Charlie is Officially Adopted!

 I'm happy to report that Charlie was officially adopted on Friday, December 16th.  We've been eagerly anticipating this moment for a very long time.  I'm fortunate to have a wife who is very talented at pursuing social workers and lawyers with her own personal blend of friendly stalkerism -- without her follow-up there's no way that this could have happened before the end of the year.

What does this mean?  First and foremost, this means that Charlie is officially our child and no one can ever, ever take him away from us again.  As they said in court, we have all the rights and responsibilities of parents and Charlie is due any inheritance as a "natural" child.  Sorry about that last part, Charlie.  Not sure how much help we'll be in that department.

It also means no more visits from social workers, no more paperwork, no more locking up all our knives, and no more smoke detectors (just kidding about that last one!!).

This tuxedo that Charlie was wearing was a hand-me-down from a friend and it happened to fit him perfectly.  He was quite adorable in court, especially after they gave him his little teddy bear (all kids get teddy bears when they're adopted).  The judge and other staff were quite smitten.  And so are we!