That's Fit

Recently, my son's two favorite activities have been going to the skate park and going to the BMX track. They're both favorite activities in my book as well. They're free, my son is being active and meeting friends, and I get time to walk around the parks or just relax and read a book.

I'm constantly surprised at how few children wear helmets or other safety gear. My son hates his wrist guards, but he doesn't complain otherwise. And, thankfully, none of the non-helmet wearing crowd has poked fun at my son. My son knows that he only has one choice in the matter -- wear the safety gear or don't skateboard/bike. It's just not a risk worth taking.

According to the CDC, about 300,000 sports-related concussions occur each year in the US. There are some basic pieces of safety gear kids should wear when playing sports.

This month was pretty important for my little family; my son's adoption was finalized. I first started thinking about adoption nearly five years ago. Then, in the summer of 2005, I hosted a boy from Russia for the summer. I tried to adopt him, but before I was able to a Russian family took him in. Though I was heartbroken, I knew he was OK and I was happy that he was placed in a loving home in his homeland.

When the Russian adoption fell through, I decided to adopt from the US foster care system. It was hard switching gears, but I was excited and ready to try again. 10 months later I was matched with an energetic, funny, and athletic 10-year-old... my son. He moved in with me last June. The past 10 months have been the most challenging and rewarding months of my life. My son tests me daily, but he also stuns me with his resilience and wonderful qualities.

While things are sometimes harder than I expected, there is very little that we've gone through that I hadn't learned about through research or from my agency. One thing that that took me by surprise, however, was the depression I felt after first meeting my son and after he first came home. I had always thought post-adoption depression (PADS) was a bit of a myth. After all, there are no pregnancy hormones involved and, after finally adopting after a lot of effort (because very few adoptions process without tons of effort on everybody's part), how could you possibly feel depressed?