Mother . . . in law

Since he first began babbling at us round about 13 months, TheBoy has called me 'Mommy." Today, a judge made that official.

Yes, I passed my criminal records check -- or at least, nothing too bad made it across the country -- and today a nice family court judge made my adoption of the kid official.

Truth be told, it felt anticlimactic. (That's becoming a theme, thankfully in most cases.) Having a piece of paper that says I love and seem reasonably fit to care for TheBoy changes absolutely nothing about my feelings toward him, though it does give us legal protection should his doctor, his school or some other official offshoot of The Man ever give us grief.

The entire process took five minutes, most of which we spent introducing ourselves to Her Honor and trying to get TheBoy to stop hiding his face into my shoulder so we could take a picture. The judge signed the paper, and that was that. Junior didn't really know what was going on, although he did enjoy waving around the envelope containing the adoption certificate as we walked from the courthouse to breakfast.

At the restaurant, my dear, sweet, well-behaved son spilled an entire glass of apple juice on me. As our friend Anne quickly noted, it was appropriate: First, we had an adoption. Then we had a baptism.