"I always feel like, somebody's watchin' meeee"

Buck the Builder fixing the baby swing. The very hungry Thunderpillar (SO CHEESY - couldn't resist)
A bath with Daddy.


So...we're having our first visit with the birth family [birth mom, H; grandparents and 2 aunts (15 & 8)] this weekend. There is a ringette tournament (you'll have to Google it - it's a sport played by girls similar to hockey). The 15 year old's team is playing & the family figured they'd come down to visit.

Last night, on the phone, the birthgrandma (BGma) and I were discussing how awkward everyone feels in the situation. I told her, "None of us has ever been through this before. It is awkward and uncomfortable - but the only way to make it not that way is to live through it. It's better for Thunder if our relationships become natural before he can tell the difference."

But that reasoning doesn't make it FEEL less awkward.

Here is what I'm clinging too from reading "The Open Adoption Experience":

No one 'owns' children. They are individuals who belong IN families and not TO families and
"True entitlement comes from realizing that while the child will always be connected to both the birth and adoptive families, only the adoptive parents will be raising the child."

There is a lesson in love here. I firmly believe that there isn't too much love in the world, there is only not enough. What is best for Thunder (and Buck, in his understanding of his brother) will be that the bfamily becomes a part of our extended family. It's just this awkward phase is so...awkward :) I'm having a hard time finding a different description.
More later.