Up and Down

The past few weeks have been filled with such a wave of emotions that I feel kind of like I'm riding an insane roller coaster that is simultaneously shoving joy and fear down my throat and I just have to hang on and try not to vomit.  It's like the adoption equivalent of gestational diabetes.  You know it will stop when you get to bring your child home, but are stuck dealing with it in the mean time.  And every adoptive parent I know has felt this so it's not a unique experience, just a new one.  I feel like I go from zero to SUPER emotional in less then 60 seconds.

I got PA  (happy happy day)

Home study trucking along (Woohoo! Life is great!)


FBI prints still not here  (WTH)

Home study not quite finished (annoyed, annoyed, annoyed)

Home study can be finished this week  (Woohoo! What was I thinking?  Life is amazing!)

Prints still not here (depths of despair)

And I know it will go on, and on, and on right up until Gotcha Day and there is NOTHING I can do about it. In fact, it is only going to get worse.  As a control freak I find this disconcerting.  As someone who loves my friends and family I'd like to apologize in advance for any wild mood swings  that occur over the next 7-9 months.  I'd over compensate for it with comfort food but I have to fit comfortably into an airplane seat in the Fall so please feel free to tell me to go away until then.

There is a lot of fear that goes along with adopting.  I worry about paperwork getting lost. I worry about attachment (a LOT).  I worry about money.  I worry about getting everything done in time.  I worry about money.  I worry about how he will react on Gotcha day.  I worry that he will freak out and I won't be able to comfort him (which is a real possibility).  I worry about money.  I worry about what his room should look like.  I worry about bringing him clothes that fit (like he'll care).  I worry about natural disasters or Avian Flu delaying the process. I worry about whether or not he will like me.  I worry about accidentally drinking unboiled water during travel and having to use a squatty potty.  And I worry about money.

That's a lot to worry about. 

It's exhausting.

So when it gets to be too much.  I step away.  I watch a 2 minute video of my little guy running and bouncing and smiling and laughing.  And I remember to breathe. 

To China With Love

The journey to adoption is never an easy one and mine has been longer, and more complicated, than some. I started about three years ago when I was sure that I was destined to adopt internationally.  I looked at multiple country programs and nearly followed through with one, but I always had reservations.  Some small part of me that was unsure of my decision.  I finally decided that my hesitation came from my program of choice.  After all, my desire to be a mother has never wavered, but I often pictured myself with an infant and in the international adoption world infant placements are not common.  Added to that the fact that I would be adopting as a single mother,  I was pretty much guaranteed to adopt an older child.

Knowing all of that I decided to enter the world of Domestic adoption.  I completed all the paperwork  and made my profile book and sent it all of in hopes that a birth mother would see it and pick me....

No one ever did.  It sucked.  A lot.  And every time my profile was shown I would tell myself not to get my hopes up (but I did), and not to think about the child (but I did), and not to dream about the child (but I did).

And every time I was rejected I told myself not to take it personally....but I did.  Oh, I did.  And I would begin to analyze every picture and word in my profile.  And my self-esteem, well it took a flying leap off of the Empire State Building and smeared itself all over the intersection of 5th Avenue and 34th Street.  Because those profiles are personal, very, very personal so rejecting it meant rejecting me.  There was something they saw in it that made them say no.  Was it my clothes, or weight, or hair, or house?  I don't know but for two years I watched friends have children and I still didnt and so I was finished.  I have this theory that the female psyche can only handle a finite amount of rejection over the course of a lifetime and I had reached mine.

But then my niece turned six, which is significant only in that it opened the doors to China for me as a single woman.  And my thoughts turned to Chinese orphanages and little kids with my nieces dark hair and almond eyes.  But I didn't say anything.  To anyone.  For months.  Until the beginning of a New Year, and I felt ready to start a new journey.  So I started back down the paperwork trail.  I started looking for grants to apply for and fundraisers to start.

And I started looking at files.  Files of little boys with special needs that didn't seem all that special to me.  And one Tuesday night, at 11:30pm, my sister texted me from her bedroom downstairs to tell me there were new kids on my agencys list.  And just like that.  With the click of a button and a few taps on the ipad I fell straight into the eyes of this boy.

And suddenly it all seemed worth it.

Dreamweaver

I had a dream last night that Jack Donaghy gave me 

11 MILLION DOLLARS

It was for unspecified reasons (although I’m sure it was all completely aboveboard and not at all shady).  He gave it to me in increments of 50,000 cash, enclosed in 99 cent pencil cases from Target (okay that part was kind of shady).  Clearly one of two things must be true.

Thing 1: I am about to receive a gift of 11 million dollars from the fictional head of GE television and microwave programming

Thing 2: I watch entirely too much television

I’m going to go with Thing 1 because in that scenario I also get to meet Tina Fey (also, I'd have 11 MILLION DOLLARS).   I’ve totally been practicing how to act so I don’t just try to smell and hug her like when Liz Lemon met Oprah (“Liz Leeeemmmmmooooooonnnnnnnn”).  In my head I mostly just laugh like a lunatic at everything she says. It's weird how even in my head I act like an idiot around famous people. 

Did I mention that I might watch too much television?

In other news, it’s been over a week since I’ve seen either Mad-Eye Moody or Lolita, so they have either been foiled in their attempt to eat our cat food by our cleverness (aka moving the chair so they can’t get on the table), or they are off making a slew of tiny, ugly babies.  And I swear to you if they roll up in a multicolored bus singing Come On Get Happy I am moving...somewhere (without opossums)

The Niece, The Myth, The Legend

My niece is many things.

She is five. She is OBSESSED with horses (seriously, yesterday she wore her riding helmet all day and "rode" her plastic horses around). She is both incredibly excited and incredibly nervous about starting Kindergarten next week. She is freakishly tall for her age. 

But above all those things she is...

Naturally Skinny

This is a condition that I had previously believed only existed in Mary Higgins Clark novels (naturally skinny heroines always wear trousers and do their hair in chignons).  It is not a condition I am personally familiar with.  In fact, until she came into our lives as a very bald, very serious, and very tall 10 months old I didn't believe that naturally skinny people actually existed.

It seemed a myth. Like Bigfoot, or Yeti, or people who found Michal Bolton attractive.

Imagine my surprise when I first encountered her saying "I'm full" half-way though an ice cream cone.  Seriously?  Who stops eating an ice cream cone? 

Naturally Skinny People...that's who.

Today my sister and I had to go to Target to exchange a skirt for her because the size Small that my mom bought her was too big.  And not a little too big, it was HUGE on her.

So we had to get an Extra Small.

The last Extra Small item I bought was the mini blizzard at Dairy Queen....

don't judge me

A Tale of Two Opossums

Here we are on Wednesday night and I was just thinking how awesome it is that I haven't seen Mad-Eye Moody since his second appearance on Friday, when I wander over to let the dog out and

OHMYGODTHEREISADIFFERENTOPOSSUMONTHEPORCHAREYOUFREAKINGKIDDINGME

That's me, screaming to myself, because I'm home alone being besieged by opossums.

Translated this means: "Well oh my, it appears that there a opossum on the porch and dear me it is definitely NOT my nemesis Mad-Eye Moody"

Are you impressed that I can tell opossums apart?

Well I can and here is my slightly grainy iPhone camera proof!  You'll have to pardon the shakiness of the the photos but the rush of adrenaline at the site of a opossum leaves me unable to hold my phone steady (and probably with the strength to lift a car above my head but since the cars were outside I clearly couldn't test this theory out)

First up Mad-Eye Moody. (notice how extra huge and creepy he is) 

Enter the new opossum (I'm gonna have to assume that she is his Lady Love)

 

She is way smaller, and has two working eyes. If my sister were home she would come up with a clever name for her. I don't have time for that because I have to go teach the dog to pee in the toilet since there is a ZERO percent chance that I'm opening the door to let him out! Then I have to go hide.

Did I mention that I'm home alone?

Also I'm afraid my now public disregard for nature is really going have a negative impact on the chances of me marrying Cowboy Josh....bummer

And since moving doesn't seem like a valid option I have decided I need to go to bed earlier thus limiting my chance of seeing a romantic tryst between Mad-Eye and his Lady Love. 

Ignorance is bliss people

(but if any sweet opossum lovin' starts happening I am so out of here)

Mad-Eye Moody

 Picture the scene:  It’s Thursday night in mid-summer.  The heat has been incredible all day and by midnight my sister and I are being our usual awesome selves.  You know, sitting on our asses watching Downton Abbey and imagining ourselves on the show (side note why do I always picture myself as an Anna rather than Lady Mary?)  Anyway the dog had been whining at the door since the last time Lady Mary and Matthew gazed at each other longingly across a room so I hauled myself off the couch to let him out.  I snapped on the light and was just about to open the door when a shriek emitted from my sisters mouth, the likes of which I hadn’t heard before.  It sounded something like this

“OHMYGODDON’TLETHIMOUTTHEREISANOPOSSUMOUTTHERE”

Translated this means: Hey Jesse, don’t be alarmed but there is an opossum outside so don’t let the dog out unless you want him to be attacked.

Yep, GIANT opossum sitting on the table outside the window chowing down on the cat food we keep out there.

But this wasn’t just any opossum, this was a HUGE, ugly, freakish opossum with one little beady black eye and one dead eye. 

Noelle promptly named him Mad-Eye  Moody (which I initially refused to call him but have since come to accept)

In our sisterly relationship Noelle is in charge of all things related to nature (bugs, spiders, reptiles, rodents, pigs, etc) so she was in charge of scaring the thing away since clearly I wasn’t going to step foot on the porch.   But as she walked over to the door she suddenly recalled a news story she had read earlier that day about 2 girls in Tennessee (or Kentucky, or West Virginia…it was definitely in one of the states) who were attacked by a rabid beaver earlier in the week (seriously Google it, it happened).  Anyway as she recalls this story she turns to me and says “what if it has rabies and runs inside when I open the door?”

Such a helpful statement don’t you think?

After some quiet shrieking on my part (it would do no good to wake my niece) I cowered behind the couch as she opened the door (an inch) and slammed it shut repeatedly to drive Mad-Eye away.

After a much needed Facebook status update I went to bed.

The next night…he was back.

Stupid opossum. 

Stupid MALE opossum.

With big hairy opossum balls that have touched my table, and chair, and deck.

We need to move

ASAP

Screw you 2011 I want my flying car!

Looking back on all these retrospectives of 2011 I can't help but gag a little whenever I see some glowing post about how fantastically awesome 2011 has been.

"OMG it's the best year ever"

"2011 has been a year of amazements"

"this has been the best year of my life"

Really? Because I have to say that 2011 has been a year of disappointments. Do you what I drive? A Toyota. It's a regular car that drives on a regular road. Seriously, how boring is that? It doesn't fly, or transform, or talk to me. It just sucks gas and drives.

And do you know how I get from pace to place (when I'm not driving my boring car) I walk. No jet pack, not even a hover board. Seriously, I'm willing to start wearing high tops if it means I get a hover board.

So I ask you 2011, where is my personal robot like Rosie from the Jetsons? Shouldn't she be waking me up in the morning with coffee and breakfast? Shouldn't she be making my bed and brushing my teeth and basically turning me into the laziest person EVER (side bar: why weren't the Jetsons fatter). Where is my spaceship? Where is my machine that magically cooks anything I want with the touch of a button in under 60 seconds? And for the love of Pete where is my flying car?

I mean sure, I'm typing this on my iPad while listening to my iPod and answering email on my phone...but really 2011 I expected more from you.