (everything from their fears of being abandoned again to her son’s uncircumcised penis) on the big, bad, scary, unforgetting Internet.

Obviously, I blog a lot about my wonderful son. I’ve had this website way before I had him, and when he came into our lives it seemed natural to write about him. But I never really considered that though it is my life, it is his story and I am making it public without his permission. When he gets older, will he be angry at me for blogging about him and posting pictures? I always assumed he would be thankful that a part of his childhood was written down. My parents kept for me a baby book, and I treasure all of the pictures, stories and momentos within it. This was my version of Little Boy’s baby book. And sure, I could keep a private journal for this purpose, and not a public blog. But having an immediate audience spurs me to write. And there are family and friends out there who love to read about Little Boy…

Some of the Yahoo people feel it’s okay to blog about kids, but only if you carefully guard their identity, including not posting pictures of their faces. Others feel that blogging about kids is never okay unless you have their explicit, informed permission because it violates their privacy. I can only imagine how these people would react over how I once posted a picture of Little Boy on the toilet. (Okay, that was cute, but way over the top — I took the photo down.)

But though I may continue to blog a bit more guardedly, I must confess to different notions about privacy. I feel privacy is not something that needs to be totally protected on principle. I know a person who doesn’t have any supermarket loyalty cards because he doesn’t want anyone to know what he is buying; it’s not that he cares if someone notices he primarily buys frozen and prepared foods, it’s a singular rebellion against creeping intrusion on our private lives.

Blogging about how Little Boy likes riding his bicycle and going to the playground is, to me, as harmless as telling people that we eat premium butter, generic-brand cream cheese, and a shitload of European cheese. But yes, there are some things that should be kept private. My yardstick is if I would tell something to a group of co-workers over lunch. Yes, I tell them he’s on daily antibiotics and it takes us 20 minutes to give him his medicine every morning– what shame is there in that? Yes, I brag about all the new English words he’s learning. Yes, I hint at how hard the first 3 months was and I gloat about how awesome everything is now, and I won’t shut up about what a consummate little boy he is.

There’s a lot worse things that people do to their children without their consent. Blogging about children is not exploitation, it’s good ole-fashioned parental pride.

On the playground, Little Boy loves to play a hybrid game of tag/hide-and-go-seek. Only, he is always It. He seems to believe that if he can’t see me, I can’t see him. I play along with this. “Where’s Little Boy?” I’ll call, watching his little legs quiver with excitement as he hides under the slide.

I’ll pretend to look for him for up to two minutes, just to build the anticipation. And then, I’ll pounce.

He’ll scream — high-pitched, full of joy — and take off into a sprint.

Repeat 4, 5, 6 times, or until Mommy’s sandals break.

Nearing four months home, and all I can really say is: I love this kid, this Little Boy as we call him. As he becomes acclimated to us, and us to him, and as he begins to trust us, I can see his personality emerging — happy, playful, curious, cunning, thoughtful, deliberate. He has a precise memory and an almost-troubling attention to detail. He loves trains, cars, airplanes, boats, horseplay, his tricycle, digging, drumming, tickling, building. His favorite part of Make Way for Ducklings is when a boy speeds past the Mommy and Daddy Duck on his bicycle, nearly knocking them over. He is pure Little Boy.

The past two weeks of full-time day care have changed our domestic dynamics. I was worried that spending 40 hours/week under someone else’s care would weaken his attachment to us, but in some ways, it has strengthened it. He seems to have a new appreciation for being at home with us; when I pick him up at the end of the day, he shows spontaneous affection for me, hugging me and saying “Mommy good!” When we’re at home, I’m no longer stressing out about work (at least not palpably)  and can devote nearly all my attention to him. I like asking him about his day: Did you sleep? Did you eat? Did you play with D. and N.? He comes home with art projects that I express amazement over: The sun with the upside-down sunglasses…

… the painting that, according to his teacher’s annotations, has something to do with giraffe-playing, although it looks more like whale slaughtering to me…

…and the worm. Oh yes, all the other kids made cats, dogs, lions, and fish, but my Little Boy made… a worm.

Breakfast is still his meds mixed in with a dab of yogurt (he has no clue about the antibiotics). He is more-readily ingesting it, although it still takes about 15 minutes during which we watch YouTube videos of Sesame Street, Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story (he calls him “Buzz Light”), and recently, old episodes of the Smurfs, which is jarring to me because I actually remember some of them and think “I watched this shit?” Little Boy prefers to eat his yogurt with Daddy, although he’ll sit with me if necessary. Soon after the yogurt is finished, we get in the car and drive 25 minutes to Concord. He likes to listen to the radio, and complains if he cannot hear it. He likes reggae (“Mommy, this music is good!!”) and 80s alternative (he was dancing to the Divinyls “I Touch Myself” yesterday while I winced); he’s not so hot on 90s alternative, rejecting everything from Pearl Jam to Pavement. His daycare is right down the street from my office, and we arrive at 8:30. Although Little Boy loves his school, he has trouble separating from me in the morning, and one of the teachers always has to pick him up to stop him from clinging to me and following me out the door. Which I secretly love.

The day care provides two snacks and a hot lunch (pasta, hamburgers, sandwiches with a veggie and pudding), and his teachers say he generally eats the lunch and ignores the snacks, which are things like dry cereal, crackers, and pretzels (he hates crunchy things, even cookies). The first thing he says to me when we get in the car is “Meat, pasta, dabbo!”(“Dabbo” being bread, and one of the few of “his words” that we continue to use, the others being bathroom words, “machina” for car, and “gobez” for wonderful, good boy. We used to use “tenny” for sleep but he stopped using it.) He’s ravenous when we arrive at home at 6pm, so he gets a big bowl of meat with hidden veggies, pasta, sauce, and bread. Man, this kid loves Dabbo. He also adores eggs, and can eat three hard-boiled eggs at once, dipping them in ketchup and mayo. He likes bread smeared with goat cheese and smoked salmon. He still refuses all fruits and vegetables in their natural form, and Mr. P is planning to crack down on this refusal in the near future (good luck with that, husband dear).

After he eats dinner, if the weather is nice we’ll go to the local playground. It’s a kick to see him begin to interact with other kids. Last week, he played very sweetly with a slightly-older boy with Down Syndrome. He shares his cars with other kids, and yesterday he played tag with two African-American siblings who live nearby (our town has a very small Black population, but luckily most of it is very close to us). The girl is 4, lively and hilarious; she loves to chase Little Boy, and he screams with delight when he sees her in pursuit. The boy is 2 and developmentally slow, and looks at Little Boy with such awe and admiration. Their mother and I sat together and laughed at all of their antics. Finally, I am not my son’s playmate of choice.

When we get home, Mr. P usually plays with or lightly supervises Little Boy while I cook dinner. He eats a little something with us (cheese or yogurt, and if we can coax him, applesauce), although he is usually distracted by the prospect of post-dinner television. We watch PBS or a nature video, although those can be troubling (who knew that hyenas ate elephants, or that a cobra would rapidly execute three baby lions?) Every night, we take turns who reads him a book/puts him to bed. We have a huge library of children’s books thanks to my company, who threw me a baby shower and requested that everyone bring a book. Little Boy is still not at the point where we can read all the words to him and he’ll listen. Instead, we’ll tell the story by using words he knows and pointing at the pictures. He doesn’t always get the precise meaning, but he understands that there’s a story being told, and he likes it, especially if it involves animals, trains, or bicycles (this encompasses pretty much 98% of children’s books).

Little Boy has developed a nasty habit of waking up 2, 3, or even 4 times a night and coming to our bed. Mr. P blames day care, where he takes a 90 minute nap and, according to the teachers, sleep for every minute of it. At first we allowed him to crawl in between us because it was easier than taking him back to his bed, but this was ultimately disruptive to our sleep as he likes to toss and turn and talk (Mr. P heard him talking about meat the other night), so now one of us takes him back to his room and lays with him until he falls asleep, which isn’t usually very long, but sometimes he’ll fake it and be back in our bed in 2 minutes. To try and circumvent the inevitable carrying back to his bed, Little Boy has started to get very sneaky. He used to run over to our room so we were awoken by that unmistakeable toddler trot against the hard-wood floors, but now he creeps. Unfortunately for him, it is very hard for him to discretely pull himself up on our bed. The other night I awoke to feel little hands grasping my toes and pulling, twisting fiercely. I scooped him up and walked/stumbled to his bed, where we laid down and he took my hand and pulled it across his chest. I watched him in the dim light filtering past the curtains, his peaceful face with his eyes lightly closed, and we both sighed with contentment.