I sat down to write about my week and my daughter but have to take a slight detour due to the ongoing attitude of American moral superiority that George W. Bush and his zealous supporters continue to display to the world and, perhaps even more upsetting, the level of apathy exhibited by the greater American Public.

Today, as Americans across the country get blotto on green beer, we hardly remember that it is the 3rd anniversary of the start of this horrendous war. The war that I call World War III. The war that will end all wars. How ’bout a toast? So far, 2,314 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq…those are the “official” numbers which do not include any service members who may have survived long enough to be transferred to Germany and died after arriving at our military hospital there. They don’t factor in for some reason. We’ve killed (and continue to kill) thousands and thousands of innocent Iraqi’s, we torture people all over the world while turning our noses up at the Geneva Conventions (which we helped author), and yesterday, we launched what was reported on NPR as the largest air bombing campaign since the war began, against Samarra, where intelligence reports claim there is “insurgent activity.” Bush has been proven time and time again to have lied about the reason(s) for this war; has broken the law with his domestic spying program; left Amercian citizens to drown in the Gulf Coast; has done next to nothing to help these “refugees” or to rebuild the area. He has no credibility. Meanwhile, we’re spending billions of dollars each month in Iraq, the senate just increased our debt ceiling, approved more funds for the war and CNN’s top stories yesterday were 1) that Jessica Simpson loves Bush and 2) that we need to have a “Roe vs. Wade for Men”. WAKE UP SHEEPLE. We 1) are short sighted idiots with 2) the wrong priorities and 3) have blood on our hands if we continue to sit back and do nothing. Bush must be held accountable and at the very least, impeached for breaking the law (he should be on trial for war crimes). And this is hardly speaking to the aggressive erosion of our civil liberties here at home. Roe vs. Wade for Men…give me a fucking break. As if men don’t have a choice EVERY SINGLE DAY OF THEIR LIVES.

Believe it or not, all of this brings me back to Ruby. Somehow, when I look in her eyes, the problems of the world seem at the same time to be less awful and devastatingly hopeless. I try to be positive by focusing on her innocence and her beauty and not think about the kind of world we will be handing over to her someday. Living in the moment, I shut out the news and concentrate on how intense it must be to discover the paw of a dog or the feeling of fleece against skin for the first time. My survival mechanism demands that I live consciously within the safety of my Family Bubble and relish each milestone. By doing this, I am reminded that there is, indeed, good in the world.

We’ve had a banner week in this house. Since last Sunday, Ruby has learned how to crawl, figured out how to pull herself to standing in her pack-n-play (or, less fun for me, from her changing table by leveraging herself on my nipples), and went tinkle and poop in the toilet. About the tinkle and poop, I am not bragging here. She was simply a victim of circumstance and ended up doing what she had moments before been trying to do in the bathtub.

I’ll spare the gory details here, lest any of this end up in a wedding day/commitment ceremony montage some time in her future. It’s fair to leave it as such with the only detail being that I held her slippery little body on the edge of the toilet seat and laughed until tears were running down my face. I hope that this doesn’t give her any potty issues but we’ve got the college fund going and it can always be diverted to therapy. Honestly, I had no idea that the poop didn’t come out looking like a ball of play-dough and was quite surprised at how adultesque it was. Opps…there’s one of those pesky details I was avoiding. As a gentle segue, I think it might be time to baby-proof the house.

Yesterday, I took Ruby to a playgroup organized by a woman in our adoption “support group.” I put quotes around that because I just don’t like the connotation of support group. I suppose that’s what it is but really, to me, it just seems like a bunch of people who share a common experience and like to hang out together. At any rate, Animal Crackers is the playgroup that has been formed as an off-shoot of the original group, Fortune Cookies, for those of us who have brought our children home. We’ve been gathering every two weeks for the kids to play and for the moms to chat. Yesterday was one of the best days yet; several new babies have come home and there was much to celebrate and share. Lisa, our gracious and lovely host, has her house decked out with all sorts of toys that I wish we had but hardly have the patience or stomach to seek out in the hideous “Toys-R-Us” (I ran screaming from that place during my one and only visit). I have to say, the house looked like an advertisement for Benneton. It was fantastic to see such a diverse group of children all doing their kid thang as the adults played with them while also engaging in abbreviated (interrupted) conversations with each other. I wonder if I was the only one who recognized that parenthood is really just a series of interrupted conversations and the foiling of near accidents. Whatever it is, the mojo was working at Lisa’s and Ruby and I had a wonderful time. As an adoptive parent, it is so refreshing to take my daughter to a place where she can just be a kid and I can just be a mom, rather than feeling like I’m in a question and answer session about the adoption process. Though most people who inquire about our family are nice enough, it gets to be very tiring always having to explain and justify. And we deal with this everyday, where ever we go since it’s quite obvious that Ruby is not of our loins, as it were. Of course, we have used the “Sam has Super Special Sperm” when we get the Super Special Questions….:)

Lastly on my agenda for the day, and speaking of sperm, I’d like to ask: where did my sex life go? I mean, last night, when I crawled into bed and said “night-night” to my husband, I did awaken to the reality that the baby-talk isn’t likely to ignight any triple X sporting events. I know that I’m partially in control of whether we ever have an adult relationship of any kind again. But SHEESH! I feel like we’ve been wandering in a desert for 40 days…(it’s not that bad but it makes for good story telling). Come to think of it, was it 40 days or 40 years? Hmmm…contemplating the bible now, which is where I think that cliche came from, 40 days seems but a blip in time and not really effective in terms of a metaphor. Anyway, what I’m trying to say is, I didn’t give birth so I didn’t expect to have this particular side-effect. This parenting stuff is exhausting. Truly. Exhillerating but exhausting. I think we just need a nice, relaxing, Hawaiian vacation.

Until that time however (T minus 7 days), I will be donning my most fierce anti-Bush gear and heading to Balboa Park tomorrow to go on record, once again, against the policies of the White House Squatter. We must work diligently to end this fiasco in Iraq, to prevent the imminent attack on Iran and to protect our beautiful, darling children from the real badness in the world. I’m crossing my fingers, visualizing peace in my future and hoping for better headlines (IMPEACHMENT) tomorrow.