It's Really a "Small World" After All!

I was recently down at the beach in Ocean City, MD with my family on vacation. I had my husband and three kids with me and after hitting the boardwalk playing our favorite games of skee ball and air hockey in the arcades, we got hungry and headed for some pizza in the Dough Roller restaurant. The hostess in the restaurant sat us next to the kitchen door (not usually our favorite place to sit) and we ordered our pizza. As we were waiting for our dinner to arrive, my toddler was getting a little restless and was standing in his seat (with his dad watching him closely). With his happy and outgoing personality -- and making the most of the wait -- our son soon started waving to the kitchen staff as they were taking food and dishes in and out of the kitchen, giving them a smile and a wave each time they walked by. After a while, he even got them to give him a "high five"

After dinner, my husband and kids headed off to the boardwalk and I waited behind to pay the bill. The same members of the kitchen staff who my son was "playing" with came to our table and started clearing the dishes, and I noticed they were talking in Russian. After talking with them (in English, of course) It ends up they had come from Russia to work at the beach for the summer. Who would have known that these young men that my son was waving to and "high fiving" with were born in the same country he was ... a country almost half way around the world. So far away and different, yet so much more familiar to me now.

As I was leaving the restaurant, I noticed in a small Russian flag through the kitchen door and it made me stop and think. Before adopting my son last year, I would probably never even thought to ask where these young men had come from, or even wonder much about what their world was like. Some say adoption changes a child's life. Maybe so, but it also has changed mine. My son, has helped me see what a small world it is after all. And that's a wonderful thing.

Robin Bartko