Continued from here where I've been counting my friends amongst my blessings.

Audie runs casinos, and is now working in Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic. When he was living in Seychelles, he was in charge of the casino down on our end of the island. Unmarried and with one grown son, his life was and is the footloose and fancy free one of a night owl.

As surprising as it may sound to people in the know about my life now ... people who never phone us after the evening news because they understand fully well that the odds would be they'd be waking us up with the call, or at least disturbing as we were drifting off ... that back in the days of Audie we routinely were up and out and about until four o'clock in the morning.

I can recall the schedule of meeting up at 8 pm for dinner at 9, finishing eleven-ish, then recre-business happening well into the wee hours, but I can no longer relate. Nope. Not even a little bit.

I get tired just thinking about it. Four o'clock in the morning is only experienced now when one of the kids is sick or Sam has a nightmare, and neither Mark nor I are anywhere near perky, much less raring to go, when we do happen to be awake at that time.

In the course of discussions carried out prior to our adopting Sam, the abrupt and complete change of how our days and nights would be passed was a minor topic, but for someone like Audie that sort of alteration in lifestyle could be a deal-breaker.

For sure, it's not every fifty-something-year-old who'd would be ready, willing or able to shift gears as abruptly as the addition of young children to a household requires. Many, many people my age are so totally over the idea of children ... either having been-there-done-that, or adjusted to having missed the kid boat for whatever reasons ... that they rarely venture into territory where they might be caused to mixed with rugrats. They wouldn't be caught dead in a Chuck E Cheese and avoid the swing set section of parks by a wide berth. I actually know of some folks who were sad to see the end of smoking on airplanes because they saw the smoking section as the only almost-guaranteed kid-free refuge in the air.

But, thankfully, most of my friends, even those who would rarely choose to converse with anyone under four-feet-tall make allowances for Sam and Cj. (Of course, they are charming children so who wouldn't?)

Yes, life has changed drastically in our house since the last time we shared space with our dear friend, but I don't see that the changes have done more than given us more to talk and laugh about. He'd run from the idea of adopting a child at his age like a mouse avoiding a hungry cat, but he's so, so happy for us.

I love my friends!

For information on considerations relating to adopting as an older parent, Adoption.com has resources. These 16 points for older parents to remember is informative. Of course, the Over 40 adoption forum has loads of hints, tips and such, as well.