Testing photos

Test post...7

To those of you who are notified with each post, I heartily apologize. I am experimenting with how to post via email, just in case I can't access my blog while we are away. As a reward for clicking on my test post, here is some cuteness from 2008.

*Edited to say, this post doesn't appear to be showing up on my blog feed, so maybe it doesn't do that if I post via email? Who knows. After four years I still can't figure this thing out:) Just be forewarned if you are one of those people who read posts that way.

**Edited again to say that it showed up on my blog feed sometime after midnight. So I guess it does work, just in a delayed fashion.

My Current State of Mind

We are still waiting for our Travel Approval to China, and I have been a little bit obsessed preoccupied with all things planning travel. Packing lists, flight times, hotel costs, etc. are taking over my brain.

So, my laundry basket has been missing for a few days. I'm not sure how a person loses a gigantic laundry basket, but I did. I have been just carrying the clothes in my arms to and from the machines. Today though, I really needed it, so I spent about 10 minutes looking in every closet, behind chairs, and even in the garage.

I even asked the boys, "Have you all seen the laundrey basket lately? I can't find it."

Ben: Did you look in our room?

Me: Yes, and your sister's.

Will: Alright Mom, you got me. I hid your laundry basket.

Me: Really?

Will: No! Of course not! (And he laughs hysterically.)

So I decided I would just have to do laundry again today, without the basket. I go to the machine, and this is what I see.
I'm sure it's been sitting there for a week.

And now you know the current state of my mind. And my laundry room.

The Preparations are Starting

People have asked me periodically how I manage to stay excited about the adoption the whole time. The truth is, I don't. I am not a person who can maintain emotional highs or lows for a long period of time. I max out and get exhausted after a couple of days. So I have intentionally paced myself since I first saw Jack's face back in October. I have tried to just take things one step at a time.

Now that we are possibly weeks from travel, I am beginning to accept that this is actually going to happen, and I have to get me, my family, and my house ready for this trip.

Let's start with my house. This one will take the most time, but probably be the easiest. It drives me crazy to come home to a dirty house. I have found that I obsess about it the entire flight/drive home, and at that point in any trip I don't have the energy left to obsess over anything. Now never mind the fact that I live in a filthy house every single day. For some reason I can't stand for it to be dirty when I am not in it. So the first thing on the list (and the thing I can't actually finish until the last minute) is to clean the house.

There are other nesting type activities that need to be done, such as purchasing new mattresses for the two littles, rearranging Kate and Jack's room, and going through the massive amounts of clothes in both the kids' rooms. I also need to re-organize the toys (read, purge), or I am pretty sure they will continue to multiply like rabbits and take over my house while we are away.

Preparing my family is a little less time consuming, but involves more thinking. I have to strategically pack for five people (Tim is on his own) for spring weather, which I imagine is just as unpredictable in China as it is here. Layers will be key.

I also have to continue to emotionally prepare the kiddos for another brother. Naturally, I have been doing this for a very. long. time. But now these conversations seem to be kicking into high gear. Everything from, will Jack be scared of us when we meet him, to will we see familiar faces at the orphanage, and will he "love me the last?" That last one is Kate's question.

With all of the above preparations going on (ok, they are mostly just lists at this point, rather than actual preparations), I tend to push preparations for myself to the back burner. Not the packing, but the emotional stuff. Which goes back to my initial comments today. Adopting a kid is emotionally intensive. It just is. It is hard, and joyous, and amazing, and heart-breaking, and rips your heart out just before it makes you soar. And then it does it all over again. Having done this once, I know all this. So I how do I prepare myself for the way all of these emotions will wash over me in the coming weeks and months? Can I prepare myself?

Last time I did a lot of reading. I read every attachment book I could get my hands on. I read adoption blogs about cleft lip and palate and toddlers and first parents and whatever other topic I deemed relevant. And it taught me so much - more than I even realized I would need. But at the same time, how can you prepare yourself for this huge unknown?

This time I am trying to soak up the calm. I am taking time to read for fun, not just information. I am trying to sit and laugh with my children more. Tim and I are scheduling mini-dates while the kids are at school. I need to enjoy this time of peace and contentment before our world turns upside down.

I know that eventually, Jack will adjust to us, and us to him. But in the meantime it's going to get crazy. And 'fake it til you make it' will become my mantra.

Breathe in. Breathe out

The Truth About Cleaning the Bathroom

In my house we have a sort of Murphy's Law regarding the bathroom. If I clean it (which is admittedly not as often as I should) something Bad will happen.

Usually it is something annoying like one of the kids squirting half a tube of toothpaste all over the sink and floor. Or the boys completely missing the target, if you know what I mean. Or the toilet will overflow onto the clean floor.

You get the idea.

But sometimes something Really Bad happens. Like one of the kids gets Really Sick all over the bathroom. And other rooms too. And I spend the day with Clorox wipes, dirty laundry, and many cups of water for sickly children.

Unfortunately today was the day for that.


So this little girl has spent the day curled up on the couch (trash can nearby), sleeping, eating crackers, and watching movies. She was supposed to sing her first little solo in church this morning, but obviously that did not happen.

Love her heart, hopefully she will feel better tomorrow.

Where was I?

I seem to be in a weird place right now. A place where I can't seem to put more than a handful of words together before I am distracted and can't remember what I was talking about in the first place. I am pretty sure that in the last couple months I have started no fewer than a dozen or so blog posts in my head, but they never seem to make it beyond that initial, "Hey, I need to write this down when I get home." By the time I get home I can't even remember what I planned to make for dinner, much less what cute and witty thing my child said.

Maybe I should start bullet blogging like Megan at Millions of Miles does occasionally. I currently find that method really helpful, because in addition to not being able to complete a coherent sentence, I also seem to be unable to read more than three sentences on any website/blog before I start wondering if TAs have started coming in yet, or how much hotels in China are. And then I hit the search button and forget where I was.

Where was I?

Oh yeah, my head is all a-whirl. Blahblahblah.

I know someday I will look back on this blog and think it weird that this year I didn't post about Christmas or Chinese New Year or any of that stuff, but then I will probably remember that I can't concentrate on anything for more than 30 seconds, and hopefully I will have enough grace to forgive myself.

I wonder if it will get better once we have Jack. Will I suddenly be able to think clearly? I somehow find that unlikely, but I did write coherently when we brought Kate home. (Or maybe I didn't. Maybe no one understood me at all, and you all just came 'round for the cute kid pictures. Well, there's a hit to my ego.)

I hope that I will actually be able to reach inside myself and make sense of all of the thoughts and emotions that are whirling around in there. I hope that I will be able to sort out and put words to my joy, my fears, my heart, my blessings.

But if I don't, you all will still come and look at cute kids pics, right?

Article 5

Our Article 5 was dropped off at the US Consulate in Guangzhou yesterday. It takes them a full two weeks to process the file, and then someone from our agency can pick it up on February 15.

That is the LAST piece of paper we need from the US government before China can issue our Travel Approval (TA).

Amen.