Hell & High Water

Going going...

2008-05-29T21:09:00.001-07:00

My new private blog has now been set up. Pretty much everyone who asked has received an invite. If you asked to be invited and didn't recieve an email, please let me know - some email addresses were invalid.

I am in the process of moving posts from this site to the new one. I will probably keep some posts here, particularly the ones from when we were last in Colombia. I may even start up my knitting blog again.

If you'd like an invite to the new private blog, send me an email at yeahsoiknit at gmail dot com. If I don't know you IRL, you're pretty much in.

Chao for now...

HEY THERE.

2008-05-17T05:27:00.001-07:00

I WILL BE GOING PASSWORD PROTECTED IN ABOUT ONE WEEK. IF YOU WANT IN, SEND ME AN EMAIL (include your blogname and address so I know who you are)FOR AN INVITE. NOTHING HAPPENED, IT'S JUST TIME.

…did ya wonder where I’d gone off to? Is anyone still out there and/or do you even give a crap?

Well, I’m going to just go on the assumption that you do…

Everything’s fine over here – life just continues to roll on at lightning pace and I haven’t had a spare minute for blogging. I don’t even want to tell you how many blog feeds I have pending. I guess my absence is a good sign – I tend not to blog when life is good. And life IS good right now. Seamonkey is approaching two years old and this stage is so hysterically funny that I don’t like to give up a second of my time with him if I can help it. He continues to love music, including dancing and singing (I keep telling my husband that as long as he doesn’t start belting out show tunes and doing jazz hands, it's all good) and his two most favorite shows seem to be American Idol and Dancing with the Stars. He will sit mesmerized while they perform and then clap and cheer after every one. He will sing along to any song on the radio (so far he’s quite tone deaf, I hope that improves soon) but he’s particularly fond of “Take me out to the Ball Game” and “I love my Rooster”. I should put that on video for you to see – the cuteness is unbearable, truly. Other than that he’s completely normal – some days he won’t eat, other days he eats so much it make ME nauseous, occaisional dramatic tantrums and lately he’s starting this weird clingy thing. But no complaints.

Mother’s Day was okay. Am I allowed not to like Mother’s Day now or does that sound horribly ungrateful? I feel like I cherish my motherhood every single day, and the fact that I have to spend such an honorable day shuffling between by SILs house (who thinks she’s my son’s mother) and my mom’s (who usually thinks it’s “Spoiled Selfish Son Day”) just makes we want to scream. If I had my way, we’d spend a quiet day at home, where I’d do some reading, knitting and watching of bad movies. But alas, it was not to be. But know that throughout the day (perhaps between nibbles of high quality chocolate) I did say some small prayers of thanks for my beautiful son, and even bigger prayers for those who are still waiting for children of their own. That part makes me very sad.

Work is crazy. I have two new bosses, one I love, one I’m not sure of yet. I hate having to reprove yourself all over again, but what can you do.

I’m sorry I haven’t been able to comment a lot lately, but please know that I do check in when I can, and I do send out good vibes to those I know need them.

Oh, on the adoption front…we haven’t really moved forward yet. I am still finalizing the agency we are going to use, but we should be starting soon. It’s going to be a looooong wait. There are like 6 Colombian couples doing this at the same time as us, and they automatically jump the line. I am strangely okay with that – I think I’ve learned my lesson that sometimes what you end up with is infinitely better than what you planned on, and it’s better just to let life take it’s course and ride the ride. I have plenty of alcohol and chocolate at the ready though, I know I won’t be this complacent for long.

But summer’s almost here! Wahoo!

There's been knitting...

2008-02-12T18:55:00.000-08:00

First, I created a button for a knitting project over at knitting diva - won't you take a second and cast your vote? (My button is the first one).

Second - I finished all the gifts for our friends in Colombia and mailed them off. The mail is not very reliable there, so I'm hoping they get their okay. Since then I've finished a few more things:

Saartje's Booties

Yarn: Wildflower DK in yellow -a fraction of a skein

Notes: Perfect, adorable and quick to knit. A gift for a co-worker.

Nordic Ear Flap Hat

Yarn: Bernat softee chunky in green and blue - part of leftover skeins I had.

Notes: This is a tad big for seamonkey, but it's thick and warm, and as you can see he doesn't mind wearing it. It was the first time I did intarsia in my life - it wasn't too bad. I actually was able to carry each color in each hand, which was a little fiddly at first. Tension is key, and I need some practice, especially where I was switching needles (I used the magic loop method).

Currently on the needles I have the Chevron Scarf from Last Minute Knitted gifts. You take two skeins of luxury sock yarn in complimentary colors, and switch off every two rows. One row is worked in the "feather and fan" pattern. I did a double repeat to make this wider. I had alot of fun choosing which colors to use - I was in the yarn shop for almost an hour digging through all the wonderful sock yarn. I settled on Cherry Tree Hill Supersock, both are in colors "Earth" - and I found out later that these are "potluck" skeins - they only dyed six of each color at a time. This scarf is a gift for my Billy Joel loving friend for her 40th birthday - obviously I'm late with it - and it's taking longer than I thought. But the colors are totally her - rusty, brown, coppery, peachy...it will look great with her skin tone. I'm not even half way done - but this scarf is over 6 feet long. I want to make myself one eventually, it's a great excuse to splurge on sock yarn.

And the winner is.....

2007-10-08T19:23:00.001-07:00

all of them.

I mean, most people did vote for Danica. And a KAL is supposed to have everyone doing the same pattern. But I kind of felt bad forcing you to knit something you may not have wanted to knit. And who says you can't just knit whichever one you like? The whole point of this is to do it together, and I figure you're more likely to stick with it if it's one you really want to make.

But - I do ask that you stick to one of the four. It's fun to see how others are doing the same thing you are - and it is easier to help people if someone else is doing it too.

Also, I've created a separate blog just for this knit along. It's called the "Infertility Sucks" Scarf Along, and it can be found here. We will use this blog to post our progress and cheer each other along. This way we aren't boring all of our non knitting readers to tears with all the knit one purl two going on. So if I know who you are, I have sent you an email inviting you to participate in the blog (it's free to sign up). If you'd like to participate and you didn't get an invite, please send me your email address (mine is yeahsoiknit at gmail dot com) and I will add you. Oh, and if you would be so kind - blog about it and link to the new blog - hopefully more people will join (If anyone is technically inclined and would like to design a blog button - you will be my BFF)

And one other thing. I'm a little worried that I picked patterns that some may find too challenging. I do believe they are all learnable, and I am 100% committed to helping you get through the whole thing, so I really really hope you all stick with this. I will also be posting links to tutorials and other sites I think may be of help to you along the way. Feel free to post a question to the site, or email me directly. No questions are too dumb, and knitters are the nicest people!

Now go out and buy your yarn! Remember, worsted weight, any flavor. I hope you will make this scarf especially for yourself, so pick something soft and pretty. Knitting for loved ones are okay too - but why not treat yourself?

We offically start knitting Monday, October 15th.

I am so freaking excited.

It's TV time!

2007-10-06T06:10:00.000-07:00

I came out of a building the other day and saw one of the Cavemen. He was being filmed standing in front of a statue reading a newspaper. For a commercial I guess.

Then I was watching Kitchen Nightmares and found that they were doing a restaurant that is like 2 miles from my house. I've never eaten there, but I might now that it's been redone.

Then I was on my way to happy hour when I passed a filming of 10 Years Younger. Saw the guy in the box but I didn't stop to guess how old he was. It was a pretty big crowd.

What's next? Maybe I'll run into George Clooney somewhere. Well, a girl can dream.

Speaking of television:

My favorite, The Office, has started. And while I'm thrilled that Pam and Jim are finally an item....I wish they would stop making such a big deal about it because you know that all that happiness is going to come to a huge horrible crashing end. I'm not sure if my heart can take it.

I've been sucked into Dancing with the Stars....next week they should really vote off everyone except racecar guy and cheetah girl. The rest is just painful to watch. Wayne Newton is so creepy looking it gives me the willies. With the black hair, orange face and deer-in-the-headlights-I've-had-too-much-plastic-surgery expression, someone should just shoot him and put him out of his misery. The good news is that if you DVR it, you can watch that sucker in under 30 minutes.

And could you believe I haven't even watched Grey's yet....I better catch up on the web. Dont tell me what's going on!

Knit Along

2007-10-03T10:47:00.001-07:00

Knitting (and crocheting) is a form of therapy for me. My life is crazy and my brain is always going a hundred miles an hour. Clicking away on my needles helps me funnel my energy - having my hands do the moving enables my brain to slow down a bit so I can think. Something about the repetitiveness of the motions puts me into a zone of concentration (or oblivion, I've missed many train stops because of it). Not to mention it is a productive use of my commuting time. That's why I knit now.

But why I knitted "then" was slightly different. The energy I had then was a nervous anxious energy as a result of all the waiting. Waiting for appointments, waiting for test results, waiting to start the next cycle after another BFN. The knitting was the ultimate distraction - I sought out soft pretty yarns - having somewhat of an artists' eye, beautiful color combinations made me feel better just to look at them. I also attempted new and more complicated techniques. It was during my darkest days when I taught myself to knit both a pair of socks and a lace shawl. It was an alchemy of sorts...all the negativity, worry and anxiety were magically transformed into a useful and beautiful thing. It made me feel like a little bit less of a total failure.

I've been reading more about the Red Scarf Project, and while knitting for charity is a great thing, especially when it's for orphans, they seem like they are already up to their armpits in red scarves, and because they need to be gender neutral, they can be limited in design. So I'm going to make the executive decision to nix the charity knitting (you can still donate your scarf if you wish, but it's not the main focus of this knitalong).

I would like this to be more focused on us as individuals - taking the time to sit and look inward and create. It would be ideal if you can find yourself some quiet time for this purpose, but as the mom of a toddler myself, I realize this is not always possible. But if you could somehow get that alchemy going it would be awesome.

So on to choosing a pattern. I wanted to ensure that the yarn required was obtainable from any mega craft store. The options below are all for any worsted weight yarn (like Wool Ease or Simply Soft) which are widely available, and would look great in any color. I also tried to choose things that contained an element that might be new to most people and therefore a bit of a challenge. I hate knitting boring scarves...I fall out of love quickly and the project then sits unfinished. Please remember that one of the purposes of a knitalong is to help each other through the pattern, so please don't be turned off by things that look too hard. Trust me, these are all do-able. And you will be glad you rose to the challenge.

My so called Scarf - an interesting stitch pattern

Irish Hiking Scarf - cables

Column of Leaves Scarf - lace type pattern

Danica - Entrelac (this one looks harder than it is - if you can learn to pick up stitches, you can do this - the effect is stunning - check this one out, and this one and this one) It's like magic - hey magic, alchemy...hmmm.....

I'm open to any other suggestions as well. If you think these are way too challenging, let me know too.

I will accept votes until Monday the 8th. Then everyone will have one week to get yarn. I am proposing to kickoff this knitalong on October 15th, which also happens to be Pregnancy & Infant Loss Remembrance Day.

I hope you will join along! You can follow our progress on the "Infertility Sucks Scarf Along" Blog.

seafishes & starmonkeys

2007-09-30T19:48:00.000-07:00

Okay, the etsy shop is up. Introducing:

Starfish15

Uh...you'll see that I obviously need a logo and masthead. Working on it. I had more crocheted stuff than I thought. Be kind...

*UPDATED*

Apparently, (and unfortunately) it's not so easy to just change the name of your etsy shop. So "Seafishes and starmonkeys" will have to wait for now.

THANK YOU TO ALL WHO PURCHASED SOMETHING!! I will be adding things soon - especially the swirl picture frame that was a hit. Be sure to ask me if there is something specific you would like - I love to personalize things for people!

Mel at Stirrup Queens has done it again. She has arranged to compile a list of all shops that are owned by women who will use the funds for infertility treatments or adoption. Please see the link over there on my sidebar. When shopping for gifts (don't forget Christmas is coming!!) I hope you will consider shopping at these places for your needs. You will get a great hand made gift, and will help someone become a mom. Win win if you ask me.

Funky Friday

2007-09-28T12:58:00.001-07:00

This morning, as I am walking into my building to work, I encountered the biggest idiot on the face of this planet. To get into my building I have to go through a revolving door, which admittedly is always moving pretty quickly, especially in the morning when everyone is coming in. Getting through the door is usually uneventful. But this time, just as I get into my little one fourth section of the door, I hear shrieking in my left ear.

Apparently, a very young, very STUPID young woman who is apparently from a planet where there are no revolving doors, was unable to figure out how to safely navigate such a complex piece of machinery. I guess she misjudged the trajectory of her entry, and she almost got crushed as the door moved around. She and ended up smooshed up against me in my little section, scaring the crap out of me with the screaming. I had to do the Mr Tudball shuffle* through the door with this idiot on my back. Being the sympathetic and understanding sort that I am, I scream "WHAT ON EARTH WOULD POSSESS YOU TO DO THAT??". Sheesh. Meanwhile, she didn't even apologize or anything...when we got to the other side she practically ran into the little coffeeshop. I guess she was mortified. RIGHTFULLY SO.

So that should give you an indication of the kind of day this is. Can't wait to go home. Tomorrow we are doing a community yard sale - a bunch of houses in my neighborhood all do it the same day. It's always an interesting social experiment. I love to practically give away stuff to people who really like something, or really need something. I also really love tellling people to take a hike when they get all nasty because you won't give them a lead crystal vase for 25 cents.
Although most of my time tomorrow will probably be spent going through baby clothes right there on the front lawn...SM (seamonkey) has a closet full of clothes that don't really fit him anymore, and I am reluctant to face the fact that many things still have tags on them and were a complete waste of (mine and other's) money. I need to realize that he is at least in 12 mos size now, and it's probably a good idea to get rid of the 3-6 month sizes. Ya think? So I have his closet full, drawers, plus 3 huge plastic tubs of hand me downs from my cousin to go through. I need to pull out stuff to sell at the yardsale, stuff to sell on ebay, and stuff to give away to charity. Let me know if anyone is interested in little boy things - I would love to think that some of his things would be loved by other adopted kids.....

As for the etsy shop - I think we have a winner. Rachel came up with "Seafishes & Starmonkeys" and for some reason I can't get that out of my head. Something about how it tangles up me and the boy in a fun way. I have no idea what kind of logo/banner thing I will come up with, but it matches the whimsicalness (whimsicality?) of the items I make. And to clarify that point, most of my stuff will NOT be knitted related. I do alot of whimsical painted stuff...treasure boxes, pictures frames and things. I may throw some knitted stuff out there that I have never gifted out, but it won't be much. Sorry if I mislead you. But, once you see what kind of stuff there is, I am totally open to suggestions and will custom make anything you wish. Rachel, thankyou, and we will have to work out how you will be justly rewarded for your creativity.

If I can find a few freaking minutes of free time, maybe I can get everything finished, photographed and posted.

In the meantime, please check out these great links from adoptive moms:

Mama K Creations - Great tye dye baby stuff made by fellow blogger MamaK
The Family Gems - Beautiful bracelets - love the ones that say "believe"- by Sig
Connie at One More Ladybug is selling great International Adoption car decals - see her sidebar!

*50 points if you know this reference.

Help for a name

2007-09-25T14:22:00.001-07:00

The Etsy shop is almost ready - although don't get too excited, I don't have a ton of stuff to list - whenever I get a free block of time, I seem to want to spend it with a certain short person in my household. But the stuff that will be there should be nice... Anyway, I need help choosing a name for my etsy shop page. Some things I've thought of:

Starfish Garden
Fifteen Starfish (15 is my lucky number)
Starfish and Seamonkeys
Chunky Seamonkey
Seamonkey Says...

Well, you see the theme I'm trying to go with here...and I don't really love any of these....do me a favor and take 2 minutes and think about it - what else do ya got?

Grumpy Monday

2007-09-24T13:49:00.000-07:00

Okay so people aren't exactly scrambling to knit with me. Seems like it's a slow blog reading day (or that's what I'm choosing to believe) - you all must be so exhausted from the weekend - I'll give you some more time to mull it over. Just one red scarf - and I promise to pick a pattern that is totally do-able. Even if only a few of us do it it will be fun dammit!

In other news - last week my admin asked me to contribute money towards a gift for one of our staff members who is a new dad. I found out about the birth when this person suddenly asked for a week off to help "the baby's mother" while she recouperates. Yeah, one of those deals. So I decided not to be all bitter, and I gave $5. Well today I learn that a total of $285 was collected! Can you believe that?? So I'm way past bitter now - I'm into totally pissed off. Let's all give this guy a freaking car payment because he forgot to use a condom?? I don't get it! Life is so not fair. But I knew that.

Yawn. I'm exhausted. I'm not sleeping terribly well these days. I find myself subconsciously worrying about every little thing lately. I guess when things are good you are always waiting for the other shoe to drop. Actually it's not so much subconsciously - I have been doing this really bizarre thing lately - I have been imagining these really horrible things happening to the people I love. Accident type things - and I play out entire scenes in my head. Like I'll be carrying seamonkey and I'll think "Imagine if I tripped and we both fell onto the concrete and he cracked his head open" - and that's a mild one trust me. In particular I seem to be obsessed as to when my dad is going to die. Isn't that horrible? He and seamonkey have such a strong bond that I'm thinking it would just FIGURE that something would happen to screw that all up.

I think I am just really scared that something bad is going to happen soon - the law of averages says it's got to happen sometime, no?. And those of us who have gone through infertility kind of know that you get used to bad disappointing hurtful shit happening to you so regularly that you can't believe that the good stuff will last very long.

Am I nuts? Do some of you feel that way too? Any thoughts on how to handle it?

KAL anyone?

2007-09-21T19:17:00.000-07:00

So I've been thrilled to see that we have some knitters out there in adoption/inferitlity bloggy land! As you may know, I do have a knitting blog, but I haven't posted there in quite some time - it's been a challenge to post with any semblance of regularity on this blog, so maintaining two is OUT. So guess what? I will be consolidating - and now you get to look at knitterly things in various stages of completion from now on. Doesn't that sounds fabulous?

Okay ready? Go!

This is what I'm working on now - A blue baby kimono sweater. It's a gift for a friend. Now I just need to seam it and do the neck band. I also need to make a girly baby sweater for a friend, I was going to do this in a feminine color, but perhaps I'll just crochet something...that goes quicker for me.
Now for the items that I haven't picked up since before we got seamonkey:

A wrap (basically a big rectangle) made from worsted wieght wool, using a lace pattern I found in a magazine which I can't locate right now. Perfect for fall, but I doubt I'll finish it - I'm like a third done with it.

Entrelac baby blanket. This is just too feminine for seamonkey. When I finish it I'll probably gift or sell it on etsy. It's 100% wool and super soft, once it's blocked I'm sure it will be gorgeous and snuggly.

Bell Sleeve Pullover for myself. Thick yarn with big needles, this should go fairly fast. This is one sleeve done - it's the first sweater I've ever attempted just for me.

I wish I could plow through these projects and be done with them. I am definitely a product knitter - I like finishing and having something to show for my efforts, as opposed to some who are process knitters; enjoying the journey as much as the end product. That's SO not me.

I'm not sure if I'm going to pick up any of these UFOs any time soon (unfinished objects for all you civilians). After the baby sweaters I want to make seamonkey a stripey winter hat and scarf. And I maybe want to knit something to send to our friends in Colombia. And then I was thinking that maybe we could do a KAL?

What's a KAL you ask? Why a Knit A Long of course!

Where we all pick a pattern, knit it at the same time, help each other along and (of course) post our progress on the blog. I had this crazy idea that maybe some of you who dabble in knitting would like to try something new and exciting....maybe even learn something new? Howz about lace? Or cables? I was thinking scarf to keep things fairly quick to knit. AND, if you don't have your heart set on giving your scarf to your great Aunt Tilly for Christmas, we could even tie this in to the whole adoption thing and participate in the Red Scarf Project!

What do you think??

Some Follow Up

2007-09-20T17:46:00.000-07:00

Well I am happy to report that this week is going much better (damn I was looking for an excuse to do some serious shoe shopping), although I should keep that on the QT in case the gods are listening - there is still tomorrow to get through. I have to attend a stupid lunch tomorrow to meet a client - an easy work day but I have to go with a bunch of sales people which is always so annoying - I can't do that chit chat thing, nor can I do the salesy schmoozy thing. Such a waste of time to me.

Anyway - just a note on my husband...while he is definitely a keeper - don't go giving him too much praise now - there were some definite benefits to him advising me to buy four tailored suits. Like how he doesn't have to hear me bitch about my lack of appropriate attire at least for the short term. That is no small thing here folks - I think his ears were starting to bleed because of it. Not to mention that I'm sure he assumes that he now has free reign to buy four tailored suits worth of fishing equipment, car magazines and grooming products. There is a method to his madness for sure - a stupid man he is not.

I am also remiss in thanking you for all of your kind words on the Birthday Bash. Again, it was nice of you all to be so complimentary, but really, I don't think I'll be winning any mom of the year awards. As I said, the weeks leading up to the event were so unbelievably stressful. I am not a good party planner AT ALL. I think and rethink every single decision a million times. I can't even begin to tell you how many times we changed the menu. And I am still feeling guilty for all the time I stuck seamonkey in his packnplay in front of the tv so I could get crap done. I do not enjoy party planning, not one little bit. In fact, I said to one friend at the end of the night "I hope you had fun because I am NEVER doing that again. Okay, MAYBE when he's five, but right now that is a very big MAYBE".

The invitations I enjoyed, because crafting is my thing. They took me a little longer than normal because I am a crazy perfectionist. But the rest was really quite simple. The food was all either cold stuff or barbecued stuff - simple recipies with few ingredients. The spongebob cake was really easier than it looks. The website not only gives you step by step instructions, but gives you videos of the whole thing too. It's basically a rectangular cake, so it wasn't all that tricky - and it uses a cake mix and canned icing. As for the cupcakes - that could not have been easier, and I got the idea from a tv show. Make any old cupcakes and any old frosting tinted with (2 whole bottles!) of red food coloring. Stick in two swedish fish with a notch cut out for claws, shoe lace licorice for legs, and halved black jelly beans for eyes. Easy peasy!

The difficult part was that I was crazy busy at work all week and everything I needed to do had to be done between Thursday night and Saturday afternoon. Words cannot express the whirlwind of activity that occurred in my house in that time frame. It was not fun at all. AT ALL.

As for husbands, I don't know what to tell you. We seem to be struggling a bit with the SAHD thing....more on that in a later post. I'm glad to see that at least of few of you have husbands with the bizarre garage unpack/repack disease. Maybe we should have a telethon.

Lastly, I never acknowledged that I was recommended for a Rockin' Girl Blogger award by Samantha at Southern Infertility. Thanks very much Samantha! As required, here are my nominations. I think I'm only supposed to list 5, but I needed to list a few more. This was pretty difficult, there are lots of great blogs I read, and many great people who have supported me throughout my journey. This list represents those blogs where I feel some kind of connection with the authors (beyond having adopted a child), as much as you can without having actually met the person anyway...

1. Samantha herself. In the spirit of "right back atcha", Samantha is an eloquent writer, describing her feelings during infertility treatments in a such a deep and thoughtful way - better than I ever could. Add to that the fact that she is a faithful reader of this blog, even when there are pics of seamonkey all over the place. She is the definition of class. Go say hi to her. She could probably use the support right now anyway.

2. Rachael at Always Wanted Four - I started reading her blog when she was in the process of bringing Katya home from Russia. Intelligent, crafty, witty - my kind of gal!

3. Jenni at Four Feet More - I love to read about the antics of high spirited Vika and handsome Eamon. We seem to have similar views on parenting and a similar sense of humor. And she knits!

4. Julie at ...And the rest is history - Our sons are extremely close in age, so it's great to get another perspective on things as we go along on this road to raising a human being. I like her candidness, both in her words and her photography.

5. Mama K - Me and Mama K go way back - we connected through our knitting blogs, and she's cheered me on from the beginning of the adoption process. Thankfully, she's never had to experience serious infertility issues, but she "gets it" nonetheless, and has always been a great supporter.

6. Shaken Mamma - This is one of the newest blogs added to my blogroll. From the first post I read, I knew this was someone I could relate to. She's hilarious, especially when she's describing her darling Chebbles and the challenges she presents to motherhood. How she manages to keep her sense of humor with all that pregnancy and nasea going on, I'm not sure.

7. Mel at Stirrup Queens - no explanation needed really. She rocks. Period.

Now go nominate some people if you haven't already, it just may make their day.

Going forward, I am going to try (TRY) to blog at least 3 times a week. No matter what, I am going to sit down and type out whatever is in my head at the moment. I want to be a better blogger. I am finding myself with this insane need to DO, to CREATE, to EXPRESS myself. I think maybe it's because life is slightly stressful now, and in the past creative outlets have helped me deal with things. It's probably because I feel validated and good about myself when people tell me they like what I've created (still working on that etsy shop!). It kind of balances out the negativity (real or self imposed) that is floating around me. So, be sure to comment regularly or I'll have to blame you for the degredation of my confidence.

A rambling account of my sucky week and it's ultimate redemption

2007-09-14T14:20:00.000-07:00

Happy Monday. Let's hope this week is better than last week. Last week, at one point I was seriously considering jumping off a very high bridge.

It started well enough - I took last Monday off because I needed a mental health day - and I got to play Mrs. Mom for the day. It was such a wonderfully productive day - I was able to do some crafting (for that etsy shop I keep mentioning) and knitting, and laundry, and cleaning, and movie watching, all the while spending the day with my little munchkin. Man I love that kid.

Anyway, it all went down hill from there. Tuesday I woke up late, and we were in the midst of a horrible rainstorm, so I decided to drive through hellish traffic and flooding to our satellite office and spend the day there - which sometimes is good, but this time it sucked because I didn't have things I needed with me and well, just trust me it sucked.

Wednesday was even worse. Again, I woke up late. I had an extremely important 9:30 meeting to make. Okay no problem, I'll take the next train which will still get me there in plenty of time. Then some bizarre time vortex happened and before I knew it I realized I wasn't going to make the next train either. Okay the next train after that will get me there AT 9:30. Rush rush rush, yada yada yada, get in the car, look at the clock - Holy Shit you are kidding me I am going to miss this train too. So I drive like a maniac to the train station and pray to God that He doesn't choose this day to teach me a lesson and put a small animal or (GOD FORBID) a small person in the road in front of me. I thankfully avoid disaster, park and run in heels and jump onto the train right before the doors close. I sit on the train panting like a rabid dog, and try to sit quietly and will my sweat glands to stop producing. I do finally settle down...so much in fact that I get so engrossed in my book that I miss my transfer. UGH. I end up having to take a much busier much more ANNOYING route to the office. Once I finally get there, I nearly sprint to the conference room to find that....the meeting has been delayed an entire half hour. Which means I have to hang around doing nothing until it starts. So I am standing in the hallway checking the BB, and my boss comes up with a puss on his face. And he starts telling me how displeased he is with a certain issue that has come up. And goes on. and on. And drops the F bomb. And then basically says he has no confidence in my team and storms off. *SIGH*

The rest of the day was spent playing email volleyball with him, because he got himself on a nice little roll there, and decided he needed to know (and criticize) the status of every project and issue we are currently dealing with. All day long. It finally ended at about 8:30 pm - I was sitting in the parking lot of a Boston M@rket having just picked up a late dinner, and emailing him back saying that I was sorry everything was so terribly horrible but can you please just cut me a break here, I am trying very hard and I am not one for excuses, but how much can a person take?? I got what could kind of pass as an apology, and a nice note that despite his meltdown, he's happy I'm in charge over the team. There may or may not have been a few tears at that point - but if there were it was only relief that I didn't have to argue any more, that the work day was now officially over and that I could go home and have dinner with my family.

Thursday was slightly better, only to be worse again on Friday when I had to attend two different client meetings, both of which were like walking into the lion's den. I hate it when people find the need to ambush you with issues, issues that could have very easily been resolved with a phone call when first identified, instead of calling a meeting with big wigs who don't need to be involved, and don't really understand that you are making a freaking mountain out of a molehill. Or at the very least, have the courtesy to allow me to prepare to be yelled at by a different set of people who are unhappy with me this week. Needless to say, by the end of the day, I felt like I was hit by a mack truck.

The weekend was MUCH better because 1) I have the ability to switch off my brain from work and didn't give any of it another thought once I left the building and 2) I have the best husband in the world.

BT was participating in some fishing tournament thing which involved him being out of the house for practically the entire day on Saturday. This afforded me some much needed time to try and finish some craft projects, and spend quality time with the seamonkey. Did I mention I love that kid? On Sunday I accompanied BT to the closing "ceremonies" of the tournament (read: a bunch of skanky fisherman and a suck up councilman standing in the parking lot gawking over fish carcasses) and it was a beautiful day, so I walked with seamonkey along the beach, and visited a new 9/11 memorial that was constructed there. Hauntingly beautiful - it gave me goosebumps. Afterwards we dropped the boy off at the grandparents and we went shopping.

Shopping beause - I need to upgrade my wardrobe. In this new position I have much more visibility, and many more occasions that require me to wear an actual business suit. As much as that pains me, both financially (I'm cheap) and physically (I hate wearing jackets) it is a necessity. I have been dreading this shopping trip because I'm hard to fit (and to please) and I've already been to many stores with no luck. We decide to head off to L&T because they have a decent selection in my size. We started off a little rocky, I must have brought in 15 things to try on and only came out with one shirt and one suit that would have been perfect except for the front darts on the jacket that made me look *ahem* very cold. I come out to show BT that "See? It isn't my fault, my body is bizarre and uncooperative so how can I be expected to find anything decent, and ---"

"WHY DON'T YOU JUST HAVE THEM TAILOR IT?"

.....

As I'm standing there blinking at him, speechless...the fitting room attendant sticks her head out and says: "I'm sorry, did you say you needed a tailor? Would you like me to call her up here?" to which BT of course yells "YES!" We were told we would have to wait a bit since she was backed up, but would we like to continue shopping? "YES!" says BT again as he grabs me by the hand and drags me into the suits section of the store. Now I have never, ever bought a suit where both pieces are together on one hanger. I am two different sizes on top and bottom, so I have always bought separates, in separate sizes. Standing among a sea of actual real life suits, BT tells me to "Stand there and don't move". He goes around pulling suits from everywhere, in the larger size to accomodate my *cough* voluptious bosom. "But I don't like---" I start to protest... "SHUT UP." he said "YOU WILL TRY ON WHAT I GIVE YOU." And for the next 20 minutes I tried on every jacket he handed me. It went quickly - we could see what had potential and what didn't. In the end, I had 4 suits in gray, brown, black pinstripe and a pretty brown/pink pinstripe. And when the tailor came, I tried them all on and just pushed through my embarrasment (I was convinced she was going to laugh at me and tell me that she was a tailor and not a magician or something) and together we agreed on what to do to make them look better. Mostly she made the bigger pants smaller, and adjusted some jacket seams to skim my curves better. The total for the alterations was just $80!! And the suits themselves were all at least 30% off or better, and the saleswoman gave me a 20% coupon for everything. Tell me can you beat that?? Stacey and Clinton would be so proud!!

So it ended up okay. I'm hopeful this is a better week. If not, I'm definitely going shoe shopping next weekend!

Oh and the husband? Don't worry, he was justly rewarded...if you know what I mean.....

I remember

2007-09-11T08:58:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it's been six years. It seems like just yesterday.

People say that everyone's forgotten, that's it's "business as usual". To me, that's true and it isn't. I walk by ground zero at least 3 times a week. The fact that there is a gigantic hole where there used to be buildings is not something I can ever get used to. There is life there now...vendors and business people and tourists. And for that I am glad. They are the evidence that life IS going on, but I would rather that than empty cold dark concrete. Each time I walk by that place I think about how we have literally risen from the ashes. I feel a little like it is my responsibility to keep walking there, to show that we are still alive, still free.

If you didn't observe the moment of silence this morning, won't you do it now? Close your eyes and send a prayer of thanks, a prayer of healing, a prayer of hope.

God Bless America.

(My post last year described my 9/11 experience, if you are interested, read it here)

The Birthday Bash

2007-09-04T19:56:00.000-07:00

Holy crap I have been insanely busy. The weeks leading up to the boy's first birthday party were pure chaos. Of course, because of how my life works, the several days directly preceeding the party were the busiest I've ever had at work ever. EV-ER. I took the Friday before off, and of course that's the day my company decides to prepare for the big board meeting the following week, and the president of the company is calling all over God's creation to find me. Good thing I didn't answer the blackberry, as I was up to my eyeballs in balsamic vinegar and canned icing (trying to multi-task).

It really did end up being a great time. We had a beautiful day, almost everyone invited attended and said repeatedly how much fun they had. We even got to know our neighbors better, they've lived next door for 2 years, and have a 2 year old daughter but we never really saw them. We invited them to the party and they still seem to like us after meeting my entire family! The only bad thing was that I didn't take any video, and didn't take nearly enough pictures. The memories though, are priceless.

Here's what we ate:

Steamed Crabs (caught locally, and made with O'Brycki's seasoning, better than Old Bay and a great Baltimore restaurant)

Hamburgers & Hot Dogs

Key West Chicken (made with boneless chicken thighs)

Marinated Flank Steak skewers (marinated and prepped by the butcher)

Potato Salad (from Costco - try it, it's amazing)

Corn on the cob (fresh local farm corn, so sweet!)

Mid-Summer Bread Salad (again with local farm produce)

BT's Salad (he's famous for it - green salad with sugared pecans, gorgonzola, red onion, pears in balsamic dressing)

Lessons I've learned:

1. Never start major home improvements less than a month before a party. You think it's good motivation to get your husband to finally do stuff, but all it does is strain your marriage and give you huge. throbbing. headaches. We had a paving stone patio put in and built a second floor deck. Yes I am insane.

2. Never ask your dad to do the aforementioned home improvements. Or if you do, remember that he is now 67 and can not move at the pace you need him to. I swear to you that no less than 5 hours before the party my backyard looked like the tool corral at Home Depot. I finally had to say "DAD FORGET THE TRIM, WE WILL LIVE WITHOUT IT FOR NOW".

3. Never trust your husband to do everything you need him to do while you are at work. I made lists upon lists, and each night when I got home I heard about all the stuff he did that was NOT on the list. Honestly, do your husbands have the insane habit of repeatedly "cleaning out the garage" which really consists of taking all the crap out of the garage, strewing it all over the driveway, and then putting it right back in again, rearranging it so that you can't find a damn thing? Or is that just my husband? How does this help prepare for a party??

4. Wear comfortable shoes when entertaining. I must have went in and out of the house sixty four thousand times.

5. Listen to your mom when she tells you how much food you are going to need. If you don't, then you will run out (or come dangerously close). Listen to your dad about how much beer you are going to need. Otherwise, you need to make a beer run at 9pm.

6. Having an extra fridge in the garage is an absolute Godsend. It's the one "not on the list" thing I have forgiven him for.

7. If you are going to make a big elaborate cake, make sure you give yourself enough time. This way you aren't rushing and accidentally leave out ingredients. Also make sure you aren't tired, or you will be punchy; when you laugh too much your hand shakes and you can't squeeze out icing consistently. Oh and when recipes say 4 oz of red food coloring it is not a misprint, that means TWO WHOLE BOTTLES. And for God sakes be careful or else everything will be red.

8. Boiled crabs are not good the next day. Leftover crab cupcakes however, are great for breakfast.

9. When you really really need him, your brother will come through for you. He cleaned, he babysat, he shucked corn and iced cakes. Could he finally be maturing? I won't hold my breath, but it sure was nice while it lasted.

10. When people offer to help you, TAKE THEM UP ON IT.

Extra Extra....

2007-08-26T11:45:00.001-07:00

Read all about it...

Guess what foks, I am going to be a reporter! Well, sort of. I have agreed to be a reporter for the fabulous Mel at Stirrup Queens. If you haven't checked it out yet (have you been living under a rock?) her blog is an awesome resource for infertiles. Her blog is a wealth of information for any woman connected to infertility(including assisted conception and adoption) and all around great place to make connections with others. As I've said before, I still feel an odd connection to infertile blogs, even though I've now moved on from treatments and have adopted a child. I really feel like it is my responsibility to continue to provide support to the community that helped me through my difficult times.

So going forward, I will be providing Mel with news on the International Adoption front to be included in her daily newsletter. This newsletter is a place to report happy news, as well as anytime a blogger might need some love or support. So along with my usual blogroll, I'll be checking on those blogs listed under International Adoption and Parenting after International Adoption on Mel's site for all things newsworthy. If you'd like to be added to either blogroll, please let me know and I'll be sure to have you added. Also, if you know of any news to be shared, let me know that too.

How awesome is the internet??

I am officially a mommy blogger....

2007-08-22T10:37:00.001-07:00

Many times I post comments on blogs where I dont really "know" the author. New blogs or ones where I am usually just a lurker. I am always concerned about what post they will see when they follow my link back to my blog. "There's only one chance to make a first impression" as the saying goes. Will they read it and decide I'm an idiot and never come back? Are they infertiles who will be turned off by all the pictures of seamonkey? Ultimately I know that I have no control over that sort of thing. And mostly I don't really care what other people think - but I would be less than honest if I said that I didn't want a new person to click here and think I was not your typical mommy blog-fabulously funny- must add her to my bloglines right now kind of blogger.

So it's with much trepidation that I present you with my very first mommy blog poop story.

Last week, I was giving Seamonkey his nightly bath. I was thinking about how I haven't been taking much video lately, so I get the camera to take a little footage of him in the tub. Tub time is a particularly fun time for seamonkey, he's very animated and talkative so it's great video fodder. So I'm taping him...la la la....and he's swirling around the tub and slips a little so that he is kind of laying down in his tub (we put his tub inside our regular tub) and he gets all quiet and glassy eyed. I assume you see where this is going. I will spare you the actual video, but here's the audio:

Me: What are you doing?
Me: You better not be pooping.
Me: Are you pooping?

Me: UGH YOU POOPED IN THE TUB! GROSSSSS!!! BEEEETTEEEEEE!!!!!

At this point I put the camera down on the counter, still filming, and forgot about it. So you then hear me and BT debating how best to remove offending fecal matter and next steps. You can clearly hear wet wriggling baby making unhappy noises. Ultimately, BT decides to get the cat litter box scooper. He cleans and disenfects the tub while I hold the baby, unwilling to let his poop water ensconced body touch anything else until he can be rewashed. His skin was a little pinker than usual by the time he was in his pyjamas.

Fast forward to last night. Boy in tub. Boy laying back in tub and splashing really really hard - snow angel style. Screaming, laughing, waving arms, water everywhere. He got himself very worked up. Really worked up. Again. No floaters, just brown water. LOL Sorry I know that's TMI but you need to really get the visual.

Beeeeeeteeeeeeeeeeeee
What?
Guess What?
He didn't
He did.
WHAT. THE. HELL.

I was laughing so hard I almost lost my own bodily functions. Which was making seamonkey laugh hysterically which just made me laugh harder. BT was not so amused.

I am so playing that video at his wedding.

On discipline...

2007-08-14T07:10:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned in my last post, we have reached the point where Seamonkey is old enough to require some kind of discipline. Right now, he throws these little mini tantrums when he doesn't get his way. As soon as I piss him off, he starts this screechy cry, grabs my hand and bites it, clearly in an agressive way. He only does this to me and my mom...not to BT or my dad. I'm sure that alot of it has to do with the crankiness from teething, but I still need to address it.

I have been experimenting on how to deal with this, but obviously it would be best if I was consistent in my approach. I've tried just pulling my hand away and ignoring the tantrum, letting him cry. I've tried "changing the subject" and distracting him with a toy or something. I've tried yelling "NO BITING!". I've even tried a light smack on the mouth (do not lecture me I'm exploring methods). To be honest, all of these have had mixed results. Sometimes he cries harder, sometimes he stops.

I googled around a bit and realized how many vastly different parenting approaches there are out there. I've come to the conclusion that every kid is different and responds to different techniques. My son, the little bugger that he is, does not respond at all to yelling. He has no fear of me. If I yell "NO THROWING FOOD" when he's chucking his lunch over the sides of his highchair, he pauses, looks me dead in the face, and while still holding my stare, picks up more food, holds it over the side and opens his hand. If that kid wasn't cute he'd be on the moon by now. It's all I can do not to crack up from the audacity this kid has. I just shake my head because I know that God is giving me just what I deserve.

Anyway, he does seem to react most to praise. As I've said before, he believes everything requires applause. So I try to focus on praising him when he does something right. But Lord, I feel like I'm turning into June Cleaver, and that this kid will think every time he farts it's cause for celebration. You know it's bad when I'm in a meeting and when something good happens I clap my hands and say "Yay!". OY.

I think I need to read some parenting books, if for nothing else than to find out what will and won't work for my particular child. I came across this Interesting website which helps you figure out which style might be best for you. My scores indicated the Sears method might be the best for me, but I'm not sure...might be a little too lenient for my personality type - I'll have to read it for myself to see. If you figure out your score, let me know how you came out. I was raised pretty strictly, and I'm a no nonsense kind of gal, so I don't believe in spoiling a child or coddling them too much. But I don't want to be a cold unfeeling bitch either. I think that kind of comes out in my writing, so if you are like me, maybe you can recommend your methods or books that have helped you.

This is such an interesting time for me - I can really see how one's actions can have a profound effect on a child's development.

Monthly Update - 10 & 11 months old

2007-08-12T07:03:00.000-07:00

Dear Seamonkey:

It's been a busy summer! I didn't take nearly as many pictures and videos that I would have liked in these past two months. We run around so much that many times we forget the camera, and I need to do a better job remembering to capture all the little moments of your childhood. Despite the pictures though, I am confident that we are making lots of good memories for you.

This month, we've seen alot of this face:

You are having a terrible time with your teething. You've had two teeth come in at once, your left eye tooth and your right front. You don't really drool at all, and you don't seem to get fevers...the worst part is that it turns your personality from happy to evil in 2.3 seconds. It prevents you from falling asleep and once you do, makes you wake up crying quite a bit. We give you lots of baby orajel and cold freezy toys which do help you. The good news is that once we've relieved your pain, you're back to being your fabulous pleasant self.

You still don't stop moving. This is another familiar sight:A blurred image of you crawling away from me. One of your favorite things to do is to crawl up and down the hallway - and you are remarkably fast for a little thing. You are still cruising around, and now you've gotten fancy using only one hand. It's only a matter of time before you're walking. We've been encouraging you with the use of your car walker:

You get so proud of yourself that you applaud, and don't realize that you're standing on your own:

Then you do this weird trick that you taught yourself - putting your hands on your head. This may be the "so big!" that your Aunt M taught you - I can't be sure because we don't teach you that at home.

Speaking of tricks, you stopped doing "bye bye" for some reason. You won't do it no matter how many of us are waving back at you. You're still babbling in your own language, but still no real words yet, even though we're trying desperately to teach you some basics. You've also started this move:

Which you'll do in response to "wahoo!". And then there's this new trick which I'm going to say you got from your father:

You are getting better at feeding yourself:We've been trying to increase the amount of table food you get, but unfortunately, after a few bites you start winging it over the sides of your highchair. When that happens, it's a sign you clearly won't be eating anymore, so we take it away. You're still eating baby food, and I'm trying to figure out a good way to get you off of it. I have found that this part of your life is the most challenging for us - trying to transform you from a baby to a toddler. We've gotten very used to doing things the baby way, and we are starting to see that you are growing up fast!You are becoming very head strong - if I stop you from doing something, like standing up in the bathtub, or dunking your face into the suds (you end up choking yourself) or gnawing on the crib rails, you start to throw a tantrum. When you do, you try to grab me and bite me. Isn't that special? So discipline is something else we've started to explore. We're trying to figure out how to best handle these situations, yelling NO!, or ignoring it, or distracting you from the behavior or a combo of all those things. I know that what we do now will affect your behavior going forward, so we want to get things right. It looks like you are going to test us at every turn!

But most of the time you're a very good boy. We took you camping with us and you held up better than mommy did, that's for sure.

You still love the pool, especially the one that Grandma and Grandpa bought you for the yard.

It's been a blessing during these hot days. We can't wait to put you back into swimming lessons after you turn one. We can NOT believe that in a few short weeks you will one year old! This time has really flown. You are an amazing, adorable, wonderful little boy. We love you very much!

8 Obscure things meme

2007-08-06T10:51:00.000-07:00

Thanks Julie for tagging me for this meme that has kept me up nights. I had the worst time coming up with 8 things you don't know about me, which is funny considering, well, none of you really know me at all. It was tricky to come up with something you might find remotely interesting. Here's what I got:

First, here are the rules:
1. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
2. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged write their own blog post about their eight things and include these rules.
4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged and that they should read your blog.
5. Eight is a magic number. Not three.

1.The fact that I love the beach is no secret. I'd rather be there than anywhere else in the world. I've spend much of my life on the shore or on a boat. The weird part? I can't swim.

2. I can't wear contact lenses. Apparently, my eyeballs are shaped funny which precludes me from wearing them without them feeling like hot flaming barbed wire pokers. I've tried every brand they make. And each year I try the new ones that promise to be even more "breathable" than the ones before. So I wear glasses all the time instead. On my wedding day, I refused to wear glasses so I was just blind the entire day. I am too scared to get the laser surgery.

3. I played the clarinet in school for 8 years. I made it up to second seat at one point. I was also in the marching band and was asked to be the drum majorette but I chickened out because they didn't have a majorette uniform in my size and one of the mom's volunteered to make one (talk about teenage social suicide). I quit the band altogether to take typing in my senior year. My conductor was heart broken. Considering I can type about 85wpm, I'm glad I took the typing course. Not so much use for the clarinet in my current position.

4. I am a daydreamer. If I am stuck somewhere with nothing to do, like a car or train ride, I can make up entire stories in my head. If I'm listening to music, I'll pretend I am performing the song in front of an audience. Or I'll play out a scene in my head about running into an old boyfriend, or recreate a conversation I had where I get to really say all the things I wanted to say the first time. Or sometimes I'm the heroine in a favorite book or movie. I have favorite daydreams that I'll think about for a while until I come up with a better one. This also helps me get to sleep.

5. Though I consider myself a very rational, sane person, I sometimes have difficulty separating fantasy from reality, particularly when it comes to celebrities I favor. For example, I do not want to see Jim Krazinski in any other role than Jim from the Office, so I don't watch or read any interviews with him because it will spoil the illusion. I don't read about my favorite bands/musicians because I want to always feel like the songs I connect with are just for me - I don't want to find out if they are really jerks, or if the song had a totally different meaning. I need these people to remain the way they are in my head.

6. I originally wanted to be architect. A family member convinced me to be a civil engineer, because you can be an architect and get paid more. I went to school for 3 years to do just that, and then much to the dismay of my parents (and their bank accounts) I decided I hated it. I had to really struggle just to get a C, and while I'm all for a woman being in a male dominated industry, I just couldn't hack it. I switched schools, and switched majors (Accounting) and crammed the rest of remaining credits into another year and half, taking all summer and winter sessions. Thank God I did, though. I met my husband within the first month at my new school. He still has the first note I passed him in Government Accounting over 15 years ago.

7. In my freshman year of college, I almost joined a latina sorority, even though I am not remotely latin. I grew up in schools that were at least 75% minority, so when I got to college, I connected more with those I was familiar with (the fact that I met some people who had never met a black person before college completely blew me away). The only reason I didn't go through with it was that I started dating a guy who's ex girlfriend was the president of the sorority. It would have given new meaning to the word "hazing". I'm gutsy, but not stupid.

8. Related to #2, but deserving to be listed on it's own - in college I preferred to go to latin and african-american frat and sorority parties instead of the typical beer funnel fests thrown by the "white" ones. They were so much more fun than their anglo counterparts. Less drinking, more dancing. Therefore, while others were rocking out to the new grunge scene - I was sweating it up dancing to hip hop and house music, and watching step shows (like this)- hard to believe, but this whitey white girl knows all the words to FAR too many rap and hip hop songs (who's that....browwwwnnnn - 5pts if you know that one too). Alas, my talent goes unappreciated, because I married the whitest man on earth. He especially dislikes it when he gets in the car turns on the ignition and finds that I left my XM radio channel "The Rhyme" blasting. Oops. My bad!

I'm not tagging anyone else, I don't want anyone losing any sleep on my account. Play along if you'd like. Someone else tagged me on something similar, but I seem to have forgotten who that was. Sorry!

Today 3 inches of rain was dumped on this city in under 2 hours. This had disastrous effects on our subways, trains and traffic. It is almost a 100 degrees out, and the humidity is so high it feels like pea soup out there and it is even difficult to breathe. My commute this morning was torturous, not to mention what my hair looks like. I am going to get in my car, pump the air up to max, turn on my hip hop and brave the commute home. Pray for me.

In which I piss off my SAHM readers

2007-08-06T09:08:00.000-07:00

This past weekend I accompanied BT to a backyard BBQ at the home of one of his fishing club friends. I know most of the guys, but never really met any of the wives. Feeling a little awkard, as I am not good at the social chit chatty thing with people I don't know, I sat at the "wives" table with the baby. In general most people were very nice, and everyone made very pleasant conversation. Most knew that seamonkey was adopted, as BT kept his fishing buddies informed during the whole process.

First, I should say that it's funny how I still don't feel part of the mommy club. I do feel like seamonkey's mom, when I'm with him and when we're with family. But being a mom as I relate to other (non family) moms is just ....weird. It's hard to explain. Suddenly my conversations are all about kids. Why? Is there nothing else to talk about? Do you really care when my son learned to crawl? Because I could care less about when yours did. It's nice to know about people's kids, as they are now - how many, what gender, what they're into and stuff...but why must we rehash entire childhoods? Can't we talk about news, movies, life in general? I am amazed that people ask me so many questions about the past 8 months of his life - it's so weird to me. It's worse when it becomes a competition, but I don't understand why those conversations get started in the first place. I am not defined by the fact that I have a child. Yeesh, I just got over being defined by my infertility and people want to stuff me in yet another pigeon hole....Anyway, I digress from the point of this post.

As I said, most people were very nice. Except one. The one I refer to as 'that ASS'. How that woman didn't end up with my fist lodged in her face by the end of the day is beyond me. Truthfully, I think what saved her is the fact that I wanted to be nice for the sake of my husband. I only later found out that he can't stand the husband either. She is lucky I did not have that information while I was sitting there.

When I first arrive, I sit in the only vacant seat, which was kind of in the sun, with the baby on my lap. THE ASS says "Honey, why don't you move over here so the baby doesn't get a sunburn" in a real condescending how-stupid-are-you tone. First, don't call me honey. Second, when I first sat down, your whiney child was still sitting there so there was nowhere else to sit. Okay fine, I move to sit right next to her. She talks in this very sing songy voice and is all me me me, have I told you about me? And how about me? And in case you didn't know? Me.

I soon realize that I met her before. BT took our Pilot on it's maiden voyage onto the beach. Her and I were the only women there, the rest were all fisherman from the club. When she formally introduced herself, I told her we had met. She gives me this ridiculous face and says "Sorry" as in, "I can't be expected to remember all of my fans". She knew who I was, I'm sure of it.

At one point, all the husbands go and take a picture in front of their fishing club banner. All of the wives, including me, make comments about what dorks they are. I mean, come on...grown men. Fishing club. Need I say more. THE ASS says "well...I really can't make fun, because I happen to LOVE to fish. And...my husband is this close to becoming president of the club". Oooh, President? Wow! You must be so proud. I am so jealous that you are on deck to be THE FIRST WIFE of this raggety band of beer drinking bait smelling fisherman! I bow to your greatness!

Then THE ASS' husband is trying to prevent their son from going up to the pool deck without his lifejacket on (he's 5) and the kid is arguing about it. THE ASS yells up and asks what the problem is, husband explains. THE ASS then starts talking to the husband in that sing song voice like he's two..."Now honey (honey again!) he's a big boy now, I know you want to help him, but he's got to learn for himself...." Learn for himself? By drowning? And if my husband ever spoke to me like that in front of a group of people I would punch his lights out.

The aforementioned 5 year old? Has a mohawk. On his head. He's 5. Mohawk. 5.

Then came the straw on the proverbial camel's back. The dreaded SAHM discussion. I hate that discussion, because I am not a SAHM. When people get around to asking me, and I tell them our situation (I work, BT is a SAHD) everyone gets quiet and it's usually the end of the conversation. Usually I keep quiet the entire time, as I don't like to judge other people's situations, just like I don't like others to judge mine. But up to this point THE ASS has been jumping up and down repeatedly on my last nerve.

An older woman with grown children is talking benignly about raising her children, in the context of how things are so different today. THE ASS hears the words "stayed home with my children" and cuts her off by saying "--HARDEST JOB THERE IS. HARDER THAN ANY MAN'S JOB!". So my eyebrows shoot up, because I assume by "man's job" she means anyone with a job outside the home. Still trying to keep my foot out of her ass, I say "Well, I think that depends. It depends on what job you have (or had), how old and how active your kids are...I don't think you can make such a blanket statement". Of course she ignores me and prattles on and on about how EXHAUSTED she is and how her husband just doesn't GET IT and blah blah blah blah blah. She was in the RESTAURANT INDUSTRY so she worked at night and the hours were long, and blah blah blah and being a waitress - Wait, you were a freaking WAITRESS?? That's your big stressful job?? I snorted out loud at that one. She keeps going....blah blah My husband thinks I just sit AROUND all day blah blah..... Finally I say "Well guess what. I work full time and my husband stays home. I'm sure if you ask him he'll agree that he has the better end of the deal. I work all day and I come home and then I'm the mommy too". First came the expected silence. Then came the questions from the others, including asking what I did. I normally don't expound upon what I do, and never use my very official and important sounding title, but I had to this time, and did so in my "SO NOT A WAITRESS" voice. The conversation turned focus away from THE ASS, and since she was no longer the center of attention, she got up from the table.

I know this woman is a particular breed of annoying, but please, someone, for the life of me, explain why some (notice I say some here) SAHM's find the need to justify their position all the time? Of course your job is important. If it wasn't you and your husband wouldn't have agreed to have you home. Face it, the job comes with perks. Like you can go to the beach for the day, or in my husband's case, work on his boat, take the boy to the tackle store...whatever. Don't get defensive about it, be happy you can do those things. There are times I get to go to a fancy dinners without BT and he ribs me for it. So what? And why must we always compare anyway? Why does one job have to be harder than the other? I can see making your case if you are talking to someone like THE ASS (probably like her husband is) who insists that SAHMs do nothing but eat bonbons all day. But many people don't think that way. Please don't wear your SAHM badge like a chip on your shoulder. You don't know me, my family situation or my work situation. So please don't imply that your job is harder than mine. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. Who cares? Raise your kid and I'll raise mine. It's not a contest.

And whether you're a SAHM, SAHD or you work, be proud of your role. We're all in this together.

And my kid crawled at 9 months. Did yours???

Because I'm crazy like that...

2007-07-24T06:57:00.001-07:00

So the thank you cards for the boy's Baptism were mailed and received by all. I made them myself, using some scrap book paper and a picture of him with his little sailor suit. I've learned that my scrapbooking skills can use some work. I would show you, but I neglected to save one for myself.

I would breathe a sigh of relief now that the entire event is behind me. But alas, I've gotten myself into another fine mess. Seamonkey is going to be one year old in 4 short weeks. And he must have a fantabulous party.

So what should be a sigh of relief is now a deep breath to steel myself in preparation of all the craziness that is about to ensue. I've got to keep this inexpensive, so alot of this has to be done ourselves. We have an awesome theme that we are very excited about...

A Backyard Crab Boil!

We're going to borrow two big turkey fryer pots and layer them up with crabs, clams, corn, potatoes all seasoned up...and once done we'll dump them out on tables covered in butcher paper. We'll have burgers and franks too, and a bunch of homemade cold salads.

I plan on making a big birthday cake, and originally I was going to attempt to do a crab (the whole party will be crab themed) but BT thought I should do a SpongeBob cake. Seamonkey has this weird thing for SpongeBob, and whenever the opening theme song comes on he will stop what he's doing and dance. There's a few on the web that I may try, like this one, which comes with video instructions. Yes I am insane. Needless to say I took the entire day of work off the day before the party. I also plan to make these freaking adorable cupcakes that you can see on the cover of this book. If spongebob doesn't work out, I'm going to make extra cupcakes and arrange them in the shape of a 1. Always good to have a plan B.

I am making the invitations too, and so far I have the inside done, but I am still wrestling about with the outside. I'll show you when I've got the prototype finished. I've got to get them out very soon, since the party is on the Saturday of Labor Day weekend...I'm sure people are already making plans. I've spread the word verbally already so everyone pretty much knows.

Decorations will be mostly balloons and streamers, nothing too fancy. Of course, we need to put in a concrete patio and elevated deck on the house. Nothing like a party to light the fire under your husband's ass. We already had workers come and excavate for the patio, ripping up the side of the house and part of the front lawn in the process, but I told myself I am not going to hyperventilate about it. It's just family, and there really isn't any need to stress.

There will some kids there, and I'm not sure what to do for them. Most of them are in the 2-5 range or in the 8-12 range. What can I buy to keep them occupied? I have some bubbles, temporary tattoos and sidewalk chalk - any other ideas?

Yes, I know he is one and won't remember a thing. But this is as much a party for us as for him. We made it to a whole year and he's still all in one piece and even growing and becoming a real little boy. That's cause for celebration, no? Plus, I need something to look forward to if my summer has to end.

A little follow up..

2007-07-22T14:06:00.000-07:00

Can I tell you what is just so funny....I was cracking up that everyone was saying how brave and daring I was to go camping, and that I am such a trooper. I really wish you could have seen the first draft of that post. After I wrote the whole thing I thought "Wow, I am a total negative complainy beyotch, lighten up Francis, it wasn't THAT bad".

But the truth is I mostly hated it.

The baby part was really not so bad - we are one of those really obnoxious couples that is blessed with a naturally good baby... he really doesn't cry unless he has good reason (don't worry, I'm sure God will get me back in the toddler years). The worst part was with me. We got up so early on Friday morning I didn't shower. If I don't wash my hair every single day I get so greezy you can fry an egg on my head. So by mid day I was a wrinkled, no makeup wearing, tired, cranky greasy headed mess. I was especially cranky when I had to get out of the car and let other humans see me. I know I should have a "screw 'em" attitude, but you know, us fat girls can NOT be going out of the house like that. We rely on the hair and makeup to distract others from the not so pretty parts. So I was definitely not a happy camper (ha! that never gets old!). I had a good day on Saturday because I got to shower and dress somewhat nicely. Sunday was downhill again because it was raining so hard I just wanted to get packed and leave, so again I didn't shower. Big mistake. When we got home my bro was there with his girlfriend, who is skinny and always dressed nicely and although she is very nice I always feel like a bit fat schlub around her. Anyway, you didn't come here to hear all that did you?

Changing subjects.... remember the friend that told me he and his wife couldn't have children? Well I read all of your comments and decided that I would send an email, short and sweet like you said, and without mentioning adoption. It basically said that I knew we kind of got awkward there for a minute, but I wanted to let him know that I knew how he felt and that if he ever needed a sympathetic ear, I was available. I didn't hear anything back from him for several days. I thought "oh great, now he's pissed". I would have expected at least a "thanks" in return, even if he was mad or whatever. But then I saw him in person again, and at the end of our conversation he acknowledged the email. He said he really appreciated it and that it was very nice of me to send it. It seemed like he was trying to get across that his situation DOES really suck and that it might really STILL be sucking pretty bad. I have no idea when they stopped treatment - who knows it could just have been recently. So in the end, I was glad I sent it. Maybe someday he'll ask me more about adoption...I really hope so. I mean, does anyone ever really stop wanting to have kids? I know there are some people who never try and aren't interested, and that's fine...but if you go to the trouble of going through treatments, you've got to want it pretty bad, right?. You can't just turn that off. How can adoption not be an option? I don't think money is the problem. I think it must be that they need some more time to grieve.

*sigh* Whatever Starfish, you can't fix everyone's problems.

In happier news, I have entered Sig's Monday Giveaway this week. Somehow I lost touch with my friend Sig and her beautiful guatemalan daughter, but now I'm back (I did some house cleaning in blog lines and think I've got it all worked out now). To enter the giveaway, I have to tell you who my secret fantasy men are. Okay, these run the gamut, and you are NOT allowed to hold these against me!

Okay, no secret that I like this guy, although "hot" is probably not the right word. I am a total sucker for a nice smile:Another obvious choice, and another great smile:

Kind of have a thing for this guy too:

I've loved this guy forever:And this guy too (see a trend here - tall, dark and handsome is my thing)

Okay, now for my closet crushes (shhh don't tell)

I'll bring your sexy back baby...

Lead singer of my favorite band. Although in my fanstasy he looks like he used to: And not what he looks like now (yikes!)

Camping with Baby

2007-07-22T13:06:00.000-07:00

Hello all…I’ve been gone did you miss me? BT and I headed off to into the wild green yonder this past weekend…I say green because we went to Vermont to go camping with the baby.

Moo.

We used to camp fairly often when we were first married. We didn’t have much money, or much time off of work, so making long weekend trips to various New England spots fit our bill nicely. BT was always very good at picking campsites that were relatively clean, with decent bathroom facilities and that were close to the local attractions. We would pack up the car (little red Honda hatchback) with snacks and CD’s and off we went.

So since we’ve been back from Colombia, we’ve been talking about doing more vaction-ey type things. But since we don’t have much money left over, or vacation time left over, our options are limited at this particular time. Enter – camping. Makes sense, right?

We decided to take a three day weekend and drive up to Grand Isle State Park, located on an island in Lake Champlain. We were here once before, many moons ago, and had a great time. Back then, an elderly park ranger eagerly plotted out a route for us on a local map, encouraging us to experience all the local culture. We hiked many different trails. We went to a church spaghetti dinner. We ate at a local diner called the “Squirrel’s Nest”. We made beeswax candles at a candle shop on Church Street in Burlington. So many great memories we couldn’t wait to recreate.

Uh, well….didn't exactly turn out that way.

First of all, the weather was really crappy. Cloudy and drizzly the whole six and half hour drive up. My poor little baby was stuck in that car seat and he was not a happy camper (ha get it). When we got to the campsite everything was wet and muddy. We found out that Ranger Rick retired many years ago, and was replaced by a young Jesus look alike who wasn’t nearly as eager for us to soak up the local culture. But we managed to set up our cozy little corner as best we could.

The first night we went to Burlington to this place, and we had a lovely meal in their quaint alleyway. The waitress somehow knew that seamonkey was Hispanic and chatted away endlessly to him in his native tongue. He blinked those long eyelashes at her and smiled in his charming way.

The next day we had beautiful weather. We started out our day by having breakfast at the Ferry Dock where you can take your car across to Plattsburgh, NY. It was one of those hidden treasures – a complete dump with friendly people and awesome food. We went down to Church Street but sadly, all the quaint business are gone – replaced by commercial behemoths like Eddie Bauer, Old Navy and Urban Outfitters….and smaller trendy overpriced stores. No beeswax candles to be had. There was a very cool green market nearby, and we wandered through there, stopping to sample awesome homemade Indian food, and great local products like cheese and honey. After that, we headed to the Magic Hat brewery to get us some glasses of No. 9. The tour was short but amusing and the beer was cold. Amazing that all of that beer comes out of that tiny little place.

We left the brewery and drove around…we used our navigation to find us a park, and we came upon a small state park that had a nice walking trail where we could take the stroller down to a small beach. It was so nice to be surrounded with all that peace and quiet and all that green-ness. That kind of thing really recharges your batteries, you know? Seamonkey enjoyed the beach, which was really mostly mud and dirt – and we let him crawl around in it and be a total boy. There was only one time that I wasn’t quick enough and he put an entire fist of the stuff directly into his mouth. I literally had to scoop it out, and would you believe he found the whole thing hilarious. Didn’t even make a face at the nasty tasting dirt. Weird kid.

Saturday night we hung out at the campsite. We had a heck of a time figuring out how to bathe the boy….We ended up having all of us go into a shower room, standing a wet wriggling boy on a very small bench, soaping him up and sticking him under the shower for a rinse. He was mostly annoyed by the whole thing but thankfully did not have a meltdown. We had takeout dinner and relaxed by a wonderfully smelling campfire. We took turns holding the baby, singing every song we could to keep his attention and distract him from wanting to crawl around in the mud. Do you guys remember that song “John Brown’s Baby”? Where you do this hand motion thing…John Browns Baby (rock imaginary baby ) had a cold (cough into your fist) upon his chest (thump chest) and they rubbed it (rub your chest) with camphorated oil….. I totally forgot that sucker and I brought that out of the arsenal which cracked seamonkey up to no end! Also kind of bizarre was that he was babbling incessantly up to the sky…waving his arms as if he was trying to emphatically make a point to someone or something. Not sure if he was just intrigued by the tall trees that surrounded our site leaving only a bright patch of sky above, or if he was berating God for placing him with this insane family that insists on sleeping in a nylon room in the middle of a mud puddle. Again, weird kid.
Sunday I awoke to seamonkey in my arms and the sounds of my husband rousing the fire outside. Not a bad way to wake up on the 10th Anniversary of one’s 28th Birthday. Unfortunately it was another crappy day, and it started to rain so much that BT had to run into the truck and we were communicating on walkie talkies for a while. “Truck to Tent – Over” “Tent here – this sucks, over” “Affirmative. Truck out” Somehow we managed to pack up everything in the rain and head out. We decided to stop and Ben & Jerry’s which I could have sworn was somewhere in the middle of rolling green hills…but no, it was right off the highway sitting atop a hill in front of a very muddy parking lot. There was construction going on and it was crowded. The ice cream didn’t even taste and good as I remember. Oh well. We came. We saw. We ate ice cream.

All in all it was a good time, but I think the thought of camping is always better than the reality of camping...no? Of course my manly man husband, who enjoyed plodding around in the mud and playing with fire exclaims "this was great, let's plan another 3 day weekend in August!". Uh yeah....why don't we just think that over a little more there chief....

Once home we had a real home cooked meal waiting for us (Baked Ziti) and my little brother, who will always be my little bratty brother for his entire life, made me this cake.

He got me a Michael's gift card (going to start scrapbooking now) so he made up for it.

Thought I would share some things that were indispensable for us during this trip:

Jogging stroller - great for the street as well as hiking trails. Rides like a dream.
Hook on Chair - Best thing we ever bought - better than a high chair at restaurants
Rubber place mat - put it under the arms of the hook on chair and you've got a completely sanitary environment - the catchall prevents baby from making an embarrassing mess underneath.
Formula Dispenser - Keeps 3 servings of premeasured formula in a compact container.
Avent Tempo bottle system - Disposable liners enable you to bring only one or two bottles with you.
Baby Trend Pack n play - Small & Compact, and easy to fold & unfold. Great for home too.
Gerber Baby Puffs - I kept ziplock baggies of these everywhere, they are good to tide baby over if you are stuck in traffic
Saline spray and aspirator - Different climate made the boy's nose really dry.
Huggies disposable washclothes - These were great for baby and parents alike. No washclothes to hang out and dry.

Speechless for once

2007-07-10T13:38:00.000-07:00

You'll notice I just posted two very late monthly updates. I am a bad mommy blogger. He's well into month 10 and I am just posting these now. In truth, it was hard to even remember what happened when, but I did my best. I should start drafting the 10 month post while things are still fresh...oh the drawbacks of being an old mom.

Thanks for all your kind comments on my unsent letter. The letter will remain unsent, for many of the reasons you all didn't send your letters...resentful, stubborn, afraid of rejection...you know. I don't get the sense that this whole thing is quite over yet, I don't think too much time has passed, but I could be wrong. I have this feeling that I am destined to run into her somewhere soon, and truthfully I panic a little every time I am in a place I know she could be (we only live 10 minutes apart). I suppose time will reveal all...we'll just have to see. It is amazing how we all have one of those letters in our back pockets, huh?

I had a very awkward conversation today, and I have alot of mixed emotions about it. I was talking to someone who is about my age, and who I always guessed was affected by infertility because he and his wife do not have children. We have known each other for a while, but only recently have had cause to talk more frequently. I try to be conscious about what I say around him, because I know what it was like to hear people prattle on endlessly about their kids. Today, as we made small talk about family and things, he told me that he and his wife had made the decision not to have children, since all their efforts to concieve were unsuccesful. They felt that it just wasn't meant to be. Would you believe that I had not one clue on how to respond? I kind of stared down at the table and tried my best to sympathize with him - I let him know we went through 3 horrible years of it too. Turns out we went to the same clinic at one point. He didn't really want to talk about it so the words kind of just hung in the air between us. I guess he just wanted to let me know - I asked him if he considered adoption and he said yes, they decided it just wasn't for them.

I was at a total loss on what to say and it really bothered me. It's not really my business, I am nothing to him, but maybe I wanted to help him in some way and I couldn't. I feel like I should have said more, or said the right thing to want him to talk about it. Of course, I wanted to tell him that adoption was the best thing that ever happened to me. That I too thought that God was trying to tell me something and that the day I saw my son's face that feeling completely evaporated. But who I am to say that to him? Who knows what his reasons are and what does it matter, really.

I feel like I should follow up the conversation with an email or something - Something to acknowledge that I appreciate him telling me, that I'm sorry it was awkward, and if he ever wants to talk about adoption, I'm available. Think I should? Or just let it lie?

In other news, it's hot as hell here today. Feels like 106 outside. Yesterday I had jury duty. I had to laugh at the people who were bitching about it. You'd rather be at work in this heat? I had a lovely time sitting around in the nice air conditioning, crocheting away and people watching. I never got called - at the end of the day we were released for time served. Now I'm good for 6 years. I was kind of hoping I did get picked, I think it would have been interesting. But it's okay, we're going away for the weekend beginning on Friday and it would have sucked if I had to cancel.

Are you staying cool?

Monthly update - 9 months old

2007-07-07T09:03:00.001-07:00

Dear Seamonkey:

June, your 9th month was a very emotional one for me. The only way I can really describe it, is by saying this is the month that I felt like you loved me back. Of course, we've loved you from the start, and you were always happy and smiley under our care. But this month, it's like you love us because you want to, not because you have to. This month was the first time you shied into my shoulder when a stranger approached. It was the first time you cried when I left the room. And honestly, those moments made me tear up too. You are growing into a real live little person right before our eyes, and it an amazing thing to think we figured out how to make that all happen without any major incident.

The most important event this month was of course your baptism. You were baptized in St. Christopher's church, and you were a good boy. Well, except for the loud babbling and craning your neck to look back and your grandparents. We had a great party for you afterwards. You did not cry once the entire day. You let everyone hold you, and you even "danced" on the dance floor - I sat you down in the middle and you started bouncing up and down and clapping your hands. A good time was had by all.

Also this month we went to the annual picnic for our adoption agency, and we got to see all the new babies who have come home. It was really a treat to talk with all the families that did what we did, and to hold the beautiful Colombian children. You hammed it up as usual, clapping and waving on cue to everyone's delight. You discovered your first playground there, and you LOVE the swings.Since then we have taken you to other parks to swing. You also like to hang on the monkey bars. You are so strong that you will actually hang there holding your own weight. We stay close by though, because that cracks you up and makes you let go.

You wave bye bye really well now, although you usually do it with two hands, and kind of out to your sides so you look like a bird. You will do it on cue when someone says "bye bye". You have just started to say bye bye yourself, more like a "bah" but we can see you know the word and are trying to say it. You say mama ("mamamama") and dada ("adah") too, but not exactly discrimately yet. Your babble has changed into your own little language, complete with multi-sylllable words and intonations as if you are really having a conversation. We talk back to you that way and apparently whatever we are saying, we are hilarious. You seem to be the most talkative in the bathtub.

Your hair is riotiously curly, so much so that I actually put hair gel in it to keep it somewhat contained. You have TWO teeth now, and among other things, you use them to bite your crib rails. You would think we keep a pet beaver in there. It has become apparent that you now have a favorite blanket; the blue and white chenille one:You sleep so much better with it...you grab it in your hands just right and then shove your thumb in your mouth. Once you "assume the position" we know it won't be long until you are zonked out. We wonder if we will have to tear this blanket away from you in the dead of night when you are 9 to avoid any mental scarring, but for now, it's a comfort to you and that's a good thing. We got smart and bought two extra, leaving one in your crib and one in the car. You kind of suck on them so they get pretty nasty quickly, and one of them is usually in the wash at all times.

When you are awake, you are moving. You are never still. Even when you are drinking your bottle, you are kicking your feet or patting our arms. You are pulling yourself up like crazy now, and can cruise very well on the furniture. To our dismay, you are also an expert at climbing stairs, so needless to say we bought a gate this month. You don't like roadblocks, and will dive headfirst into or over things to get where you want to go. You've just begun standing for a few seconds without holding on...you discovered that when you wanted to clap your hands while standing up. Everything still requires applause:

You are still a happy, loving, easy going little boy. We have spent many weekends at BBQ's with family and friends, and you've enjoyed it all with us. You still have a love affair with cupcakes:

It's now become a habit for everyone to give you one wherever we go. I suppose it won't kill you, athough no one really gives us a choice...I don't hold you much when we are around family. Everyone snaps you up and you seem to be okay with it. You love your grandparents and your aunt and uncle very much, which absolutely delights them.

It has been so much fun spending our favorite time of year with you. We love you more each day.

Monthly update - 8 months old

2007-07-07T08:35:00.001-07:00

Dear Seamonkey:

These have been some incredibly busy months! So busy that I haven’t had a moment to sit down and write your last two monthly updates.

May was your eighth month, and we celebrated a lot things. First was our 10th Wedding Anniversary. We were so happy to celebrate this milestone with you. I originally wanted to do something big and fancy, but I found that it was just wonderful to go to a local restaurant with you and your grandparents and just be together. It was the first time you were in a restaurant highchair and you did pretty well. You got antsy only after a good 25 minutes.

We also celebrated my first Mother’s Day. Once again I was happy to keep things simple and spend the day with you and your father. It was a beautiful day, and we spent it shopping and hanging out with both sets of grandparents. You were in a good mood all day and we had alot of fun with you. It was a little surreal for me to finally have a child on Mother's Day, and I don't think it ever really sunk all the way in.

We took you on your second official plane ride to Florida to visit family and have a mini vacation. You did well on the plane, although you liked to flirt with all the women you see. Those eyelashes are irresistible, and I fear for the safety of your future female classmates. We schlepped you from hotel to hotel, constantly in and out of cars and strollers and you rolled with the punches like a champ. You even slept well, considering we put you in all kinds of make shift beds. We did manage to put you in a hotel crib when we could:During this vacation we brought you to see Aunt M in her new house. Upon arrival, we set you on the floor and you immediately started to crawl for the first time. We couldn’t believe it. We aren’t sure what prompted you to do it, but from that point on we couldn’t turn our backs on your for a second. You were thrilled with this new found skill too, and decided that every inch of your world must be explored post haste. What we thought was going to be a relaxing beach vacation turned out to be quite the opposite, but it was exciting to see you interacting with your surroundings more.
Although we deferred your swimming lessons until the fall (because you were getting too traumatized) you LOVED the pool in Florida. We took you to three different pools and you couldn’t get enough of them. You splashed and splashed like crazy, only stopping when you got water in your mouth. Everyone couldn’t believe how much fun you were having.
Speaking of fun, you also learned to clap on this trip. We had been trying to teach you for some weeks, and then all of a sudden you did it! Now you do it all the time. You will be crawling and then you will suddenly stop and look at us and clap, expecting us to say “YAY!” every time. Yes, my prince, everything you do requires applause.
On the not so fun side, you got your first tooth this month. You were pretty cranky, so we knew something was up. Although you didn’t drool at all, you did pull at your ears a bit and gnaw on everything you could get your hands on (not to mention the voluminous nasty diapers). You look even more adorable with your one little snaggle tooth on the bottom.

Your sleeping habits have changed alot. You no longer sleep on your back in your "victory pose", but rather on your stomach or side...and you are very restless all night. You have been known to wake up in the middle of the night, sit up and start babbling, then flump back down with no warning, usually with your butt up in the air.You are still doing well foodwise...there really isn't anything you don't like the taste of. We've tried to move you to stage 3 foods, but you don't really care for the half mush half solid consistency. We can give you all mush, or all solid, but the combo makes you gag. We have started to give you little pieces of table food like chicken or cheese and you like them just fine. We're not pushing it though, you make quite the mess and feeding takes forever that way. Bread is the miracle worker though...give you a hunk of hard bread(or baby cookie) and you will stay quiet for as long as there is a piece solid enough to hold.

And sometimes when I'm not looking, your grandparents slip you something better:
We love you Monkey, more than words can say.

Unsent

2007-07-05T13:36:00.001-07:00

Dear X:

It's been like a year and a half since we last spoke. I can't believe it, can you? Are you glad? Do you miss me? Are you angry? Or sad? Both? Neither?

As for me, I'm both. I think about you pretty much every day. I miss our friendship terribly. When I think about how your kids are almost two and they don't know who I am it makes me very very sad. I stood by you through your difficult journey to get those kids, and now I feel like I'm being cheated out of the final reward. This isn't how it was supposed to happen. I was supposed to be there. Buy them toys that annoy their parents, give them too much candy, teach them to say things they shouldn't say just for the entertainment factor. But somehow we ended up here in this awful place.

I am still angry. And I guess that anger is overriding my sadness or else I would have reached out to you by now. I may not have said the right words, and I may have over reacted, but I had a real reason to be angry that night. I was frustrated with my situation having just spent another freaking Christmas without a child, while in the middle of my third and final cycle which wasn't looking promising. I had alot of shit going on in my head and I was trying very hard to keep it all in. I know you were busy and life wasn't all wine and roses for you then either, but I felt abandoned during what was becoming the worst time of my life - having to finally accept pregnancy would never happen. Abandoned by someone who knew FIRST HAND how hard it all was to deal with, just when I needed her most. I guess you could say I abandoned you as well, you weren't having an easy time of it either, but dammit, I still say that I would have killed to have your problems at that point, and that is the part I just cannot get over.

I thought that somehow things would blow over...expecting our husbands to see the ridiculousness of all of it - but apparently they didn't have the energy (or the balls, take your pick) to get involved. I suppose it got worse when I didn't acknowledge your nephew being born - but honest to God I didn't even know until many weeks later, and at that point I felt like an idiot. I saw your cousin on the train, which was horribly awkward because I wasn't sure what she knew or how she felt. I said I would email but I didn't. My biggest regret in this whole thing (more than even my choice of words that night) is that I didn't at least send your sister a card.

So, I think you got back at me by not acknowledging the major incident that occurred in my life right after that, and honestly, that's where you lost my husband. He can't understand how our stupid fight didn't go right out the window when you heard the news, and how you didn't send some kind of acknowledgement of what I was going through. Funny, that part doesn't bother me so much, I think because I feel it's a trade off about your nephew. But that made him very angry. I think its the reason he didn't acknowledge your husband's email about our 10 year wedding anniversary. Was that an attempt to open the door to reconciliation? I secretly hoped so. I'm not sure how or if he responded, he won't talk to me about it so I stopped asking.

Several months ago he ran into an old mutual friend of ours. Even though you and she had stopped talking to each other since your pregnancy, she knew about our adoption indirectly through you. She asked him to have me call her to get together since we hadn't seen each other in such a long whille. It may surprise you to know that I won't do it...she will always be your friend first, and if you two still aren't speaking I think it would be a betrayal to you for me to talk to her now. Seems ridiculous under the current circumstances, but something won't let me do it. He brought the baby to see her though, did you know that? Did it bother you?

There have been many funny things that I wished I could share with you...I've played imaginary conversations in my head of the jokes we would make about stuff that has happened. The biggest one of course being that our old friend "Hat" is pregnant. Oh how I wish I could talk to you about that...how you found out, how you reacted, how everyone must be going nuts over it. If we ever speak again, I've got about 16 hours of material on it.

Despite my overriding anger, I do hope that somehow we can get back some part of what we lost. If I had my way, circumstances would arrange themselves so that we would get together without either one of us having to make the first move - some kind of spontaneous accidental encounter. I'm sure we both have alot to say to each other - there must be parts of this that I can't understand because I am too blinded by my own feelings. Or who knows - maybe you are okay with having this friendship end - you've always had alot of people around you, and didn't necessarily need me. I wish I knew so I could get some kind of closure on this. Until then, I'll just continue to wonder how you feel and wait for an inevitable awkward encounter around town.

In any case, I hope you are well. I hope your family is happy and your kids are healthy. I hope you are thinking the same thing about me and mine.

How a seamonkey gets its name...

2007-06-21T09:39:00.000-07:00

Wendy's post reminded me of a story. For some reason I haven't wanted to share it before now. And some of you will read it and roll your eyes - and that's fine, roll on and then go clickety clicking on to the next blog on your blogroll...you know me...

When we first got the call for seamonkey we were really thrown by his name. We already had names all picked out and ready to go, but there was something about his name that made us stop in our tracks. We kinda liked it, but it wasn't all that common here. Looking back now, I think that BT and I knew from the start that we really wanted to keep it. Our friends and family tried to appear supportive, but we could tell they thought it was a little too out there (Remember, we're Italian, so all the names in our family are your basic saint names - Anthony, Christopher, Joseph..). But I really felt that somehow I was supposed to keep it, even if we didn't love it all that much. We didn't want to make it his middle name, because we really wanted BT's brother's name in there somewhere, and while I respect the memory of his brother, ain't no way I was calling my new son George (sorry all you Georges out there). The whole dilemma was really upsetting to me. I was stressed out and overwhelmed already, and this was putting me over the edge. I agonized over it for days. I couldn't sleep. I kept trying on the different names, saying them out loud to his picture to see how I felt about it. I was going nuts.

A few days before we were to leave for Colombia, I had to travel to another part of the city to get our visas. I was sitting on the subway, once again thinking about what we should do. Now you know I'm a little touchy about the prayer stuff - but I was really at a loss. "Please God," I thought, "just give me a sign, any little sign to help me decide if we should keep his name". And then I immediately thought how ridiculous I was, but started scanning all the printed material around me anyway to see if somehow his name would appear before me. I didn't see anything.

I went into the consulate, which was ridiculously crowded, and made my way up to the visa floor. There was somone already being helped in the office I needed to go into, so I waited outside. There were lots of people milling around and I was looking at all the children and playing a mental game of "if that kid was my referral would I think they were cute?" (In most cases the answer was yes - hard to find an ugly Colombian kid). Just then this little boy shoots across the floor in a dead run, making a bee line for the office I was waiting to go into. So I jump in front of him to slow him down, and his mom comes running after him screaming (you guessed it) "Seamonkey!"

People, I really and truly lost my shit. I started sobbing right there in the office and everyone was staring at me. Of course right then I get called into see the Visa guy and tried to explain myself but he could care less. I went to see my brother who works right near the consulate. We went to lunch and I cried. He mostly stared back at me wide eyed, because I never cry. I cried the entire way back on the subway and fit in with all the other crazies. I only calmed down when I got back to my office.

So that's how seamonkey got his name for good. We didn't officially stick with it until we actually laid eyes on him, just to be sure. And truthfully for the first few months I never used his name because I felt weird about it (he was mostly "the baby" or "monkey"). I didn't totally love it even though I felt I did the right thing. When asked his name, I would quickly explain that he was adopted and he was born with that name, in case people thought I was crazy.

But I like it now. He is a unique little boy and he has a name to match. We don't have a nickname for him and I prefer that people use his full name. I'm sure his football buddies will come up with something when the time comes.

And a good time was had by all....

2007-06-18T19:16:00.000-07:00

It all went well, it really did. Just like you all said it would. You guys are always right, I should listen to you more often.

Friday night BT and I were up late putting together the centerpieces. It was the last thing we had to do, and we both agreed that no matter what else happened, we wouldn’t stress out and let it ruin the day. I think we did a pretty good job of sticking to that promise.

The dress didn’t end up looking totally fabulous in the next size. It was just okay. But I was comfortable and the shoes were very cute. Seamonkey looked totally adorable in his linen sailor suit. The in-laws came right on time and I didn’t even want to smack any of them, not even my SIL…not even once! Can you believe it?? Not once the entire day! Do I get a gold star or something? Surely this must count for something somewhere, no?

The church was kind of anti-climactic. A deacon I never saw before performed the “ceremony”. He babbled on for quite a bit, saying a lot of nothing other than “please pray for these children” over and over, which I didn’t totally get. Admittedly though, it was hard to follow because Seamonkey was babbling pretty loudly the entire time and I was trying my darndest to keep him quiet with limited success. Note to self, next time have Grandpa sit on the other side of the church so he is not a distraction to your child. But what I did hear was kind of flat and unemotional and not very…churchy. At one point he told us how one mother thought he was serious when he teased that the fathers are supposed to keep standing until the baptism candle went out – “I told her ‘get a life lady!’” Yeah, real nice!. We were the first ones up to the font, and it was essentially pour, pour, pour, okay thanks, NEXT! Hmmm…not exactly the solemn sacred ceremony I was hoping for. Oh well. But there were more people at the church than we expected, and it was nice to have the support of those we loved there.

The whole thing, despite having 10 children there to be baptized, took less than 45 minutes. That left 2 hours and 15 minutes before our party started. So we had everyone back at our house. We didn’t expect to have so many people, so BT had to do a mad dash to the grocery store for provisions. As soon as he got back, hot and sweaty, he went to go into our bedroom and found the door locked with no one inside but the cats. We lost the key, so we usually just don’t ever shut the door if we are outside of the room. His sister was trying to be nice and keep the guests out. BT was freaking out pretty good, and I had to really calm him down. Finally, he just made like a bad episode of Starsky and Hutch and rammed the door with his body. The whole door is now a splintered mess, but it’s open and I think it made him feel better. I agreed to let him go to the hall early and have a drink.

The place really looked nice considering it was onlu a Knights of Columbus hall. The centerpieces, placecards, and votives all turned out great, and the room was a vision of blue and white. Our neighbor is a DJ, and she provided the music free of charge. We had old and young alike doing the Electric Slide, Chicken Dance, and my favorite - Cotton Eye Joe. She played our wedding song for us, and played “Mamma” for me to dance my first official dance with seamonkey. The food was delicious and we had a lot of laughs. I really can’t complain about anything.

Except maybe one thing ('cause I'm catty like that): When children are old enough to receive their own invitation, and are even invited with a guest, they should give their own gift. Tagging onto mommy and daddy's card is tacky tacky tacky. It's not about the gift, believe me, it is all going to Seamonkey's college fund anyway. But it should be your own card signed by you (and maybe your tacky girlfriend). We had one family member come with her husband, two 17/19 year old daughters, one with boyfriend in tow (who came late and asked the kitchen to bring out food for them) and from those five people we got one card that contained less than the amount per head for ONE PERSON. Again, it's not the money...it's the disrespect and cheapness that is insulting. But most people were very generous, especially those that have absolutely nothing, and took the time to give inexpensive but meaningful and thoughtful gifts. A small children's bible, a personalized cross nightlight, a silver tone St. Seamonkey medal. These will be treasured mementos of the day.

But that was it. Oh and maybe the fact that BT's nephew brought a girlfriend who wore a white cotton miniskirt and a pink cotton tank top that said "Calvin Klein" across it. Honestly.

Here are the pics you've all been waiting for. Look quick, not sure how long I'm keeping those pics of me up there.

Centerpieces done and ready to go. Handy tip - order the flowers from your local supermarket - we got them for less than $10 a dozen.

Votive favors - Very inexpensive - vellum was like $4, votives were $4 for 6. If anyone wants the template let me know. (Name smudged except for his middle name)

Getting dressed:

Handsome sailor boy:

Okay so.....

2007-06-15T09:02:00.000-07:00

I got the dress. But only after I freaked out because it wasn’t waiting for me when I got home. It was a day late. And when DHL came to the house, they gave us the wrong box. After several panicked phone calls, we got the right box. The right very small box. Containing a linen suit. Can you say “wrinkled mess”? I asked BT to take it to the dry cleaners for pressing. Which he did. Before I tried it on. I hope it still looks fabulous in the bigger size.

I got the shoes. But only after I found the perfect pair in the window of a shoe store I passed walking between office buildings, only to be told by the cranky store clerk that they didn’t have my size. I bought them a half a size too small in case I couldn’t find anything else. I called around and found the shoes at another store elsewhere in this city. I left work early during the height of rush hour made my way to the store. I waited for 30 minutes on line to exchange sizes so I missed my train and was late getting home. But I have them and they are cute.

I finished the favors. But only after I had my husband go and buy more vellum. And after I reprinted them all. With the wrong date. Again. So he had to go back and buy more. And we reprinted them, and cut them all out and wrapped all the votives. And then I realized that while I fixed the date on the template, I only fixed the date on the first 5 of the 6 that were on each page. So we had to reprint, cut and wrap every sixth votive. But they are finally done dammit.

I finished the placecards. But only after we put the glue on the vellum and they curled up so badly I had to reprint and recut half of them out again and try a different approach. We were up until midnight, but they're finished.

We pick up the flowers later today and I hope to channel Martha Stewart and make some decent looking arrangements. I am a little worried, as I am not good with flowers. We realized this morning that we have no gifts for the godparents. I sent BT to Tiffany’s to buy some silver shiny things in little blue boxes. I am leaving work in about a half an hour. I hope to finish crocheting his white blanket on the train ride home. I need to get a mani pedi and clean my house. Nothing like cutting it down to the wire.

I know that tomorrow is not really about parties and flowers and placecards. But a mother wants everything perfect for her son’s big day. It’s the day we get all dressed up and present him to God. The God who gave us this beautiful child and made this day possible in the first place. We really are very thankful.

But I still want a very large, cold Vodka Martini waiting for me when I get to the hall.

If I get a decent picture of us, I'll post it for a limited time. Stay tuned.

Not really

2007-06-12T14:45:00.001-07:00

Okay we are just not even going to go near the weight loss thing today. I might jinx what may or may not be occurring, so let’s just not even talk about it kay? Besides, I am too stressed out to think about dieting right now – the boy’s Christening is in T-4 days and there is so much to do I can’t even think about it all or my head might explode.

It seems that no matter what BT and I do, the universe is working against us. I swore I was going to spend the entire last weekend shopping for an outfit and buying and assembling centerpieces, favors and placecards. (No, it’s not a big fancy affair, I am just trying to add my special crafty touch to things and as usual I’ve bitten off more than I can chew). I got absolutely nothing done. It seems as though before I knew it I was standing in my pajamas in my bedroom at 11pm on Sunday night thinking “What the hell just happened?”.

I went shopping for an outfit. I went to the big fancy mall around here and tried on every outfit that could even pass for presentable for the most important day in my son’s life. I hated everything (see scale smashing post for a clue as to why). Finally I ended up in Nordstrom’s, a store I usually don’t do well in because of the limited inventory in my *ahem* size. Thereupon I met Gila, the Russian Dress Nazi who said, when I told her of my quest, “Do you have faith? Yes? I get you perfect dress. Come”. I tried on everything she gave me, and together we looked and scratched our chins and decided. Too short. Too busy. Too fancy. Too casual. We were approaching desperation mode when I came to a linen suit thing that I picked up only because I saw a young trendy thing exclaiming how *cute* it was. Yes, but probably not on me. I left it for last. It had white buttons down the front. I hate buttons. I put on the white linen skirt. Hmmm…not bad. Flares out nicely and that embroidery is pretty cool. Let’s try this ugly jacket. Oh hey, it’s fitted. And sucks me in, in all the right places. I open the door for Gila. “Not bad, right?” She raises her eyebrows. “This is the dress”. Yay me!

Only problem is, it was a taaaaaad tight. I needed the next size. Guess what, they didn’t have the next size up. They needed to order it and have it shipped to me. It should be waiting for me at home, so keep your fingers crossed that it still looks fabulous in the next size. So I sort of have a dress but not really.

For the favors, I bought some very inexpensive votive candles and I am wrapping them with some Vellum that has a very cool poem that I stole from somewhere…”God leads the way, day or night, with this candle for you to light. On the flicker of the flame, please say a prayer in Seamonkey’s name” It then has his name and the date of his baptism. Cool, right? Well I needed to make a template for them because the votive is curved and a rectangle doesn’t sit right on it. So I stayed up late designing this template and the font matches the font on our invitations (oh REMIND me to show you the fabulous invitations that Julie made! FABULOUS). I went to the craft store and bought the vellum. I printed them all out. I sit down and start cutting them all out and about halfway through my husband comes in and says “Um…do you know you have the wrong date on these?” I had the wrong date. On all of them. I am an idiot. I had to throw out all the paper. I realized this at 6:30 on Sunday evening. I race to the local craft store before they close at 7. They are out of the Vellum. I want to cry. So I sort have favors but not really.

For the placecards I am just going to print the names and table out on white Vellum and glue it to blue cardstock. I design the template for these and figure out the seating arrangements. We are having about 75 people and that is all immediate family – damn Italians. I ask BT for the seating chart for the hall, a Knight’s of Colombus of which my husband is a member. “What do you mean?” he says. You know, the chart that says where table one is so I can make sure we put the right people near each other and the kids close to the DJ. “Oh. I didn’t get that”. So I sort of have placecards but not really.

The centerpieces are flowers that we ordered really cheap in buckets we got from IKEA. We have to pick them up on Friday and assemble ourselves. So I sort of have centerpieces but not really.

Did I mention I only have four days left? Did I mention that a few obnoxious people still didn’t RSVP and that I don’t have shoes yet?

I sort of think things will be fine, but not really.

Dear New Administrative Assisstant:

2007-06-04T14:17:00.000-07:00

In two words: You crazy.

I realize that I inherited you from the person who used to run this department, so it’s not like we exactly picked each other. I also realize that I am not used to having my own admin so all this attention is not something I am altogether comfortable with. I know you are trying to be helpful, but you are making. me. nuts.

I am not a doctor. Therefore, people do not need to make appointments to see me. Nor do they need to go through you to get to me. In fact, most of the time, I can hear them at your desk talking. Then I watch you get up, take 3 steps into my office and announce their presence, and they can clearly hear you. The whole thing is ridiculous. Just let them walk by and stick their head in for goodness sakes!

Your schizo way of addressing me is baffling. One minute you are saying “You so funny girlfriend” and holding out your fist for a pound. The next minute you are speaking like Martha Stewart and calling me Ms. Starfish. Who are you really? Oh, and I think you understood when I corrected you the other day…but under no circumstances are you to ever call me Starry. You should never shorten anyone’s name and put a y on the end unless you are given express written permission to do so.

Charades is not effective. If I am on the phone, please write me a short note and put it in front of me. Dancing and moving your lips is distracting. It took me forever to figure out that you pointing to your ring finger meant that my husband had called.

If you have something to say, spit it out. Using big words are ineffectual if you don’t use them correctly in context. If after you speak, there is prounounced silence and I am blinking at you with my eyebrows scrunched together, it means I don’t have a flipping clue what you are talking about. Have I ever once said “yes” when you say “You see what I’m saying?”.

There is no conspiracy brewing to get my job. Trust me when I tell you that my direct reports have zero chance of getting me fired and taking over. If that were the case, one of them would have been promoted into my position in the first place. So, while I appreciate you tiptoeing into my office and whispering your little tidbits of information about who was seen having a closed door meeting with who, more often than not, I already knew, and it wasn’t for the reasons you think. And if I didn’t, chances are I don’t give a crap. Save the drama for your momma. I’m too busy.

The hugging. Just…..don’t.

If this doesn't work out between us, I can have you go work for my brother. He can't understand why I don't enjoy having someone at my beck and call all day. I warn you though, he told me that he would have you do things like buying a bag of pretzels and then remove the salt on exactly two thirds of them. And then organize his paper clips so they all face the same way. Might still be better than working for me.

I need a vacation from my vacation

2007-05-30T18:59:00.000-07:00

No, I haven’t been spending the last two weeks destroying my scale. If it were within the confines of normal behavior, I might still be doing it though. I am reaching rock bottom here with the weight thing. I need to do something. I can’t stand myself anymore. Why can’t I just eat less and exercise more? Why is that so freaking hard? All of the things I wanted to lose weight for are here and I haven’t lost one single pound. I called Jenny yesterday and I had to hang up the phone before I totally lost my shit. Do you know how much that freaking program is??? Are they kidding?? It would cost me thousands of dollars…not hundreds, THOUSANDS. Plural…with an S. What normal person can afford to do that program? Fuckers.

*sigh*

Looks like I am going to have to do this on my own then. FINE. I am cutting WAY DOWN on everything. Last night I had a Lean Cuisine and a salad. This morning I had half a bagel with a little cream cheese. For lunch I had another salad. I am going to start growing long ears and buck teeth over here but whatever. My old high school friend is coming in two weeks and the christening is right after that. Hi everyone! Yep, still fat! Move along, nothing new here …have you held the baby yet?.. divert your attention from my double chins please! ….BLEAH I AM SO DISGUSTED. Whatever.

So I just came back from a semi-vacation in Florida for 10 days, which was the real reason I haven’t been around. It was a disjointed trip spent with some of my family, some of his family, some work stuff and not enough time alone. We started out with a birthday party/family reunion near Orlando that ended up being not as fun as we thought. There’s a reason we don’t see those people very often. Then we went to visit an aunt who recently moved to a retirement community. Wish I could say it was nice, but I don’t know because no one wanted to leave the house. We were stuck in a small house with a baby, my parents and two aunts. They didn’t want to go out to eat. They didn’t want to go to the pool. They wanted to sit around the dining room table and eat leftovers and bullshit all day. We were going batty. Oh and did I mention they didn’t see a need to put the air conditioning on? Oh no, let’s just open up all of these windows and doors…don’t you feel that nice breeze? THERE IS NO FREAKING BREEZE PEOPLE IT’S 85 DEGREES AND I CAN GROW ORCHIDS IN MY ARMPITS. The only good thing about being inside was that we avoided the love bugs that were swarming in record numbers. I left my poor husband to go to a conference for a few days, and I am just thankful he didn’t go postal on my family. He later joined me at the hotel and after my conference was over we drove down to his sister’s condo in Fort Meyers for the last three days of our trip. That too wasn’t as fun as we expected. Seamonkey is in that stage where he just can not sit still, and doesn’t like to be restrained in any way. Those of you with small children know that relaxation is not possible with a mobile little person. I apparently am just learning this. In fact you are probably laughing your ass off at me that I even put “relaxing vacation” and “9 month old” in the same thought. I am an idiot. I know this now.

There were some very good parts of the trip. The second we put seamonkey on the floor at my aunt’s house, he immediately started crawling for the first time! We couldn’t believe it. I suppose one could argue that even he saw the need to escape. He also started clapping. At one point we were out listening to some live music and he was jumping up and down on my knee and clapping. Very hysterical. BT calls it the “golf clap” because it’s very soft. We also discovered his first tooth! He finally cut one on the bottom right side. Explains the extreme crankiness we’ve been experiencing. The work conference was actually very good, especially since we were in an awesome hotel and we got free tickets to Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure. The company that sponsored the trip was very generous with dinners and drinks too. We got a little bit of quality time at our favorite beaches in Naples and Sanibel Island. Not nearly enough, but better than nothing.

You know I have to end with a funny story about my SIL. Not once but TWICE, I caught her referring to herself as “Mommy” when talking to seamonkey. I let it go both times, but the second time she said “Why do I keep saying Mommy?” UM, BECAUSE YOU’RE RETARDED? I mean, it's not like she has young kids that call her mommy on a daily basis. But Karma got her back because in the restaurant someone asked her “Is he your first grandchild?” I had a good laugh at that one.

Got to get to work on the 8 month update I neglected to post. Here are some pics from the trip:

The Tuesday Update

2007-05-15T10:46:00.000-07:00

The Tuesday Update will not be posted today – the author of this blog is currently otherwise occupied taking a sledgehammer to her bathroom scale.

The Mother's Day Post

2007-05-14T10:44:00.000-07:00

My first Mother's Day. A day I have waited a lifetime for. When discussing the day's plans with my mom last week, I said to her "Whatever you want to do is fine - it's your day". After a brief pause she said "Uh, it's your day too...you're a mother now". It took me a few seconds to comprehend that.

I thought I would spend the day saying “DAMN RIGHT!” every time someone wished me a Happy Mother’s Day. After all, I got to this point, kicking and screaming. Despite uncooperative body parts and slow governmental agencies. I earned this day dammit, and I wanted to go around shoving my beautiful boy in everyone’s face with a “HA! I AM A MOM JUST LIKE YOU TOO SO THERE”.

But I didn’t.

I thought I might spend the entire day being contemplative…reflecting on how lucky I am and how grateful I should be. I wanted to just sit and stare at my son, and think about how on earth anyone thought I was worthy of parenting this perfectly beautiful boy. I wanted to sit in a quiet room and hug him the entire day and have him all to myself.

But I didn’t

I thought that I would at least stay close to home. While I can now enter a baby store without hyperventilating, a little part of me still feels like a fraud. Like even though all the paperwork has been finalized, the world couldn’t possibly really see me as a mother. I wanted to avoid any conversations with strangers that may lead to me having to explain myself.

But I didn’t

I thought that maybe I should boycott the holiday for all the people who are still trying or who have given up the fight. I know the pain that Mother’s Day can bring. It doesn’t seem fair to them to celebrate. I wanted to avoid doing anything that might be the least bit offensive to an infertile, including bringing my child out in public.

But I didn’t

Instead, we got up in the morning and fed, bathed and dressed seamonkey like we do every Sunday morning. We went to BT’s parents and hung around there for half the day, doing the same things we do on every other visit there. (The only difference was that I had to tell my FIL that he wasn’t allowed to hold seamonkey for the day. He’s a total baby hog and never let’s my MIL have him, so I insisted that she have him for the entire day – it mostly worked). Then we went to the mall to exchange some things, and BT let me shop my heart out with no complaints. The shopping Goddesses shone upon me and I was able to find some really nice things for our upcoming trip to Florida (Except shoes – I still need shoes!). Then back to my parents where my brother, who comes over every Sunday and cooks, barbecued up some steaks.

Quite ordinary actually. At a family gathering a while ago, my cousin K was saying how excited she was for me for my upcoming first Mother’s Day. Another cousin (by marriage, and who has two bio kids) said to me “Oh Mother’s Day is just another day for me!” I was horrified. An ordinary day? Do you have any idea what this day represents for me??

But you know what? It was an ordinary day. Okay, it was the best ordinary day I’ve had…well, ever….but still ordinary. And it was just fine and dandy. The best part of the whole thing was getting calls and emails the day before from people who remembered it was my first Mother's Day. It felt like those people really knew what it meant to be a mother, and they acknowledged the hard work it took me to get here.

Hope your day was what you wanted it to be – whatever your mood or circumstances were.

10 Years and we never had a fight....

2007-05-11T13:31:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was my 10 year wedding Anniversary! It’s hard to fathom that it’s been that long…harder still to believe we are together 15 years in total. I hardly remember the people we were back then. We have come such a very long way. We struggled a lot in the beginning, although if you ask him, he doesn’t remember that. Which is good I think. We are very different people and living together at first was hard. We still aren’t the best communicators; but we’re still working on that. Through the infertility years he always made it clear that we could stop treatment whenever I wanted, and that adoption was always a good option. The most memorable words he has ever said to me, more meaningful than “I do”, were the words “I love you no matter what” said to me while I was sobbing after another failed cycle.

Having kids doesn’t improve your marriage, we know that, but having gone through this journey together helps us to understand what really matters in life. He is still the nicest person I have ever met, and is my very best friend. He is kind and sensitive and the most amazing dad.

We went to a local pub for dinner with the boy. We were going to do something more fancy, but really all we wanted to do was be together at home.

I’ve been tagged for a meme by Melissa, and since I’ve sort of done it once already, this time I will honor my husband by giving you 8 facts/habits about him.

1. He can be a spokesperson for Honda. He has owned 5 in his lifetime, and even bought a red civic hatchback twice. Who buys the same car twice in a row, let alone a red hatchback??

2. He has this weird habit of running his fingers along the edge of any fabric. He started this as a baby as he ran his fingers along the silky edge of his blanket. Now he does the same thing to every fabric edge – our quilt, the pillow cases, the hem of his shirt, the curtains behind the couch…it’s the funniest thing. Sometimes in bed I’ll feel my blanket being slowly pulled and I’ll have to yell STOP!! He doesn’t even realize he’s doing it half the time.

3. He has a serious addiction to three things: Magazines, grooming products and organization containers. We have an abundance of all of these things in my house and much money is wasted on them. It drives me nuts.

4. He was once a clown in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. He still has the rainbow wig. He still looks like an ass in it.

5. He is enamored with spreadsheets. He loves to put information in them, inventories of things, financial info, planning lists. We constantly make fun of him for it and are always saying things like “Why don’t you go make a spreadsheet of that”.

6. He can’t dance. At all. I mean really really bad. Think Elaine Benes underwater and on crack. If he ever wants to make me laugh, he just has to start dancing. Yesterday morning he was doing a Happy Anniversary dance for me in the hallway while I was in the bathroom getting ready for work. He was trying to do the Q-tip move (rubbing your forefinger and thumb together next to your ear like you’re using a q-tip, alternating between right ear and left ear – go ahead try it, I’ll wait) from the movie Hitch, a scene where Kevin James is showing how bad he dances – BT made Kevin look like Fred Astair. I almost peed my pants.

7. He has worn a goatee for pretty much all of the 15 years I’ve known him. He shaved it off once by surprise and I was so horrified I could barely look at him. I made him grow it back immediately.

8. He can literally fall asleep within 30 seconds. We will barely be under the covers and I’ll start to hear his heavy breathing. Sometimes I have to scrape him off the ceiling when I yell “YOU CAN’T POSSIBLY BE ASLEEP ALREADY”.

The Tuesday Update

2007-05-08T12:32:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I have found the time and motivation to write this week. I am feeling a little better because at this mornings weigh-in, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I lost 2.5 pounds! So that’s 3.5 in two weeks. Not earth shattering, but not bad either. Especially since I only got to the beach once this week, so only 4 miles this time. I have tried to pay a little extra attention to portion size this past week, trying to load up on the veggies and limit the starches. This is difficult because apparently my husband was Chinese in a former life, based on the amount of white rice he likes to consume. He also can not be convinced that corn and peas are high in starch, so when he makes them together with the aforementioned rice, (thinking he’s making a square meal) he can’t understand why I am annoyed. I know, I know, be grateful you have a husband that cooks…I’m trying over here.

I have a humongous sweet tooth, and I MUST have something sweet after dinner or I am not very happy. My mom, who we eat with a few days a week (remember my parents live on our street) bakes things out of boredom, and it has been hard to resist her homemade cupcakes and cookies. I’ve been good though, and when she says “Do you want dessert?” I have a hearty NO out of my mouth before she gets up from her chair. That, and a quick exit has helped. To alleviate my craving, I have a bag of milk chocolate chips in the fridge, and I give myself a tiny handful which seems to be doing the trick so far. BT keeps a close eye on me, so I don’t end up emptying the bag in one night. Other oddly satisfying desserts we have recently made are:

1. Graham Cracker Ice Cream Sandwiches – Put fat free C00l Whip in between two low-fat cinnamon graham crackers and freeze. Not a bad substitute for the real thing.

2. Juicy Ice Pops – buy one of the new fancy schmancy organic juice blends out there and make ice pops out of them. We have an ice pop mold that we love. The most recent flavor we made was Pomegranate Blueberry. (Be careful of brain freeze when feeding them to 8 month olds - funny to you, not so funny to them).

So tell me how you’ve been doing towards your health goals. And share a an easy low fat snack or dessert idea if you’ve got one.

Whatever

2007-05-04T14:31:00.000-07:00

So much for my promise of Tuesday updates. That’s partly because I barely even lost one freaking pound. Eight miles, people, I walked for EIGHT MILES. *Sigh* Whatever. Don’t try to cheer me up with “at least you didn’t gain”. I am running out of time here folks, summer is fast approaching. I don’t know what the problem is, you would think I eat chocolate cake three times a day. It’s the portion control that kills me I think. I am SO calling Jenny. Did you see that V@lerie Bertine11i lost 10 pounds already?? I’m going to keep trying though, I’m not giving up. I’m just PISSED.

The other part is that I am just too damn busy. Work is insane and free time is spent with the boy. It is so hard to keep blogging. Part of me thinks I should just shut this blog down and move on with life, but I’m not 100% ready to do that yet. I read things in blogland and get myself all riled up and start formulating a post in my head and then days go by before I actually have a chance to respond. When I do get the chance, everything that has been said on the matter has been said. So you’ll just have to trust me when I say I had definite opinions on Imus, V-Tech, A little pregnant and Chew. But it’s all done and gone now and please tell me why bloggers have to get so uppity with each other? Anyway, I digress.

Oh and just so you know, I can’t view blog pictures at work, and some days I can’t even leave a comment. So I mark your blog to read later, and then later turns into 4 days, and you’ve posted 6 more times since then and it’s difficult to catch up. So I’m still reading all of your blogs, trust me. I just can’t comment as often as I’d like. Sorry about that.

Anway, did I mention that we had our first post placement visit a couple of weeks ago? It was totally fine. The woman was only there for about 45 minutes and she asked us some basic questions. I guess I should include them here in case anyone is interested…

How is his health?
What is his current height and weight?
What is his doctor’s name and where are they located?
When was his first doctor’s appointment when you got home?
Can I see the summary of visits and immunizations so far?
What formula is he on?
What is his feeding schedule like?
What is his personality like?
Does he have any developmental delays?
Do you think you have bonded with him?
Do you think he has bonded to you?
What kinds of activities do you do with him?
Who is close by in case of emergency?
How has he changed your life?
How has he affected your relationship as a married couple?
Are you feeling more stressed having a baby to take care of?
Do you need information on resources to help you?
How has your family reacted to him?
May I see his room?

I think that was all the major questions. Let me know if you want to know how we answered any of them. Seamonkey sat quietly in his high chair with some toys the whole time. He was unnaturally quiet and serious, but it seems that she thought it was the appropriate level of stranger anxiety. It was all very pleasant and quick – we had some general conversation about adoption and Colombia and she was on her merry way. We didn’t go crazy cleaning the house or doing any preparation for her visit. We have at least one more visit I think. She suggests that we readopt him here in the US – we don’t have to do that but she thought it wouldn’t hurt. So I need to get information on that. I also have to get him a US birth certificate – no clue how to do that either.

Other than that, things are fine. Seamonkey is doing well – still not quite crawling yet. He’s been very fussy the last few days, and I think maybe he might finally be teething? I don’t know, it seems like we say that every week and still no teeth. This weekend we plan to do some house stuff – planting flowers (impatients Elle, not petunias) and we’re re-doing all the closets in the house. Our current set up is impractical, and I finally convinced BT that he can no longer use seamonkey’s closet. We need the storage room. Especially since I can’t control myself with all the cute summer clothes for the boy. Someone needs to put a limit on the number of bucket hats I can buy this kid. And just for the record….boy clothes selection sucks. If you can wade through all the tulle and flowery fabric to even find the boy’s section – all you’ll find is cargo pants and shirts with bugs on them. Really now.

So I have to start planning the Christening (Julia I have a date but still confirming the time). It’s about time I got my butt in gear. The godparents are going to be my SIL and my brother. I wasn’t thrilled about having my SIL, but I guess I can’t complain because my brother is no Holy Roller himself. My SIL isn’t a practicing Catholic anymore…she attends a Methodist? Lutheran? (not sure) church since she married her latest husband. Technically she can’t be a Godmother, she has to be a Christian Witness (only one Godparent has to be a practicing Catholic – although I realize using the word “practicing” with my brother may not be entirely appropriate). She does have the paperwork indicating she had all her catholic sacraments. I have a feeling that everyone is kind of doing a don’t ask don’t tell thing with our church (BT is handling the paperwork), which if you ask me, is wrong. Trust me, I am well aware of all the nonsense that goes on with the Catholic Church. But I still believe you shouldn’t lie. And I don’t want my son to be part of any kind of lying to the church thank you very much. But what am I supposed to do? At least she does go to church and my brother doesn’t really, so I guess it’s fair. Whatever. It still irks me. Nobody said I was rational.

Because they already all get on my nerves. They love seamonkey to death, they really do. And I am happy that he makes them so happy, and that everyone makes a fuss over him. It is so wonderful that the woman who said “I just wouldn’t have kids” is now the best Grandmother in the world. Even my SIL buys him tons of presents. But every time I go there I get a ginormous headache. They baby talk to him all day long. I LOVE YOU! SEAMONKEEEEEY! HEEEEY! I LOVE YOU! Yelled across the entire table in that singsongy voice OVER and OVER so that you just want to stab yourself in the eye with your fork. So between the yelling, and the baby talk, and the pressure of my tongue on the roof of my mouth to keep me quiet…by the time I leave I need four Advil and a shot of Grey Goose. Tell me it’s normal to feel this way. Tell me that just because I have finally been given a child, that I don’t have to be so over grateful that I can’t bitch about this stuff once in a while.

Oh and last thing – HURRAY FOR MARGARET!!! Finally Finally FINALLY she is going to be a mom!! So incredibly happy for you!!!

Ten Pound Tuesday

2007-04-24T09:21:00.000-07:00

This past weekend I was reminded of why I live here. Why I endure freezing winters spent standing on windy snowy train platforms waiting for trains that never come. Why I endure slush, snowplows and high gas bills to heat my house. This weekend was the first real breath of spring, and I spent it at the beach. It was glorious.

I spent most of Saturday harried and aggravated, a result I think, of knowing how beautiful it was outside and being pissed I couldn’t get my butt into gear fast enough. Finally though, seamonkey and I were both napped, dressed and fed and ready to go by 3:00. I went outside with the boy and started packing up the truck for a ride to the beach, planning to walk the boardwalk. Hot and sweaty, I hoped the walk would improve my mood. Just then BT returned home from doing a beach cleanup he organized with his fishing club, and I coerced him into joining us even though he was dead tired. The cool breeze and sunshine revived us both as we drove.

We strapped seamonkey into his big fancy off-road manly man jogging stroller (No sissy strollers for THIS SAHD), loaded it up with water bottles and off we went. Our beach has a wonderful boardwalk that hugs the shoreline, providing a spectacular view of the waves and dunes. The boardwalk is also touted as a “Health Walk” and has markers along the way to tell you how far you’ve gone. From end to end, the walk is exactly 2 miles. In case you can’t do the math – that’s a four mile trek round trip.

Our walk was an exercise in diversity. Old wizened faces and little pink cheeks. Short and fat, tall and thin. Jogging, ambling, strutting. Walkers and strollers, wagons and wheelchairs. Kites and seagulls and perfectly blue cloudless skies. Smelling hotdogs, French fries, tanning lotion and sea water. High heels, running shoes and bare feet. Airing of differences, sharing of problems, fervent gossip, easy laughter, contemplative silence. All of us sharing the same stretch of sunbleached planks. Did I already use the word glorious?

Seamonkey thoroughly enjoyed himself. We took off his shoes and socks, and he babbled merrily as we bobbled along…playing with his toes and graciously accepting any and all compliments from passersby. We stopped along the way to sit him in the sand. He would touch the ground and pull his hand back fast – totally perplexed by this new mysterious substance. We buried his feet and he wiggled his toes to find them again. We can’t wait to bring him here for a proper visit. We came back to the truck after our four miles, glad that we were able to take advantage of the weather.

So what’s with title of my post, you ask? Well I am really trying to lose weight. It seems that we loved the food in Colombia a little too much (empanadas-worth it)…plus all the big holiday dinners when we got home didn’t help. Besides the fact that I just need to look and feel better for the usual reasons, I have a high school friend coming to visit in June, we have an agency social that month, and the 4th of July (beach party) is closing in fast. So yesterday BT had to help a friend with something, so I had seamonkey all to myself again. So back to the beach it was for another four miles.

After the first 2 miles I was feeling so good that I started to do a very slow jog. To keep my motivation up, I would pick a landmark and tell myself I would stop when I got to it. When I got to it, if I still felt okay, I would pick another one farther up. At first I was picking landmarks too far ahead, and the whole time I was running towards it I would think “I’m never going to make it that far” and I would start to get discouraged. But, if I picked something close, I would get there in no time and be on to the next one. I eventually jogged an entire half mile! So I started thinking. I need to lose like 50-60 pounds, but losing even 40 would be huge for me. When I think of that goal (landmark) it seems too far away to be feasible. So I need to pick something closer. Like 10 pounds. When I lose 10, I’ll think about the next 10. So every Tuesday, I’m going to tell you how I’m doing toward my first 10. I weighed myself yesterday, and after I went through all seven stages of grief*, this is the game plan I came up with. Who knows if it will work. Lord knows, I’ve got to do something.

Okay, got to go fill up my water glass again. My tonsils aren’t quite floating yet. Now if I can only get out of this chair without using my ass muscles. They’re freaking killing me. Who knew you had so many muscles in your ass?

*Shock, Denial, Bargaining, Guilt, Anger, Depression, Acceptance

Water Water Everywhere...

2007-04-20T14:05:00.001-07:00

Hello and Hallelujah, the sun is finally shining! That nor’easter was really a pain in the ass. It made last weekend miserable, and it prevented me from going into work on Monday.

You see, there is only one road into and out of my little neighborhood. That one road runs alongside a canal. So at the highest point of high tide, the canal overflowed and flooded the street. So, since my little Honda Civic doesn’t have a outboard motor, we worked from home that day. The tides did eventually subside some hours later. But with all the train delays, it just wasn’t worth trying to make my way into the office. Besides, I was in my jammies in a warm house with an endless supply of hot coffee with southern pecan coffemate – you couldn’t have pulled me out of there for anything!

That little aforementioned street is at the very north end of my neighborhood. I live on the very south end. South, as in, 8 houses away is the open bay. At the southern most point of my street is a narrow bulkhead with a railing (like you see on dead end streets) and beyond that is good old Atlantic Ocean water. The water came up and over that bulkhead and alllllll the way down the street. See here: That Honda Pilot on the left is ours, sitting in our driveway. The railing is way down at the end beyond the parked white car. The houses on the right, across the street, are on the canal, so the water overflowed from behind their house as well. Back water met front water, so they were completely surrounded. Yikes! We watched the water creep up our driveway, but luckily it stopped a few feet short (we have a High Ranch so no basement). Of course, Big Tuna gets on his Big Tuna Boots and goes wading out into the middle of it all just because he can. He ends up talking to other neighbor husbands who all have on their manly man boots too. Inside, they are all really just 12 year old who like to splash in puddles, aren’t they?

And speaking of water and splashing – seamonkeys lessons aren’t exactly going swimmingly (HA GET IT).The second time we brought him; BT got the not so bright idea to convince my parents to come along. First of all, let’s try to imagine the ridiculousness of four grownups bringing in a 7 month old to watch him be walked up and down the length of a pool shall we? I was mortified. I never want to be one of THOSE parents and here I am doing it. I think having both BT and I there every week is already very silly. Anyway, of course that day he was all off his nap schedule, so he went into it totally over-tired. He did his usual scream thing, and I just kept saying “Don’t worry, he’ll stop soon”. But after saying it 25 times it became clear that stopping wasn’t on the agenda. Making this all the more aggravating, was the fact that my parents were acting as if we had thrown him into a vat of boiling oil. “Wow, he is really crying”. “He really doesn’t like this” “Maybe you should take him out” “Maybe swimming isn’t a good idea” “Starfish, don’t you think he’s had enough?” “Oh my God listen to him cry”. So, Crying Baby+Annoying Parents+Tired after a long day of work + Starving = Complete and utter nervous breakdown. I finally got up (you can watch from a room that overlooks the pool with a one way mirror), went into the pool area, and took seamonkey out after 20 minutes. The ride home was pretty quiet. I believe the only words I said were “You are NEVER allowed to come again”. I think I heard my mom laugh. Sheesh, grandparents. I sure don’t recall my parents going that nutso over ME.

The third time we brought him, we tried to ease him into it. We brought him to the pool area well before his session. We let him get used to the noise, and see the other kids. Alas, as soon as I handed him over to Shawn, he started crying again. Now let me say, that we know his cries. It wasn’t the ‘I’m in excruciating pain cry’ or the ‘something just scared the living shit out of me’ cry…it’s the ‘I am just not happy at all and I must tell everyone around me’ cry. Kind of moany and whiny screaming. If it were the all out red faced can’t catch my breath cry, I would have pulled him out immediately. I’m not a complete barbarian. Partial maybe. So we left him in. After about 10 minutes, BT and I start trading looks, and I start to feel the nervous breakdown feeling creeping back in. So I went to the front desk to talk to them. As soon as I began talking I started getting all choked up, which, if you knew me, is NOT like me at all. I managed to keep my shit together, and I asked the woman “Look, he is still screaming…at what point do we say enough is enough? I feel like we’re torturing him”. From the time I approached the desk, she had a knowing smile on her lips. She patiently let me talk, and then she said very nicely “Okay. Listen to me. “DO NOT PULL HIM OUT. You will be sorry you did. If you can’t watch him cry, then STAY OUT HERE.” She then went on to tell me about all the kids who have cried and proceeded to be awesome swimmers. I was really happy that she told me flat out what I needed to hear. She gave us some other options if we still didn’t feel right about it, like changing instructors, or time of day, or allowing us in the pool before the session to ease the transition…but my gut tells me he’ll be okay – he just needs to get used to it.

So THIS week when we brought him, he cried for 15 minutes and then stopped. And he actually enjoyed himself. In fact, he SWAM. No, seriously! Shawn had him lying in the water, holding him by the armpits and and Holy Crap if this kid wasn’t kicking his legs with a big ol’ smile on his face. *Sigh* I swear. This is why God created Vodka. And is why I just found this:

Monthly Update - 7 Months old

2007-04-16T09:07:00.000-07:00

Dearest Seamonkey:

Another whole month has gone by. I know I say this in every letter, but the time sure does go fast. Recently I heard the phrase "The days are long but the years are short". So true! You are such a solid little boy already, and we can't even remember you as the little peanut we first grew to love. We watch the videos from Colombia over and over and you look so small and different than you do now.

I wouldn't say that there have been dramatic changes in you this month. More like a general improvement in everything. You've got that pincer grasp thing down, and you concentrate very intently when there is a small speck of something you want to grab on your high chair. Your brows furrow in deep concentration. You seem to eat more hungrily now, and it is less of a chore to get you to eat. Sometimes I can't seem to shovel it in fast enough for you. You also roll over both ways now, and it's your preferred method of transportation. You can get yourself into crawling position from a sitting position, but once you're there, you're not quite sure what to do. You'll rock back and forth a bit, making us think you're about to start moving forward, but alas, you're not quite ready yet it seems. We're trying to keep you on the floor as much as possible to encourage you.

Your amazing personality continues to shine. Anytime you see someone you know, you smile a big cheesy grin. If it's someone you really like, like Daddy or Grandpa, you jump up and down and laugh. You have really been cracking up alot lately. One of us will say something that suddenly strikes you as hilarious, and you'll giggle so hard you can't catch your breath. That of course, makes us laugh, and you start laughing at us laughing. It never fails to make tears of laughter stream down my face.

With strangers you start out a bit wary...looking from the person to us and back again, as if to say "I don't know Mom, this guy looks kind of shifty to me..." But after a few minutes you are smiling. You LOVE other kids. Especially your cousins. You'll spontaneously grab them for your version of a kiss...it's the cutest thing.

This is your second cousin N, who is the closest in age to you...she's just a few months older. We love to see you together, and we hope you develop as strong a friendship as her mother and I do.

This month included your first Easter. The Easter Bunny brought you a ton of gifts via your grandparents, aunts and uncles. You even opened it yourself:We started the day by going to Aunt M's house and having dinner with Daddy's family. You were intrigued by the little dogs and didn't even cry. Afterwards we went to your Great Aunt's house to see my side. I hardly saw you the entire evening, because you were passed around from person to person. You didn't mind one bit. At one point I think I saw you holding a chocolate twizzler in your hand. I knew any attempts to tell my family what you were allowed to eat would be met by yelling and shooing, so I didn't bother. I figured one day wouldn't kill you. By the end of the night, I was handed back an overstimulated, sweaty, sticky, but extremely happy baby. After a good hose down, you slept like a rock.

Almost every day your father and I comment about how blessed we are. We wonder if everyone loves their child this intensely, and if a baby can get bruises from being kissed so much. Your grandma (my mom) went through her old pictures to show us how you look just like me when I was a baby:
What do you think? Same eyes and nose...but maybe all brown eyed brown haired babies look the same. Anyway, we know you were chosen especially for us, no matter what. We love you very much.

The Time Traveler's Wife

2007-04-15T19:14:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned in a previous post, I have participated in the latest round of the Barren Bitches Brigade Book Tour. I opted in because I heard alot of good things about this book and was anxious to read it. Each participant has been asked to select three questions from a list and answer them. Below is my review and my answers. Hop along to another stop on this blog tour by visiting the main list here

Spoiler Alert
If you want to read this book but haven't yet, you may want to avoid reading this post.

So on to my review. In a nutshell: This book bugged me. I was excited to read it since it had the sci-fi time traveling thing going on as well as the fact that it was supposed to be a grand love story. Everyone was tellingl me that they read it over and over, and how they cried every time. I gotta tell ya, I just didn't see it. I thought it was a dark depressing story, with desperation as it's main theme. Henry DeTamble was a reckless human being, not only with his own life, but with the life of his wife and future child. Clare Abshire is a lost soul. She starts out that way before she meets Henry, and when he arrives on the scene she is desperate for the attention she couldn't get elsewhere. . Besides the fact that his visits start to border on the inappropriate, his tales of their wonderful future have Clare enraptured. She focuses on nothing else and misses out on a normal childhood and early adulthood...convinced by Henry that their fate is already sealed. Their "real" life together is snippets of sex surrounded by dark periods of oppresive waiting. It's hard to figure out if Clare is really in love or just unnaturally dependent on Henry. The more time she spends with him, the more depressed she becomes. At the end, she is even more lost than she was when she began.

The chapters about infertility are heart wrenching, and I suppose one could argue that they accurately reflect the horrible pain, suffering and desperation that many women go through. As my answers below will indicate, I feel that Clare's intentions are selfish, so much so that she disregards the health of her babies, and they die as they time travel out of her womb. I have a hard time believing that any woman would be that desperate (and stupid).

I don't expect to be in the majority with my views. I know that many people liked it, and if you got something good out of this book, that's great. It was certainly a well crafted story, just not my cup of tea. If you want some serious romantic time traveling story about a woman who can't conceive, go read Outlander. Now that's my cup of tea with milk and honey! (For another fulfilling albeit cheesy experience, go rent Lake House).

Clare endures a lot trying to create a child. She keeps trying, regardless of the fact that she continuously miscarries, continuously wakes up covered in blood, and knows that her child could have the same "problem" as her husband. What drove her to continue down this road and why do you think Henry participated?

Clare was so desperate to have a piece of Henry with her always, that she stopped at nothing to get it. Because Henry came into her life so early and so often, Clare knew nothing else but him. Her whole world revolved around him; her days were either spent with him, or pining away for him until he returned. So it’s no surprise that Clare says “I wanted someone to love who would stay: stay and be there, always. And I wanted Henry to be in this child, so that when he was gone he wouldn’t be entirely gone, there would be a bit of him with me…insurance, in case of fire, flood, act of God.” Which funny enough, she does end up needing in the end. I suppose Henry participated at the time because at that particular moment he hadn’t really known for sure if they could or could not produce a baby. Although he does say “I know, without knowing, that this is very unlikely”. I believe that Clare couldn’t think rationally, or even objectively…so obsessed was she with having Henry, even if it was just a small tie to him. If mothering were her only objective, she could have adopted. But when Henry suggests it she says “But that would be fake. It would be pretending.” Maybe it was at this point that I really started to hate this book.

The present and future intersect frequently in the book. Often the result of these minglings is that information about the future is hinted at or revealed early but the actual experiences cannot be altered or prevented. If you could have known about the struggles you'd face on your path to parenthood, would you have wanted to know? Would you go back and warn or prepare yourself, even though you'd be powerless to change the outcome? Why or why not?

If I couldn’t change the outcome, then I wouldn’t want to know. I remember sitting in my RE’s office after the first failed cycle, having a real conversation after we finished with all the medical talk. I was saying that if someone could just tell me, “Look, this is never going to work so stop wasting your time”, I would have stopped in a heartbeat and went on to adoption. But as we all know, the siren song of IVF is strong. Each new cycle I thought “THIS is the time it’s going to work!”. But eventually we realized that it never would. So, even if I thought I could prepare myself for that awful journey, I don’t think I would have believed myself. I would have tried to change the outcome anyway. Clare is clearly very happy when she learns that eventually she has a baby, although she doesn’t know how many tries it will take. She has one further miscarriage, and there is no discussion of how she felt through it, so it’s unclear if was easier for her to bear than the others. No miscarriage is of course, but perhaps that glimmer of hope gave her the strength to try again.

Due to his ability to time travel and jumps into the future, Henry knows that he is going to die. Yet in the beginning, he works hard to try to create a baby with his wife. This situation obviously benefits Henry in that he gets to parent Alba for a bit before he dies. This situation also benefits Clare since she wants to be a mother. Yet Alba grows up without her father yet with his extraordinary abilities—abilities that were a difficult adjustment for Henry growing up. Do you think he acted in the best interests of his child when he helped create her knowing that he would not be around to help her understand her ability to time travel? Do you think it is truly possible to take the feelings of a child in mind prior to creation as well as fulfill your own need to parent? If you had been in Henry's shoes, would you have created this child knowing she would be able to time travel and you would not be there to help her understand this anomaly?

Throughout this whole story, I couldn’t help but think that Henry was hiding behind his “fate” theory, and engineering all these events out of pure selfishness. Or if not selfishness, his desperation to stay grounded in the present. To begin with, I don’t think he acted in the best interests of Clare. I think he could have withheld his identify from her when he came to her as a young girl. He didn’t have to supply her with the list of dates that caused her to spend her life waiting for their next encounter and essentially stealing her childhood. It was as if he were cementing his future by binding her to him from the very beginning. Although he gets a vasectomy, a time traveling self gets her pregnant anyway. Knowing what he is, and what could happen, he does it anyway. I think it is a necessity to take the feelings (and health!) of a child in mind prior to creation. Your desire to parent a biological child should never supercede their welfare. Even worse if you know you won’t be around to help them.

Take me out......

2007-04-09T12:03:00.000-07:00

....to the ballgame!

Happy Mets Opening Day!

Random Monday

2007-03-31T16:35:00.000-07:00

So seamonkey had his first swimming session. What a hoot. We changed him into his little swim shorts and were hanging around the pool waiting for our time to begin. We met the instructor and handed him over. I was a little disappointed in how they handled the first session – I would have hoped that he would have gotten out of the pool and talked to us first, but we just handed him down into the pool. Made me wonder how they assess the needs of new students. He clearly wasn't expecting a new student, let alone who was 6 months old. It ended up okay though. When we first handed him over the kid (the instructor can't be more than 19 years old) said “Now I’m going to warn you, he’s going to cry”. Uh yeah chief, that’s pretty much a given. And he didn’t just cry, he screamed, and I mean SCREAMED bloody murder for 10 minutes straight. I timed it. During those ten minutes another mother walked by me and said with a scrunchy face “Too young!!” Who asked you and mind your bidness!! But after 10 minutes, he seemed to suddenly realize that he was in one big giant bathtub, and oh hold on here people I LOVE THE BATHTUB. Much splashing and giggling ensued and we breathed a sigh of relief.

Anyway...., I’ve been meaning to tell you about something Melissa over at Stirrup Queens and Sperm Palace Jesters is doing. She has created an “Emoblopedia” (emotional blog encyclopedia) – which is a big collection of blog posts grouped by category – that deal with all the emotional issues surrounding infertility(and adoption) When you are feeling like you are crazy or alone, you can go to this reference guide and hear from all the folks who’ve been there-done that-bought the t-shirt- and have an opinion on the matter. I think it’s an awesome thing. I have a post or two in there (you just ask Mel to add one of your posts, it’s a snap) and I have already read through some of the amazing entries. Just one of the many great resources from this blog. So check it out. Submit an entry for inclusion. Tell your favorite blog authors which posts you think they should submit (any you think I should submit?). We all know that blogging has gotten us through the worst of times...this is another extension of that. A one-stop shop for your emotional bloggy needs!

And while you're there, check out Melissa's entry in the International Infertility Film Festival.

One last thing - the Feds are proposing a increase on filing fees for our beloved adoption paperwork. Just when you thought it couldn't get any more ridiculous - the rates are going up a whopping 66%. Your beloved I171H will now cost you $670. Carrie was nice enough to post about it, go here for more details. The deadline to make comments is today (Monday the 2nd), so if you have a chance, go tell them how ridiculous it is. This really burns my ass. All day I am exposed to young single mothers that have money practically THROWN at them from the federal government to have and care for their babies. Makes me ill.

Happy Monday.

Not much to say

2007-03-26T19:07:00.000-07:00

Now it's my turn to be lame. I don't know how you guys post so much. When I have the time, I have nothing interesting to say, and when I think of a post I have no time to write it. And you guys post so much by the time I check bloglines you've got 43 entries and I can't possibly comment on all of them! So I guess I need to stop being a comment whore, huh? I get it, everyone's got a life, be happy when they read you at all.

So today is a "have time but nothing to say" day, but I feel like I need to post something or you'll all desert me. Work is work - no funny stories lately. Although I did see someone on the subway today - a grown woman - wearing an aqua Tinkerbell backpack with the word "Mommy" embroidered across the back. I assume there is a matching one attached to a 5 year old somewhere? Please lady, you shouldn't wear that unless you're with the 5 year old. And even then - it's not as cute as you think it is.

Seamonkey is doing well. He had a little breakdown today - daddy didn't make sure he got his afternoon nap, so he was sleeping at mealtime and I had to wake him up. (Daddy conveniently left for a social engagement) Normally I wouldn't do that, but he didn't have his afternoon bottle either, so if I didn't wake him up there was going to be a 3am screamfest for food, and that can't happen to me on a schoolnight. I tried to get him to ease into being awake and I thought we were clear for a while there, but as soon as I put the bottle in his mouth he freaked out. Nothing I did helped. Held him, put him in the crib, sing, dance, nothing. Scream scream scream. Finally after a good half hour he called himself down and just started smiling and laughing. Psychotic I tell you. It's a good thing he's cute.

Speaking of cute...for some reason this week he found his feet and hands. A little behind at 6 months I think but whatever. I video taped him today holding his hands up in front of his face and moving his fingers and bending his arms, totally fascinated. The video shows him quietly observing, then me laughing, then him laughing at me laughing, then he gets all serious and looks at his hands again...round and round. It was so freaking funny. It was like he was stoned or on acid or something (not that I know about that stuff heh)..I was waiting for him to be like "Duuuuuudddeeee, look at all the coloooorrrrss" in a surfer dude voice or something. He found his feet too, and finds the need to munch them whenever he is on his back now. The verdict? Tasty:

Oh and guess what we did. We signed him up for swimming. I would say "swimming lessons" but I'm not sure there is much in the way of things to teach a 6 month old at this point. But he will now have one on one sessions with an instructor (young college kid) at this place for a half hour once a week until he's two. No seriously. We paid for enough sessions to get him through the next 15 months. It seems a little much, but really it ended up much cheaper that way, and if we opt out at some point, we only lose our deposit, which isn't much. But in reality I really want to keep him going. He really loves the bathtub. As in, he loves to have water literally dumped on his head, splashes like crazy and hates to come out. So I really want to keep him comfortable in the water. We live near the water, my dad has a boat and my husband surf fishes. It's really important to us that he learns to be comfortable and safe. The place didn't blink an eye about him being so young...in fact they encourage it, since apparently babies have a natural instinct for swimming and it's best to start them as young as possible. And seamonkey seemed fascinated by the place - didn't cry once seeing all those strangers in one place. It's crawling with kids, and check out the mural they have at the pool! I'll let you know how it goes.

Happy Monday

You can’t make this stuff up

2007-03-19T12:59:00.000-07:00

Its been an interesting few weeks here in starfish world. I thought I would document two of the more interesting happenings:

STORY ONE:
One evening, I left work at my usual time. I took my usual subway train to my usual stop. I proceeded to the usual track, and got on my usual train, three minutes before it’s due to leave at 6:07pm, and sat in my usual seat. I pulled out some knitting and settled into the blind oblivion that is my usual commute home. About 20 minutes later, after pulling out of another stop along the way, I hear the tail end of the automated conductor announcement say “…..the next stop is X Town”. Uh….hold on here. X Town is not on my train line. I look around, and no one else seems to be panicking. I look out the window…hmmm…this doesn’t look familiar. We pull into the next station, and the robotic voice says “This is the train to Yville. The next stop is “Zfield”. OH CRAP. I got on the wrong. freaking. train. Damn track changes. Gather up knitting and make way to the door. I am going to need to get off this eastbound train and take another train back west to the Hub Station so I can get on the right train. Hmmm…some of these stops are really small stations, there might not be a train going back west for some time. Hmmm…which stop to get off? The further east I go the longer it will take me to go back west. Hmmm. Crap. Okay, I’ll get off here.

Hmmm. This station appears to be right in the middle of a residential area. Let’s make our way over to the schedule board. Okay, it’s 6:39 now. The next train back west is….no. Please no. 7:25??? WTF!!!! Okay. Keep it together. Don’t cry. Oh SHIT. I left my blackberry home today in it’s charger. Can’t call home to tell them I’ll be late. Let’s try this pay phone. Doesn’t work. GREAT. Walk all over, up and around and can’t find another pay phone. See a cop car. Excuse me officers, can you tell me if there is a payphone around here? No? Gee thanks, sorry to have disturbed you sitting around BULLSHITTING. Go back up to platform. Sit down. Cry. Knit until the cold makes my fingers numb and it’s too dark to see. Board the 7:25 and get to Hub Station. Go to pay phone. Doesn’t work. *sigh*. Go upstairs and see two payphones. One is occupied. Second doesn’t work. *SIGH* Stand too close to person on occupied phone until he freaks out and gets off. Dial tone. Praise the Lord. Insert two quarters. Hear “50 cents please” Hit coin return with no luck. Operator comes on to tell me I owe 50 cents. I tell her I did. She starts to tell me to call the 1800 number. Completely lose my shit and scream into pay phone using words like “bullshit” and “second freaking time” and “1800 my ass”. Get connected to husband and tell him I’ll be late. Get on correct train and eventually get home. At 9:00pm

STORY TWO:
I am trying to hire a Director for my department. I came across an interesting resume from someone who worked at another company in my industry, who, if not for their very small size, would be considered a competitor. His experience was somewhat related to the position, but he deals more with outside relationships rather than inside, which is what this job requires. I figured maybe he wanted a change or something, so I asked him to come in for an interview. I started out as I usually do, explaining who I am, where this position fits in, and my expectations. This candidate, who I’ll call Joe (because he looked like an ex-boyfriend of mine with the same name) is asking me all kinds of strange detailed questions, and trying to scribble down my answers with the stub of a #2 pencil. Scrunching up his face every time I answer as if I’m speaking Chinese. He then starts to ask me about how often he’ll be dealing with the external clients. “You won’t” I say, “we have another unit that does that – you’ll deal with people internally, help resolve issues and support the people who deal with the external clients.” Another scrunched up face. “Hmmm…” he says as he leans way back in his chair. “I don’t know…Let me ask you your opinion, considering you’re a Vice President and all….If I want to be CEO someday, I’ll probably need this kind of experience?” He waves his hand over the job description to illustrate what he means by “this kind”. “Uhh….yeeeaaah. I don’t think that’s the right reason to take the job” I say. Before I can say anything further, he jumps in with “In any case, you are going to want me to talk to your external customers”. “No,” I reiterate, “I already said, there is no reason for you to talk with them, there is another unit that does that”. “Well, I’ll tell you right now, as soon as they know I work here, they are going to call me directly. They won't bother talking to that unit.” Now it’s my turn to scrunch up my face. “Why would THAT be??” I ask. “Well because I have connections. They know me.” I blink slowly for 10 seconds. Then I laugh. I’ve never laughed in a candidates face before. “Joe, our company is about 10 times bigger than yours. I think we've got a few relationships ourselves”. I got up and told him to show himself out. Did I mention that he looked like an ex-boyfriend? Did I also mention that a recent hire from his company told me the reason he's looking for a job is because he got FIRED from that company? YOU LOSE. GOOD DAY SIR.

Monthly update - Six Months Old

2007-03-13T19:24:00.000-07:00

Wow. This is all going really fast. Sometimes I think you are growing right before my eyes. At your last doctor's appointment you weighed 17lbs 10 oz and you grew another inch. You are one solid little boy. I can't imagine how I'm going to hold you when you're two. Sometimes I carry you upside down on my hip and chant "sack of potatoes, sack of potatoes". So far that makes you laugh.

You laugh alot more now. Big hearty giggles that crack us up. Sometimes you laugh when we do certain things, like when I sit you facing me on my lap, hold your hands and flip you slowly backwards. Sometimes you just burst out with a big guffaw for no reason at all. But I swear, there is no better sound I have ever heard in my life.

Conversely, you have started to make the worse sound I have ever heard. It's this whingy whiney groany "eeehhhhhh" sound. So. annoying. We can't figure out why you do it. You seem to be frustrated or uncomfortable or something but we can't figure out why. Please stop. If you continue to do this until and through your toddler years, I will surely go mad. For some reason, the highchair really sets you off. You immediately get fussy when you are put there. Feeding you, particularly in the evenings is really getting to be a chore. If you are really tired, you do the all out, red face, can't hardly catch your breath cry. The second I take you out, you stop. *sigh*. That is so not cool. I only get a few hours with you each night so let's make them good ones, okay? You and I, we're working it out. Slowly. You've begun stage 2 foods, but mostly just the fruits and veggies. You get a few spoons of the meat a day, but we're taking that very slowly. That stuff smells like regurgitated cat food, not sure how you can stand it.

Every day you get better control of your hands. It is amazing to watch you start to really use your fingers. We now have to move most things out of your reach when you are sitting on our laps at the table. You like to grab things and bang them really hard. The louder the noise the better. Grandma thought it was funny until you actually smashed a melanine bowl into many pieces. No more bowls for you. You can grasp a sippy cup really well, and you get the concept that you can drink from it, but we're still working on the concept of tilting the cup upward so you can get to the water.

Another great thing you have started to do, is to put your hands in my hair and pull my face into yours. You put your big wide open mouth on my face. I guess that's your version of a baby kiss? It kinda hurts most of the time because you've got a mean grip, but oh how I love it when you want to be close to me!

Your babbling is different now. Instead of just ooooo and aaaaaa sounds you are actually trying out your tongue and jaw. We now get lots of babababas and yayayayas. When you make those kinds of sounds I get glimpses of what your voice will sound like when you do talk. You also love to do raspberries, although you've been doing that for a while now. Not so cute when you do it with a mouthful of peas. Your face is maturing too...your hair is growing and you're losing some of that "baby look". We are so torn between wanting to see grow and progress and wanting you to stay little just a little longer. These months are flying by.

You sit up very well on your own now and only tip over once in a while. You like to sit up in the bathtub now, you can get maximum splash factor that way. We've just introduced small toys to you in the tub and you are loving it!

You seem to like tummy time alot better now, although mostly what you do is alternate between pushing yourself up on your arms and laying down and sucking your thumb. Those push ups apparently take alot out of you. We try to put toys in front of you to encourage you to start crawling, but mostly you just get so excited your legs move you backwards. You've got rolling over completely down now. In fact, you can roll from back to front AND front to back. We put you on a quilt on the floor and in no time you've rolled yourself right off of it.

You get up at about 7-7:30 each morning, which is good because I can say goodbye to you right before I leave for work. You do pretty well with your naps. You sleep about an hour in the morning and a good two to three hours in the afternoon. We find that if we put you in the middle of our king size bed for your afternoon nap, and put some classical music on the radio, you sleep pretty long. You still sleep with your hands up...we call it your Victory pose (another good day for seamonkey!)You take another catnap around 6, and go to bed around 9:30. The absolute best part of my day is having you fall asleep in my arms. I try to really concentrate on that moment, holding you tightly and breathing in your wonderful baby scent. I can't believe you are mine. We love you more every day.

The Not so Lame List

2007-03-12T18:46:00.000-07:00

Here is the final list of blog links! Thanks for participating, and sorry I had to resort to name calling, but hey, sometimes ya gotta do whatya gotta do. Remember this was all about supporting each other, so be sure to take some time and check out these great blogs. I've tried to include a little description to guide you; forgive me blog authors if I've got it wrong, sometimes it's hard to figure out.

Worth the Wait (Home with 2 from Russia)
B-Happy (Journey to #3, this time in Ethiopia)
The Chambers Adoption Process (Working on a domestic adoption)
Building a Family (Journey to Ethiopia)
Waiting for Sprout (Journey to China)
A Dad’s Journey through International Adoption (Journey to Russia)
Born in our hearts (Home with one from Russia, one Domestic)
Voice of the Voiceless(Journey to Russia)
Waiting for Brody (Journey to Guatemala)
Mei Mei Journal (Home from China)
My Diary of Triplet Fatherhood (Bio Triplets)
Waiting for Sophie (Home from China, Journey to Guatemala)
Anti-racist Parent (Joint blog)
Olive You (Journey to Russia)
Perky’s Perspective (Home with 2 from Russia)
Guatemalan Sisters (Home with 2 from Guatemala)
Two Moms Adopting (Home with one Domestic)
Family Found (Home with one from Ethiopa)
Praying them Home (3 bio, journey to Guatemala and Haiti)
2 more to love (2 bio, 2 twins from Vietnam)
“For I know the plans….” (Journey to Colombia)
Metrodad (1 bio)
Snips, Snails & Pigtails (3 bio, 1 domestic)
Looking for Grace( 4 bio, 1 on the way from Russia)
Karen Road Chronicles (2 bio)

And speaking of great blogs, I'm a big fan of Stirrup Queens and Sperm Palace Jesters these days. What a great resource and support community for infertiles of every circumstance (still trying, adoptive parents, child free). I've decided to join the Barren Bitches Book Brigade this go round, so look for my opinion on "The Time Traveler's Wife" in the coming weeks.

Off to sleep - this DST bullshit really screwed me up. People, I NEED my sleep. Between the loss of my precious much needed additional hour and the fact that my Microsoft Outlook Calendar has half of my meetings scheduled at the wrong time, I'm about to lose my mind. Only half though, so I don't really know for sure which ones are wrong. Seems like I just wander from conference room to conference room saying "are we meeting? now? oh ok, I'll come back". Stupid government. Stupid Microsoft. Stupid meetings.

*sigh* and it's only Monday.

On prayer...

2007-03-06T12:41:00.000-08:00

As we all know, when you go through something big, like say, infertility or the adoption process, you tend to think about God more than usual. I know it from experience, and I see it in the blogs I read every day.

Of particular interest is when bloggers ask readers to pray that some piece of paperwork gets there, or gets signed, or is overlooked…. or that some particularly nail-biting part of the process happens in our favor, quickly and without too much suffering. And when I read those words “pray for us” or “keep us in your prayers” - I always scrunch up my face and think “Don’t you know it doesn’t work like that?” I mean, really, if all it took was to just ASK God for something, wouldn’t we all be home with children by now, most by an uncomplicated pain-free natural birth? (And wouldn’t I be wearing size 4 jeans?) More mystifying yet is that we think that if A LOT of people ask ALL AT ONCE then God can’t help but listen? Do we really think that the Almighty can be swayed like that? Interesting concept, but I don’t think so. He’s much too smart for that.

When I went through my infertility treatments, I prayed a lot. Please God, I want this so badly, not just for myself, but for my husband and our families. Please God, I’ll be a good mother, you know I will. During our final treatment, I wore religious medals of Saint Gerard and the Virgin Mary. I said a novena specific to for those wishing to conceive. I visited a church near work and kneeled and prayed to Mary. Despite all that we got bad news yet again. Even though I knew in my heart it didn’t work that way. Silly rabbit, miracles are for kids.

So I don’t pray much anymore, not in the traditional sense anyway. If that sounds blasphemous, I don’t mean it that way. While I don’t go to church all that often, I do very much believe in God. We’ve settled our differences for the time being – as I’ve said before, I could hardly argue with the Guy who made it possible for Seamonkey to be sleeping in the crib in the former guest bedroom…. But basically, I’m like - if all this is up to him, what am I asking for? What’s the point? It even kind of bugs me now when people “waste” prayers on trivial things. As if praying about getting the nurse at your doctor’s office to notarize your letter by 4:00 somehow makes a difference. Maybe it’s a case of, “it didn’t work for me, so why should it work for you?”. Yeah that’s probably it. Well, I guess the bitterness of barrenness has never really left me, huh? Tell me something I didn’t know.

Anyway, I approach the whole God thing a little differently these days. I acknowledge Him in little odd moments –not sure how to explain that exactly – but I recognize His presence and acknowledge His hand in things. Like on a particularly beautiful sunny day at the beach, after a fun day laughing my guts out with cousins, or when my new son has fallen asleep in my arms. During those dark moments too – when someone has died or fallen ill, or when the news tells you nine more soldiers died today. I try to remember to say thank you for the good stuff, and for the bad stuff I pray for the strength to deal with whatever happens – whether it’s for me or someone else. It may not be enough, and I may have this all wrong, but it’s the best way I know to understand and cope with the unfair randomness of life.

So when you’re asking me to pray that your application gets approved or your pee stick turns the right shade of pink, know that what you’re really getting from me is my wish that you can handle the results whatever they turn out to be. But ‘crossing my fingers’? That I can do for you, sure. Toes too, no extra charge.

You guys are so lame

2007-03-02T06:30:00.000-08:00

Come on people, where is the love?

Thirteen of you commented on my last post, but only 7 people left blogs to share!

What the hell?

I know you're out there. I average over 100 hits a day, 200 after I post something new. Amazed? So am I! So, I am mystified as to why there is a lack of participation (and why I never seem to get too many comments). This is fun dammit! We all need to encourage each other to keep blogging - and the best way to do that is to let each other know that we actually READ what we WRITE.

Leave me a blog link or I will hunt you down and force you to watch my home movies. And lurkers...FINE YOU WIN. Just cut and paste a link in the comments, you don't have to say anything else!!!

Happy Blogiversary to Me!

2007-02-27T09:29:00.000-08:00

I can't believe it's been a whole year.

This time last year I decided to blog because we were officially starting the adoption process. Our lives had finally taken a positive turn, and there was hope for a family on the horizon. We were still undergoing infertility treatments, but somehow in our hearts we knew adoption was how we would finally realize our dream. Boy did we ever hit the jackpot. Seamonkey is all we dreamed of and more.

Jill was the first person to comment on my brand spanking new blog. She said: "congrats - we are also in the beginning steps - just did my I600A last week... looking forward to going on our journeys together!" And I'm happy to say we did just that - both of us did eventually get the elusive I600A, are now home with our beautiful new baby boys. We still keep in touch and I suppose we'll need each other's support more than ever now!. Perhaps some day we'll be able to do a play date, girl. You know, the kind where you and me go have a drink downtown and leave the kids with their dads? Yeah, that kind!

Blogging has been such a wonderful outlet for me. As I know it is with many of you, it is a way for me to process my thoughts...to vent to people who really understand me. It is amazing to get support from people who you've never met. Sometimes just getting a response or two telling me I'm not nuts was enough to get me through a particularly bad day. I thank you all for that...from those of you who have read this blog from the beginning, to the occaisonal commenters who chimed in when they had something useful to say, to the diehard lurkers - who even though I could never coerce them to comment, kept my stats up which encouraged me to keep posting.

So in honor of my blogiversary and of the support of cyber strangers everywhere, let's try a little something different, kay? Wanna?

Go right now and find another adoption or infertility blog out there that you've never read before (and preferably not one already on my blogroll). Easy enough to do, just do a little link hopping...click on a blog from my blogroll (over there on the sidebar ---- >) then click on a blog from their blogroll, then a blog from their blogroll, and so on and so on...keep going until you get at least six degrees of separation or so (I'm channeling Kevin Bacon here). Post the link in my comments and I'll update this entry with a list of some new blogs for us all to check out. Try to choose a blog you wouldn't normally gravitate to (like a different country/program) so we get some good diversity in the list.

If you'd like to have an alcoholic beverage to celebrate, I'll leave that up to you. But if you really want to honor me, make it cold and put alot of vodka in it

So leave a link, say hello, and if you want to say something nice about me and my blog, well that would be just fine too. Make me feel good and let's see how long we can make this list. And you lurkers - let's hear from you too, huh?

*UPDATE*
Here's what we've got so far! Give these bloggers a visit, and spread the support and bloggy love!!

Worth the Wait
B-Happy
The Chambers Adoption Process
Building a Family
Waiting for Sprout
A Dad’s Journey through International Adoption
Born in our hearts
Voice of the Voiceless
Karen Road Chronicles
Waiting for Brody
Mei Mei Journal
My Diary of Triplet Fatherhood
Waiting for Sophie
Anti-racist Parent
Olive You
Perky’s Perspective
Guatemalan Sisters
Two Moms Adopting

Monthly Update - Five months old

2007-02-24T06:48:00.000-08:00

Dear Seamonkey:

Holy cow how time flies! We can't believe how quickly you are growing from a baby into a little boy. Thankfully you still have your good natured personality. You still start every day with a smile. I took this picture of you this morning, after I heard you talking to yourself in your crib:

It seems that at first you babble on to yourself for your own entertainment, then it gets louder and louder, signaling to us that you've had enough and are ready to get up. Bath time continues to be hilarious, and I'm secretly hoping that maybe there's a swimming scholarship in there somewhere for you. You are on solid foods now, and there really isn't anything you won't eat. You even like peas! You do seem partial to sweet potatoes and pears though. We found a new treat you love - mangoes! We put it in the little net thingie for you to hold and you mash that sucker flat in no time! Of course afterwards you need a hose down.You are getting very fussy with your bottle, and seem to want it less and less now. We know you've had enough when you start babbling and playing with your tongue and getting milk everywhere. So, we decided to see how you would like a cup:
You love it! Now you pull at the glass anytime we are drinking something. Of course, you do get quite soaked but you thoroughly enjoy it. We are working on your sippy cup skills so that you can hold it and drink yourself. You do better each time...you get better control of your hands every day. Getting control of your legs is a different story. You kick your legs around all the time. If we put a motor on you, you'd be off like a flash. We try tummy time with you, but you're not a big fan. We keep trying anyway! You are almost ready to turn over:
You get most of the way over, but then decide it's too much trouble and roll back. Any day now you'll make that last little push!

You are fascinated with our cats. You squeal with delight anytime either one comes into sight. Lucy pretty much ignores you, but Willow is just as fascinated with you as you are of her. She sits right next to you and lets you touch her. When you are playing, she comes right over to see what all the fuss is about. Of course, we're very watchful when they are near, although we are very confident that they will not hurt you.

The family continues to adore you. You visit your dad's parents every Monday and they love you to death. Although Grandpa G is a complete baby hog. He likes to hold you in his rocking chair and doesn't like to give him up to anyone else. You are very relaxed with him and sometimes fall asleep on his lap. Uncle M is chomping at the bit to buy you tons of sports equipment. For now he's bought you your first Mets hat:

My mom is a typical grandma to you. She sneaks you treats when she thinks I'm not looking. She gave you a lollipop for Valentine's Day which you loved. You held it yourself in front of your mouth and kept sticking out your tonuge and lapping at it like a dog. We only let you have a few licks - we know grandma is crazy. You have a fascination with my dad. Grandpa N can get you to smile when no one else can. He's like your own personal clown. You get so excited when he's around you start jumping up and down. Speaking of jumping up and down, you love your jumperoo! You can be in that thing for hours and sometimes you exhaust yourself so much you fall asleep standing in it! It is hilarious to watch you jump and shriek and squeal. You seem to really like music. For some reason, anytime SpongeBob comes on, you stop dead in your tracks and stare at the tv, loving the theme song. Sometimes, if you are crying, we can get you to stop by singing "oooooohhhhh, who lives in a pineapple under the sea..." We also put children's music on for you and you listen very intently. You are partial to the Little Bunny Foo Foo song, especially when I do the hand movements for you.

You are definitely getting more fussy as your personality develops. Sometimes you'll start crying for what seems like no reason, and it is difficult to calm you down. It only lasts a short while, so we're not sure if you're starting to teethe, or are just releasing some pent up energy or what. It's okay though, we know it's part of growing up.

I have gone back to work and you are doing well being home with daddy. Dad can't wait for the weather to get warm so he can start taking walks with you and doing manly things. I can't wait to get home each day so I can squeeze you. When I first get home, you stare at me for a good long while as if to say "Hey, I know you...where've you been all day?" But thankfully you remember me pretty quickly, you let me feed you, play with you and put you to bed. Weekends are spent running around town, mostly to Target to buy you more diapers and more formula. You don't mind being in the stroller, but you are very quiet the whole time. Taking it all in I suppose. Oh but you definitely don't like putting your coat and hat on or off. That's always fun.

We can't believe that you will soon be six months old. We can't wait to see what you learn to do next. You continue to be the joy of our lives..we love you very much.

A little follow up

2007-02-24T04:30:00.000-08:00

Thanks for all your comments about my Breadwinner post. I want to make something clear though - I (we) are totally comfortable in our choice to have BT stay home. We don't really care what other people think, because we know this makes the most sense for our situation and for seamonkey's well being. You're right, it doesn't matter which parent gets to stay home.

The "issue" if there is one, is really about how he and I are settling into this new routine. What I am learning, is that there is some truth to the fact that there is never really a complete role reversal. Women, being women, just naturally do a little more than their share. Somteimes that pisses me off, and sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes, after coming home from a long day, I am disheartened to see the house a mess. This morning, I know I will have to spend a few hours getting things cleaned up or I'll go mad. Again, I don't think he's lazy or doing it intentionally...I think he just has to realize that this is part of the job.

The other part of this is communication. Trying to get my thoughts and feelings across without making him feel inferior, which displays itself as anger. I don't think he realized he would feel this way sometimes, but I know he does. And no offense to you stay at home moms out there, but it is a very different situation. I thought it would be similar, but I realize it isn't at all. I would guess that many of your working husbands don't complain much about cleaning because 1) they don't care so much 2) you would never leave such a mess. This is my biggest challenge so far. I've been able to say things like "Can you do me a favor and clean the bathroom today" and refrain from saying "or else things will start growing out of the toilet". And I know I have to realize, as Del aptly put it, "sometimes men don't see the same piles/messes we see" and girl, ain't it the truth! So I'll let you know how it goes as we progress here.

Anyway...I got another great little giftie from my secret pal:

It is a hilarious card and book. The front of the card says "Stuff that gets on my nerves more than it should: Slow people at the salad bar. The inside shows a the same slow woman with the beejezus scared out of her because someone shouted HOLY CRAP IT'S NOT A DECORATING CONTEST! I tell ya SBP, I laughed at loud at that one, and maybe because I may have on some occasion uttered those exact words. The book is entitled "Women of Substance - A Collection of Estrogen-Rich Cartoons by Revilo. Hilarious cartoons about being a woman. I've cut a few out already! Whoever you are, you get me! Thanks very much!

White or Whole Wheat?

2007-02-20T11:00:00.000-08:00

I’m not really surprised that I’m the breadwinner. If you told me that I’d end up this way back when I was in college, I wouldn’t have batted an eyelash. I've always been the ambitious sort. It's my creative mind and inquisitive nature that makes figuring things out and solving problems a welcome challenge. So with any job I've had, I get very passionate about doing things accurately and efficiently. My type A personality gets people to listen to me and take me seriously, so I am able to lead projects and people pretty well. And all that naturally makes bosses happy. And we all know what happens when you do a good job - you get more work. No good deed goes unpunished as it were. So I've been able to make my way up the corporate ladder kind of by default. Before I knew it, I was on a pretty high rung and lo and behold what started out as a job has become a career.

BT on the other hand, has never really been interested in a career. He had a very good job before Seamonkey came along, but he was never looking to build any empires. He was satisfied to never have to manage anyone, and was never interested in climbing up the corporate ladder even if it meant more prestige or more money. One might think I would be turned off by his lack of ambition, but weirdly enough he is a nice ying to my yang. He keeps me grounded and makes sure I do fun stuff too. He is also more of a nurturer than I am. He loves to cook big elaborate meals, preferably something he’s never tried before, and serve them to family and friends. He likes things clean and orderly (and may have an unnatural addiction to cleaning products and organizer bins). He is kind and extremely sensitive, and genuinely the most considerate person I know (how on earth he ever married me will always be a mystery (even he doesn’t know) but that’s fodder for another post). In any case, he clearly makes the better stay at home parent, and I am clearly more suited to working. That, and my paycheck was (much) bigger. So here we are.

I’ve been back to work for three weeks now. So far, I don’t feel like I’m missing anything at home. Seamonkey pretty much eats and sleeps all day, with a little play time thrown in. He hasn’t done anything monumental in my absence. I don’t totally resent BT being home at this point. He is often up and awake before I am. He warms up my car and makes my lunch, and reminds me of anything important I need to know for the day. Other than maybe some mismatched outfits, he does a purty darned good job of taking care of the boy. He also makes sure I get plenty of bonding time with the boy when I get home.

It’s always interesting when people ask me who is taking care of the baby while I’m at work. Depending upon the gender and age of the person, I get a whole range of reactions. Interestingly enough, the Fish just returned from maternity leave. She has a decently prominent position here, and I would guess that her salary is relatively close to mine (I hope not too close, but whatever). I haven’t met her husband but from what I hear he is also at a similar level. She has hired a nanny so that both of them can return to work. She asked me if I’d hired someone yet. Laughing, I said, “Yes, my husband”. Instead of calling me crazy in her snide back handed condescending way as I expected, she was actually trying to justify herself to me. I thought that was funny. So I just sat there and smirked at her and watched her squirm. (there I go, being all nasty and RUDE again – bring it, trolls). Truthfully, I could care less about her choices. Though I may not agree with her situation (I’m pretty sure they both don’t HAVE to work and her back peddling kind of confirms that), it’s her business, not mine.

I have been recently trying to connect with other Breadwinning moms. Other than my new friend Margie P, I haven’t found too many out there. I’ve done some internet research on the whole woman breadwinner thing, but all I find is a lot of crap. There are a lot of useless surveys and studies out there that overthink this concept to death. I wasn’t sure what to make of this article – I think it’s saying that most women who think they are breadwinners really aren’t, because either (1) it’s just temporary so don’t go having any sense of accomplishment, if your husband wasn’t such a failure you wouldn’t be in this position, and once he gets his act together you’ll be back to being inferior (2) good news – your husband thinks you’re his equal – bad news – equal means you have to do your share of housecleaning and child rearing while working full time or (3) you do have the gender role reversal thing going full force, but that not only makes you a radical feminist, the number of you out there are too statistically insignificant to matter to anyone. A better article is this one, and kind of sums up what I’ve been feeling as of late.

We are still finding our way with a routine, and with expectations of each other during this new phase of our lives. I find myself walking on eggshells if something is bothering me about what he’s done (or not done) at home. I would imagine it’s hard enough for a man to be in this situation. Although he is happy with our arrangement, it still isn’t a widely accepted practice, (especially with other men!) and I don’t want to ever insult him or make him feel inferior. It’s something I’ve always had difficulty balancing, now made worse by the necessity of the role reversal. I know he is generally proud of me but sometimes I’m a little too much for him. There have been times when I have expressed a particularly feminist opinion and he retorts “I am woman hear me roar” accompanied by a nice big eye roll. However, I feel like I need to (and should) say something if I’m not happy, otherwise it will just build up and I’ll eventually explode. I would just like to see more things being done over the course of the week so that our weekend time can be focused on family time. It’s stupid little things, like mail piles, and laundry baskets, and closet space and other things that in the scheme of things mean absolutely nothing. I try to ask myself if my expectations are unreasonable, but at this point, with seamonkey being so little and mostly stationary, I don’t think so. I’m thinking now is the time, because he is so little, and the weather is so cold, that more time could be spent getting bigger projects out of the way so when it gets warmer and the baby is more interactive, he can go out and do manly stuff with him all day long. It’s not like I’m totally unwilling to help either. I will gladly work together with him, but every weekend we are off doing something or other so there usually isn’t time. I don’t think BT is lazy or inconsiderate…I just, well, I don’t know what the issue is really. I guess the day can just get away from you. *Sigh* just venting I guess. Not complaining…we have things really good, and we are very lucky that one of us can stay home.

So give me some hope here… I’d be interested in knowing how you other SAH households have adjusted. Did you just naturally fall into a rhythm of who would do what, or was it somewhat difficult to come to agreement on things?

and the greatest of these is Love

2007-02-13T19:21:00.000-08:00

So how is it?

2007-02-12T07:37:00.000-08:00

That is the number one question I get asked about being a new mom.

My standard short response is “Awesome”. At this point, the conversation can go one of several ways:

1. The person (woman) says “great” and walks away.
Translation: Screw you my kids were/are nightmares and I don’t want to hear happy stories.

2. The person (man) says “great” and walks away.
Translation: This is woman talk and I will not participate lest it morph into discussions of menstrual cramps and brownie recipes.

3. The person says “Yes, isn’t it?! Do you have pictures?”
Translation: I have no kids so I have no clue but I think other people’s are real cute as long as I don’t have to hold them for too long.

4. The person says “I know! My little Billy is so amazing! He can roll over already and he’s only 3 months old! He can speak two languages and likes to eat mangoes and he just makes the cutest little face when you read him poetry and blah blah yada yada blabber blabber .. Translation: Somebody get me a life.

5. The person says “Congratulations, I’m so happy for you. What’s his name?”
Translation: I am a normal human being with relatively well-adjusted kids of my own, we don’t need to talk endlessly about our kids, tell me his name and I’ll ask about him from time to time.

Needless to say, I try to surround myself with a lot of #5’s.

I also get asked “Getting any sleep?” accompanied by a smug know-it-all-grin. I hate to break it to y’all, but yes, I am. The boy sleeps all night, every night, pretty faithfully since we’ve had him. And if this discontinues because everyone keeps making me say that out loud thereby pissing off all the Gods of Baby Sleep, then I will very angry. And tired. And very. Very. cranky. Don’t make me go there.

In other ranting, what is up with people and baby gifts? It's not the ugly clothes that get me, or even the cheap stuff. I understand that not everyone has good taste or alot of money, and in general I truly appreciate any acknowledgement of the boy's arrival. It's just that I don't get what some people are thinking when they give gifts. Why don't people always include gift receipts?? I have a ton of stuff that totally doesn't fit him or is well, okay, too ugly for my tastes and now I don't know what to do with them. And people, please consider his general SIZE. I can pretty much guarantee he won't be wearing that adorable fuzzy bear snow outfit with cute little ears on the hood in MAY because you bought a size 9 MONTHS. Of course my SIL pulled this classic move -when we first came home, she told us over and over how she bought an adorable outfit with a snowman on it, but she thinks it's too big because it's size 9 months (he was 4 months at the time). Despite my repeated replies, that YES it's too big and NO he won't be able to wear it, she gave it to us anyway, and so far she hasn't produced a receipt, so it's still sitting in a bag in our living room. Don't even get me started on her...okay wait just one more story...

We told everyone that we did NOT want a packnplay - we didn't think it was necessary given our particular lifestyle - but we registered for a very small one anyway, as people were complaining there weren't enough items on my registry (our families are very big). I was very particular about it, because most of them are too big and have too many unnecessary fancy thingamabobs attached. If I had to have one, I wanted small, simple and plain. I was also thinking that if we didn't get it as a gift we wouldn't buy one at all. So, needless to say, on Christmas SIL gets us a different PNP than the one we registered for (actually it was supposedly from my niece but it was clear who's idea the whole thing was), and while we were very appreciative, we said very nicely that we weren't sure if we were going to even have one at all. No problem she said, you can always use the money at BRU and get something you do want. Because the box is big, we left it at our in-laws house. The next week when we are there, lo and behold the thing is out of the box and all set up. SIL insisted that we just see what it looked like set up, as if the picture on the box weren't enough, or as if I'm too stupid to be able to visualize. She felt that we should keep it at my MILs house for when we are there, or if he stays over. First, seamonkey will NEVER be staying over night there. My in-laws, while they are the most wonderful and loving people ever, they are in their late 70's and are too old to babysit a small child. They both have a variety of ailments that would make it very difficult for them (my FIL is in denial but my MIL knows she couldn't do it and I would never put her under that kind of pressure). Second, my in- laws have a TINY little cape and the thing now takes over half of their living room. But, SIL has forced it upon everyone and now there it sits. So ridiculous.

Okay. That's enough. I'm trying to be nice now that I'm a mom and have to set a good example. Did I mention that the way she talks baby talk to him gets on my nerves too? Please woman, stop with the "blankie" and "ba ba". He's a genius and he's going to Harvard, so let's act accordingly. Okay enough. Really.

Thanks for all the kind words on my last post. I know it was shameless self promotion - but we all need compliments once in a while, even if we have to fish for them ourselves. If I had my way, I would win Megamillions and be able to quit my job and pursue my arts and craftiness full time. However, Pampers and Similac ain't cheap, so I have to settle for having it as a hobby. I do have plans to make some decorative things (picture frames, treasure boxes) and sell them online somehow, so keep an eye out for that at some point. Of course, I do all this stuff free for family and friends, and despite how busy I am, if anyone asks I rarely say no. I'm in it for the craft not the money.

Lastly, a big THANK YOU to my secret pal! Sorry I'm so late with this acknowledgement (I am the worst with timely thank yous) I have no excuse. But a few weeks ago I came home to a little box that was chock full of CHOCOLATE! Hello? Could you have gotten me a better gift? You rock whoever you are!

Jardín de Los Pulpos

2007-02-11T10:22:00.000-08:00

So here's what I 've been doing when I haven't been working, or spending time with the Seamonkey. I warn you, if you are one who doesn't like themed baby rooms, look away now, lest your retinas get scorched out of your head. Don't say I didn't warn you.

As you will see, the theme is "Octopus' Garden". All murals done by yours truly. Bedding is the sea creatures stuff from BRU, some of it modified - dust ruffle is now little curtains for the changing table shelves, the tab valences were modified to better fit the windows.

My favorite thing in the room is the Octopus Chair from Babystyle.
I still need to finish the curtain for this window and fix this valence. Notice the top of his dresser has "vintage" toys. These toys, including the Fisher Price corn popper, medical kit, stack rings, xylophone, and phone. All of these were actually mine when I was little. An older cousin, who inherited them for her kids, gave them back to me at my shower. I can't wait for Seamonkey to play with them - and I've promised to hand them down to another family member when he out grows them!
Main mural above his crib. The flag has his name on it.

Fish & seahorse, images from the bedding.
Closet wall, blank space is for a picture frame.
I think the boy likes it!

The Nightmare Express

2007-02-05T08:52:00.000-08:00

Hey - long time no post, I know. Thinks are fine here at Chez Starfish, although very busy. I have several thoughtful and witty posts in the making, and I hope to share them with you very soon. In the meantime, I give you the following post, written on my blackberry last Friday evening:

As I write this I am sitting on commuter train. A normal occurrence at this time of day (the 6:07 eastbound that usually arrives at my station at 6:50) except for the fact that we are not moving currently and it doesn't look like we will be any time soon. It seems as though there is a train 5 trains ahead of us that has a downed power line on top of it. We were moving rather slowly for a good while, but now are stopped dead between stations. It is now 7:20.

I've tried to read my book, but I am entirely distracted by the social experiment unfolding before me. Anyone want to guess how long it takes before a group of about 75 confined adults start collectively flipping out? Anyone? Beuller? Answer: about 23 Minutes. Here is a little of what is currently going on around me:

Update 7:26
Each time an announcement is made (of the may-I-have-your-attention-we-have-no-further-information variety) it is preceded by several pleasant tones to alert all the friendly passengers that a Message is coming forthwith. Somehow people can't seem to grasp this concept so each time the tones sound it is followed by a full 30 seconds of SHHHHHing that prevents us from hearing that they don't know anything.

After said announcement everyone immediately gets on their cell phone to tell one or more (usually more) loved ones that no, we haven't moved yet and no we don't know when we will move.

Update 7:42
They are trying to figure out if they can restore third rail power and if so determine which direction we'll move - east toward home or west back to a hub station. Please stand by.

There is a woman to my left who has the most annoying voice on the planet (think Janice from Friends) who doesn't know the appropriate decibel level in which to converse on a cell phone. She is alternately talking to two children and a husband so with every announecement I have to hear the same thing repeated loudly three times. It is apparently also her birthday. While I can sympathize with spending your birthday in a hot stuffy train car on a rainy friday night (did I mention its pouring out?) I wish she would stop telling her family over and over that she has decided to reschedule it for another day. It sucks. We get it. She is also apparently an engineer, because she knows exactly what the railroad folks shjould be doing to rectify the situation (I just sneezed and she said God Bless you - thank you but you're still annoying). Lots of "Why can't they just do X? Or Y? They should just Z and get us out of here already. Why don't they have procedures in place?" THERE IS NO POWER LADY. Let them take all the time they need to make sure I don't get electrocuted when I finally get out of this crazy tin can.

Update 7:55
There are lights on in the train but no air blowing. It is getting pretty stifling in here from all the body heat. The woman to my right just busted out a bag of doritos. At first I was jealous because its late and I am hungry. However after smelling her warm dorito breath for the last 5 minutes I want to gag.

Update 7:57
They just announced that passengers need to stay on the train. Apparently some have managed to escape (I guess from the gap between train cars). They are now walking on the tracks where they are trying to restore power to the THIRD RAIL. Now I don't know if it was just done in our part of the country but I distinctly remember seeing the This-is-what-happens-when-you-mess-with-trains video in school, complete with fried body parts. Why would you be stupid enough to step out on the tracks? And did I mention that it is pouring out? Electricity, water? Hello? We are now waiting for the police to come and get these morons (termed "self evacuees") and hopefully use them to test the successfulness of powering up that rail they know so little about. They will not proceed with attempting to get the power up until the idiots can all be rounded up.

Update 8:06
We are assured the police are on the scene now. We can't see any police out of the fogged up windows but we did just see one of those rogue passengers walk by on a cell phone. Not sure where he thinks he's going. I don't know that there is any outlet on this raised track between our train and the one stuck behind us. I hope he's calling his lawyer.

Update 8:08
Thank God for blackberries, at least it gives me something to do. After having enough of Mrs Annoying and her incessant complaining, I finally said out loud "I don't know what you expect them to do with NO POWER". She's been keeping pretty quiet since then, although she's now talking to her seatmate non-stop and I'm pretty sure her ear is hanging on by a mere thread.

Update 8:10
They may get a diesel train to come along side us and do an evacuation. Unclear what that means. Where will the diesel train evacuate us to? And will the train pick up the passengers from all 6 dead trains? I am starving now. I have resorted to rifling through my bag for bits of breath mints that may be lingering at the bottom. No luck yet.

Update 8:21
They think that all morons have been ~~executed~~ dealt with. They may proceed with "re-electrification". I also have to pee.

Update 8:31
Moron roundup mostly confirmed. They will proceed with "re-energizing". Once it is confirmed that power did come on (and no morons were fried in the process) we will proceed with plans to maybe go back the way we came. My stomach is growling audibly.

Update 8:48
Like Bruce Almighty, we got the power. Air and lights on, at least I can breathe. We should be going back west soon, they think. They may make an interim stop somewhere between here and the hub station. And my dad will try and pick me up. Interim station is located in ghetto-like neighborhood and father has tendecies to get seriously lost so not sure if waiting there for him is the best idea. But I need to get off. This. Train.

Update 8:54
Moving west at a "reduced speed for safety reasons".

Update 9:14
Off the traion at interim station. Standing on the sidewalk on busy urban sreet. I've got the fresh air I craved but now I'm freezing. Its windy and rainy - me and a bunch of about 20 random people are huddled under the train tressel trying to stay dry - both from the rain and from the passing cars going through puddles. I want my mommy. Now I really have to pee. I'm about to start the peepee dance. A phone call to dad indicates he's about 10 minutes away.

Update 9:46
Dad is lost despite navigation system. Fingers frozen. Somebody shoot me.

Update 10:03
Sitting in dads truck thawing. Once fingers thaw I will show him how to use the navigation system....or beat him over the head with it.

Update 10:32
Dad dropped me off to get my car in the station parking lot. Almost home.

Update 10:39
Sitting in my driveway. My house never looked so beautiful. My son's window is dark. Since the day we got him, this is the first time I've not seen him in an entire day.

Update 11:28
Greeted by my husband and presented with an awesome homemade meal. Pulled pork sandwich, roasted string beans, cole slaw and twice baked potato with bacon and cheese. I told him if I wasn't so dang tired I would throw him down on the floor and give him some good loving right there (he took a rain check). He tried to keep the baby up to say goodnight but the little guy couldn't hang in there any more. Took a hot shower and about to go to bed. Turned off the alarm clock. Don't wake me in the morning.

Some Random Things

2007-01-19T07:42:00.000-08:00

Would all of you do me a favor?

Could you please remove my real first name from your blog links? Many of you link to me with my first name. When referring to me, either on your blog or in my comments, please don't use real names! Please use the "Starfish" name. Also, I won't be using the boy's real name any more either. Since I frequently call him "Monkey" at home, I'll now refer to him as Seamonkey. My husband will be Big Tuna (yes, a nod to my other love, Jim Halpert).

Nothing happened, I just would feel more comfortable if I was a little less obvious.

Did I tell you that The Fish had her baby? When I saw his full name, I realized that it is something you want to say with your teeth clenched, your lower jaw thrust out while wearing plaid pants at a polo match (think Thurston Howell the Third). It was bad enough that she sent an email out to all the executives when he was born. Worse yet when she sent pictures. But the icing on the cake was when she brought him in yesterday, in the rain/snow at only 5 weeks old. This is me rolling my eyes. I would never presume that people want to goo and gah over my new son. He is a big deal to me right now, but to my co-workers, not so much, and I get that. I'm not the only person on the planet who's ever had a baby. And I don't need to shove him down the throats of the Good Old Boys who run this place. Makes you look like a silly woman. Save the squeaky voices for when you're with your own family and friends. So I didn't get to see him (oh well), but I was told he was dragged around "like a sack of flour" while he cried the whole time. Wow, that sounds pretty heartless of me, huh?

Anyway.

Nothing new to report...trying to get through the day so I can spend two whole days gooing and gahing over my boy. Have a great weekend everyone. I leave you with a book meme; I've been tagged by Julie.

1) Find the nearest book
2) Open to page 123
3) Type lines 6-8 of said book
4) Tag three others

That wakes her up most of the way, because it scares her. What is he
Saying? That he wants to break up?
"Scott?" She fumbles on the floor, comes up with her Timex, squints

Stephen K1ng, "L1sey's Story". Play along if you'd like.

Starfish Out.

Babies don't give you brain cells

2007-01-16T13:01:00.000-08:00

Why is it that when you become a mother, you suddenly think you are the wisest person who ever lived?

So I'm in Target this weekend, standing shoulder to shoulder with my husband as we stare up at the massive shelving of Pampers. There's apparently a sale. We're trying to figure out exactly which ones are on sale, and where they are located. It would be nice if the little SALE! tags sticking out of the shelves actually matched up with the contents sitting upon them, but we realize this is too much to ask. We are also trying to decide how many, and which size to get, as the boy will surely grow out of size 2's by the time we finish the massive crate of diapers we already have. We stare. We grimace. We blink. We scratch our chins as we contemplate.

What to do.

But LO! We are saved. Along comes Miss I-must-talk-to-complete-strangers-and-impart-my-useless-knowledge-upon-them. She insists on getting in the middle of our debate to tell us exactly what we should do. But first, she must get a good look at the boy and assess. Then she must ask us many important questions, including "How wide are his hips?" HUH? How do you even answer that question?? How wide, as in inches? Was I supposed to measure them? Compare them to other 4 month olds? Is there a chart of hip width somewhere that I don't know about?? And anyway Lady I WASN'T EVEN TALKING TO YOU. So I kind of blink at her and say something like I don't know, they're normal hips I guess...but if you compare his weight to the weight written on the packa--

"THAT MEANS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING".

"Excuse me?", I say with my eyebrows raised; wondering why this total stranger just (1) totally cut me off midsentence (2) in a raised voice (3) while intimating I am an idiot. And then she said something that made me want to punch her lights out.

"Is this your first?"

Translation: This must be your first child because you obviously have no clue what you are talking about or you wouldn't have uttered such a stupid thing. Silly child, I must now be condecending to you and impart all of my wonderous knowledge to you so that you will no longer flounder in the darkness.

Seriously, I wanted to hit her. After all the crap I've had to figure out to even get to the point of standing in the diaper aisle of Target, I THINK I can evenutally figure out which ones to buy. For goodness sakes lady, you only have TWO kids, it's not like you diaper kids for a living. Oh and by the way - the genius said she can tell just by looking at him that he's going to be tall like me. My husband snorted out loud at that one.

But to be fair, I have already found myself thinking that I know better than some other moms out there. Our friend has a 6 month old that won't sleep through the night and is really fat. I mean fat, not chubby...FAT. In my professional opinion, they feed her too often and pick her up if she makes the slightest noise at night. My cousin has twin boys who have bad sleeping habits, and since I am an expert, I know all the things she should be doing. After all, MY boy sleeps through the night!

Difference with me is, I keep my thoughts to myself.

Mostly.

What's the dumbest thing another mom has said to YOU?

Cause I'm a wo-man. W-O-M-A-N. I'll say it again.

2007-01-12T11:02:00.000-08:00

Guess where I am.

At work.

Bleah.

I am officially back to work and our new life routine begins now. Coming back wasn't so bad. I think it was time....I mean, no time is good to leave your new baby, but now was as good a time as any. I am the kind of person who tends to procrastinate, so while I was home I was sleeping late, showering late, and doing not much more than playing with the baby and watching tv while he slept. That kind of routine can get depressing real fast for someone like me. Getting back into society and "real life" is good for my mental health. It's okay to feel that way, right?

The boy is in good hands. My husband officially quit is job last week and is now a full time stay at home Dad. He'll be great. I have no doubt he will be properly fed, clothed and entertained. Well, maybe using the word "properly" is giving him too much credit; I'm thinking of somehow coding his clothes so that daddy knows what matches what - ala Garanimals (okay fess up, who remembers those). And watching the military channel followed by a visit to the tackle store is not exactly my idea of entertainment, but whatever. But of course, I want to be with them too. I don't want to miss anything. I want to squish those cheeks and hear that giggle all day. I want to watch him sleep. But alas, someone needs to bring home the Pampers buying bacon so we can start saving for Harvard. There's big expectations for me, I hope I can meet them.

I have a new job. Did I tell you that? Right before I left I got a kinda big promotion to head a department that is in desperate need of revamping. Apparently I'm their woman. So back in November, I thought I would be starting my new position on December 1st. Then we got THE CALL. So everything was put on hold. Now I'm jumping in to my new role. It's exciting and nerve wracking at the same time. There's big expectations for me, I hope I can meet them.

Are you starting to see a theme here?

I still don't sleep well. I thought that at least for the first few months (until I start worrying about chicken pox, missing pet snakes and the like) I would fall blissfully asleep in a heap of contentment. After all, my dream has finally come true. But bad sleep continues. I have really weird dreams. I keep thinking that the cats under the covers are the baby and I'm squishing him. Then the worst.... in those awful moments between sleep and awake - that kind of hazy befuddled state, I have been feeling panic that I can't explain. Is there a problem with the baby? Is he hurt, missing? No. Is it someone else? My husband? My parents? Have I forgotten something important I need to do? No. I wake up not knowing exactly what my problem is. My brows seem to be permanently furrowed. The only thing that makes it go away is to wake up fully and see that life's okay. I guess that's normal. Have you ever experienced anything like that? Tell me I'm not nuts.

Anyway...no one knows I'm really back yet. They all think I'm coming in on Tuesday. I snuck in to clean out my mail box and go through all my emails and voicemails. We get to leave at 3 today in preparation for the long weekend. It is 2:37 right now and I'm counting the minutes until I can be back on that train home...

Editors Note: My last post was meant for my knitting blog - stupid me posted it here instead. But thanks for all your kind comments on my knitting!

Getting back in the groove

2007-01-10T09:14:00.000-08:00

Well, I'm back from all the big adventures. Believe it or not, with three weeks waiting around in Colombia, I hardly did any knitting. Who can knit when you have this adorable little thing to play with:

Now that we are back home, I am starting to think about all the little things I want to knit him. We like to dress him in real little boy clothes, not baby stuff. I didn't think I'd be so picky about his clothes, but I am! This has really made me rethink the stuff I knit for gifts. I don't think I'll be doing any more powder blue babyish stuff anymore. Take his hat...it's the first thing I have made for him since he's been home. He has a green and gray hoodie sweater from his aunt, so I made this to match. Ain't it just the cutest? Here's the details:

Pattern: Max's first hat
Source: The yarn girls' guide to kid knits

Yarn: Bernat chunky in gray (less than 1 skein) with a little green and blue

Mods: This is not the right yarn for the pattern, so I cast on 22 stitches with size 10.5 needles (8's for the ribbing), which fits his head perfectly.
Comments: Great, easy, quick pattern. Someday I'll learn to step away from the acrylic and go with natural fibers. This would be even better with a nice cotton/wool blend.

Also, see the cute little fuzzy black cat the boy is holding? That adorable little toy was knit by the amazing Del. We had this wonderful little package waiting for us when we got home. Thank you Del, it is really great. Thank you so much for thinking of us, it is truly appreciated. And the boy thinks it's pretty ~~good~~ tasty too.

Now I am crocheting a new christening blanket. The one I had done previously (and almost finished too) was too lacy and stretched out of shape too much. I have a smaller, more dense pattern in the works.

Thank you to all of my knitting friends who have followed my adoption story. It has been great sharing the experience with all of you! I'm sorry that I haven't been keeping up with your blogs as much as I should have. I promise to get caught up and to start commenting regularly again!

Monthly Update - Four Months Old

2007-01-05T15:34:00.000-08:00

Dear Little Monkey:

We have had you home for a little over 2 weeks now. It's hard to believe that you turned 4 months old on New Year's Day. Well, actually I guess it's not, since every time we get you out of your crib in the morning you look like you've gained another pound and grown another inch. You've changed so much in just a short amount of time.

The biggest difference (besides how much bigger you are) is that you seem to have much better control of your hands. When we first met you, you could barely hold something in your hand. Now you can reach for things, grab them, and (of course) stick them in your mouth. You seem to have a fondness for the hair at the back of mommy's neck too, OUCH. We are trying to find you some good toys for you to hold - many are too big and heavy for you now. Right now you play with some plastic chain links and a little bunny blanket toy that you suck on so much it gets soaked! You have a Sesame Street Excersaucer thing, but you only last about 15 minutes in there before you want to come out.

You are a constant source of entertainment, and crack us up on a daily basis. You make the funniest faces, especially when you are trying to concentrate on something. You are still your smiley self and still very talkative. When you are alone you like to amuse yourself by having a conversation with no one. We have a feeling that once you start with real words we won't be able to get you to stop. You do a great job of pulling your self up to a sitting position while holding our hands. You can even pull yourself up to a standing position and seem to like that best. I think this might mean you will be walking sooner than later! We have been placing you on your stomach more often so that you can get stronger and learn to roll over. You do alot of grunting and moving around, but you don't really get anywhere yet. After a few minutes you'll put your head down and suck your thumb to rest a bit, and then pop up again for another round of activity.

You LOVE the bathtub. You kick your legs and arms around so much that the tub gets filled with bubbles. You don't even mind when you splash yourself in the face, which is very often. You don't like getting dressed too much though...especially putting your shirt on. No matter how quick or gentle we are, you just don't like having to put your arms through the holes. Double crankiness if we have to take your thumb out of your mouth to do it.

You nap an average of twice a day...once in the morning and again in the early afternoon. You like to sit in the bouncy chair or bumbo seat and hang out with us while we watch tv or clean. We were thinking of changing your name to Linus because you really love your blankets when you are hanging out in your chair. You don't seem to be attached to any particular one, but you like to have them on you. You try to suck your thumb and hold the edge of the blanket with the remaining fingers. Sometimes you get frustrated when you can't get it positioned exactly how you like it. Your other hand holds the blanket close to your face just like Linus does. We know this will probably cause us grief later on when you can't live without a blanket, but it makes you happy and you look so darn cute, so what can we do?

We've taken you out a few times in the stroller, and you like it just as much as you did in Colombia, although you seemed to be a little taken aback by the cold. You don't mind a bit when we put a blanket over your face to block the wind. You do well in stores, you seem fascinated by all the interesting things to look at. The other day in the bookstore, you were talking so loud that Daddy heard you all the way from the other end. You were cracking us up!

Yesterday we took you for your first pediatrician appointment at Dr. Jetter's office. You were very smiley and active. You loved being half naked on the examining table...your arms and legs were going a mile a minute and you were laughing alot. You had a good check up and only cried for a little bit when you got two immunizations in your little chubby legs. At this visit you weighed 14 pounds 12 ounces and you were 24 and half inches long. She also gave us the green light to start you on solid foods!

We've started giving you rice cereal twice a day and it is quite the funny sight to see. At first you cried, angry that we decided to put some pasty gruel in your mouth. We learned to give you the bottle first to fill you up some. In the beginning you pushed most of it right back out onto your chin and chest, but now you are slowly getting used to the spoon. Now you look like a little baby bird...opening up your little mouth really wide for the next bite. You make quite a mess too. Especially when you decide to put your hand in your mouth in the middle of the feeding. Cereal everywhere.

You still sleep very well. We only feed you four times a day and skip your two night feedings because you sleep through them. We put you down at about 9 at night and you get up anywhere between 7:30 and 8:30 am. You move around quite a bit during the night, sometimes when we go to get you, you are facing the opposite direction of where you started. And most times you've kicked your blanket off too. But almost every morning when we say "Good Morning" to you, you smile really big, which certainly starts our day off right!

We are very much enjoying our time with you these last few weeks. It is very hard to put you down because we love to hug and kiss you all day long. Good thing you don't seem to mind. We can't wait to see what new changes await us in the coming weeks.

We love you very much.

Season's Greetings

2006-12-23T18:18:00.000-08:00

This is our Christmas Card this year, and I'd like to share it with all of you.

This gorgeous card was created by the wonderful Julie. She has a similar card this year with pictures of her gorgeous new son, and when I admired it, she told me that she designed it herself! I think you will agree that she is immensely talented. Thanks to the miracle of modern technology, Julie and I emailed each other from Colombia and she created this beautiful custom announcement for me right in time for Christmas. Per her suggestion, I sent the image file she created to mpix.com and I had beautiful cards delivered to my house before I was even back and for an extremely reasonable price! Julie, I am forever grateful, the whole family loves it. It realy was the cherry on the cake this Christmas.

Please, if you need any invitations, announcements or other such things, please contact Julie. You won't be disappointed!

WE ARE HOME!

2006-12-23T15:40:00.000-08:00

Sorry, were you wondering what the heck happened to us?

The last few days were such a whirlwind that I didn't have a spare minute to update you all. We were in fact able to get the visas in just one day. We got the call at 3, and we had to leave for the airport at 6:30, so we had to wrap up everything and pack in that short amount of time. And of course, since we've been home, the boy has not touched the floor for a minute.

Our flight was uneventful. Avianca is an awesome airline. We were able to get the seats that have a bassinett attached to the wall in front of us, so the boy was snug as a bug in a rug, and slept the entire flight. Mommy and Daddy couldn't sleep, so we settled for staring at him the entire time and thinking about how the family was going to eat him up.

My parents met us at the airport at 5am, with a huge bunch of balloons. We drove back to our house and shortly after that Jim's parents and sister came. Everyone was overjoyed to have him home and to finally see him in person. The rest of the time has been a blur, people have come in and out of the house all day, and the boy takes it all in stride. He doesn't cry no matter how many people he gets passed around to. He is just as sweet and wonderful as he was in Colombia.

Last night my mom called and told us to come for dinner. She told me to dress him in something cute so she could take his picture in front of the Christmas tree. And since I would be holding him, she told me to at least wear a decent shirt (I usually wear sweats and slippers over there - she lives right down the block). Well good thing I listened, because when we opened the door I got a big "SURPRISE!" in my face. My mom planned a quickie surprise baby shower! I couldn't believe it, I had no clue! My entire family was there it was so awesome. Somebody took the baby out of my hands as I was standing there stunned, and I barely saw him the entire night. There were literally people lined UP to hold him next! And there were so many cameras in his face it looked like he had his own papparazzi! We got lots of good gifts, but the best part was seeing my family after so long. Speaking of gifts, I would like to thank my wonderful secret pal Debbie, who was nice enough to send me a very generous gift card to Babies R Us. Thanks girl, I can guarantee that will go to very good use. And thanks for being a great pal, I truly appreciate everything you did!

So we are really going to enjoy Christmas this year. I hope each and every one of you enjoy the blessings of the season no matter which holiday you celebrate. I wish you all peace, love and joy. For those of you in a crappy place this holiday, I wish you the hope of dreams finally fulfilled and the year 2007 to be the "year of you" (if you remember I declared 2006 the "year of me" and it actually did work!) I really enjoyed reading all of your comments, and feeling the love and support from Blogland. It was awesome to get and give comments to all of my friends who are in other countries at the same time as I was! And thanks to all you lurkers out there too...Yeah, I know you're there...I hope you enjoyed our adventures, and I know that this coming year I will read all the adoption blogs with a new perspective. I will be even more excited for all of you as you travel forward on your journey!

Below I have posted the last two posts from my family blog, in case you want the blow by blow of the last few days.

Update on Flight Home

2006-12-20T15:37:00.000-08:00

It is now 11:00 and we just returned from the embassy. They are still not sure if they can issue the visa today. They are processing the application and await our security clearance. We will know by 4:00 today. If they can do it, they will call us and we will take a taxi back to the embassy to get it. We should be okay on time since we don´t have to leave for our 11:30pm flight until 7:oopm. But we really need to start packing just in case.

So we were picked up this morning by taxi at 8am by a different orphanage contact, Annette (our usual contact is helping the last american family get passports today). Annette has lived in Bogota for 56 years!! But the funny thing about it is that she was born in East Germany and does not look at all Colombian. She was very nice and helped us through the embassy process. The American Embassy is a huge complex and when we were dropped off we saw another huuuuugggee line to the door. We walked right past everyone and walked right through since adoption visas take priority. You have to go through a big security clearance area...Jim had to stand in this big X-Ray machine thing with his hands up. I was allowed to walk through since I was holding the baby. The area to wait for your visa is a big open air plaza with cobblestone floors, very nice. We walked up to a window and presented our paperwork, then sat down for our names to be called. Then we went to another window and presented more paperwork and answered a few questions about the boy. The woman was behind a glass window and you had to pick up a phone and talk to her which was kind of weird. After that we went to another window and paid the visa fee and sat down to wait again. After a while we were called up again and told that our visa would be ready at 4 tomorrow. So Jim pleaded our case to the woman and told her that we were having difficulty getting a flight back to the US. She took our phone number and told us she would try to have it done today, but it all depended on the system, which at that moment was very slow.

So we´ll see! Check back to see what happens! I can´t take the suspense, can you??

Passport and Pediatrician

2006-12-19T15:37:00.000-08:00

So we were up bright and early this morning, and ready to be picked up by 8:00. We drove to the passport place, and when we walked up we saw a verrrrryyyyy loooooonnnnnggg line. But No! We went right past it into the building and into a small area where they take passport photos. The small room consisted of a small counter and a big photo booth - kind of like the ones you see in malls and amusement parks but much much bigger. After a few minute wait we were next and our orphanage contact took the baby into the booth (we had to make sure he was awake because they won't take the picture if the baby is sleeping).We heard them trying to get him to smile, but no luck. For some reason this kid has an aversion to electronic devices. We were asked to choose among the 3 digital photos taken (all cute of course) and within in a few minutes we had his photos. We then went into a larger room that kind of looked like the DMV. Alot of chairs for waiting and many clerks behind numbered stations. When our number was called we handed the clerk the necessary paperwork (sentencia, birth certificate & photos) and she filled out the passport application. Then we were told to sit and wait. After about 10 minutes a man came out of a doorway with a big stack of new passports and started calling out names. Finally the boy's name was called! We were very excited but the boy...not so much...he was sound asleep. We had to go up with the baby to get it...they want to make sure they match the photo to the person. We were free to go, and came back to the hotel to kill time before the pediatrician appointment.

Jim and I were literally walking in circles at the hotel. We are so close to coming home and we are so excited we don't know what to do with ourselves. I ask him what time it is every 5 mintues. We watched some bad tv and even kicked a soccer ball around in the backyard. We are both convinced that since signing the sentencia time is actually going backwards.FINALLY, at 2:30 we were picked up to go to the pediatrician. We drove to a nice part of town that seemed to have many medical clinics all over the place. The doctor's office was nice, just like one you would see at home. After a few minutes of waiting we were called in to see the doctor. He was a very nice older man who spoke perfect english. The certificates on his wall indicated that he had spent alot of time in the states at various hospitals. We handed over the boy's brand spanking new passport and his photos and the doctor started filling out some paperwork. Then we put the boy on the examining table and undressed him for his physical. He checked his eyes, his ears, listened to his heart, and felt around a little. We put him on the scale and found out that he is now 13lbs 8oz, which is up from the 11lbs, 7oz when we first got him. He also grew an inch. The doctor finished up his paperwork, sealed it an an envelope for the embassy tomorrow and sent us on our way. We were home by 4:30.

Back at the hotel, more agonizing hanging around. The two french couples remaining here are leaving this week too, one tomorrow and one on Friday. We were very happy that everyone will be home in time for Christmas. One couple bought some more wine, Jim bought some fruit and cheese and we had a nice little toast to celebrate everyone's paperwork going through the process. BTW, quick funny story about one of the couples - they also went to Freddy the Emerald Pirate and they saw a ring they really liked. They thought the tag said 9.000.000, which they thought meant 9 million pesos, which would be about $4,000 US Dollars (there are about 2,254 colombian pesos to 1 dollar). They were ready to buy it (they clearly have money, they live in a very ritzy part of Paris) when Fast Freddy told them, no it's not pesos, its already in US Dollars....as in $9,000 US dollars! So needless to say, they left empty handed too.

At about 7:00 our friends E & A came to say goodbye. It was very sad to say goodbye, we had such an absolutely great time with them. They really went out of their way to make us feel welcome in Colombia. We told them they are now officially Tio and Tia (Uncle and Aunt) to the boy, and that we will be back in about 2 years or so and look forward to seeing them again. We exchanged addresses and hope to keep in touch with them.

So now, it's only NINE O'CLOCK. We are dying over here. We are so close we can smell the NY bagels and pizza from here. Tomorrow we go to the embassy to apply for the visa. I am going to try my best to negotiate getting our paperwork in first thing and see if we can't somehow get the visa issued by the afternoon. It would be SO SWEET to be on that plane tomorrow night!!

Guess What?

2006-12-18T16:53:00.000-08:00

Guess What?

WE SIGNED THE SENTENCIA!!

We got the call at about 9:30 this morning telling us to be ready to go in an hour. Jim and I dressed up a little nicer and got picked up by our orphanage contact. We left the boy behind for this trip. We drove back into the downtown area to the family court building. It was a tiny little entrance and we had to fight the crowds to get in. Remember, the courts close at the end of day tomorrow, so everyone is trying to get their business done in time.We made our way up the stairs to the doorway indicating Court 14, the court we were assigned to by lottery. It was a tiny little alcove and we had to squeeze our way in and up to the counter. Our contact did all the talking, and eventually a big stack of papers was put on the counter, and flipped to the very back - the boy's adoption decree at last!

We all read through it very carefully to make sure all the names were spelled correctly and our passport numbers were correct. Then I signed on the dotted line over the shoulder of our contact. Just another piece of business for the courts but a pretty big deal to us. After we signed we had copies made and drove over to the Notaria. All copies of the Sentencia have to be notarized, and we had to register the boy's birth there. Jim signed in the big book. A little strange to think that our son's birth registry will be sitting on the shelves in this little place in Bogota forever.

Okay Okay, so now the big question...WHEN ARE WE COMING HOME?

Answer: WE STILL DON'T KNOW!!

Tomorrow we go and have the boy's picture taken for his passport, apply for the passport and then go see the Embassy Pediatrician. The American Consulate requires 2 days to get the boy his visa, one day to apply, and the next day to pick it up. I called the consulate today to BEG them to give us a visa in one day. The woman on the phone was very nice and said that they try their best to be as flexible as possible with adopting parents. However, your information needs to be entered into a computer to get security clearance from the US. They have no control over how long that takes. We may or may not be able to get the visa in one day.So...what we did is this:

We are keeping our Wednesday night flight that we booked with our skymiles. We also booked a refundable one way ticket for Thursday night. On Wednesday, when we know if we will get the visa or not, we will cancel whichever flight we won't make. So worst case scenario we will be home Friday morning! We can deal with that!!

We just came back from the mall where they have an Avianca office (go figure) to pick up the paper tickets for Thursday flight. We also got some wine and Aguardiente to celebrate signing the sentencia! We'll let you know how tomorrow goes!

Saturday and Sunday

2006-12-18T06:17:00.000-08:00

Saturday was a little cooler outside, a result of all the rain we've had over the last few days. Jim and I are thankful for the nice breezes. I guess we should enjoy all of this weather because we hear our family is freezing their patooties off at home.

The boy has been quite the fusspot lately, maybe he feels our anxiousness to get home. He started wailing at 6 Saturday morning, a full hour before he usually gets up for his bottle. We were able to stall him until 7, but he continued to be fussy all day. That afternoon he had a full out meltdown. A little scary at first because the boy doesn't really cry, and well, this is our first baby! We had gone out to the jewelers this morning (more on that in a minute) and left him with the maids. When we came back we had lunch and I went to go get him. He was sitting in a stroller with one of the maids cooing at him. When he saw me he turned beet red and started screaming. You know the kind...his mouth is wide open, his face all scrunched up and red and no sound is coming out. Oh jeez! I hustled him into our room and first figured out that he was soaked through his clothes and also *ahem* dirty. So I changed him as quickly as I could, him screaming all the while. Finally I picked him up and rocked him for a while. In front of the window. That's our trick. You want to shut him up, stand him in front of the window and he gets mesmerized. After a little while he calmed down (but had that adorable sobbing hiccup), we put some clean clothes on him and laid him down. Some tummy rubbing and he was out cold. Whew!
Now the jeweler story. Colombia is known for emeralds. Did you know that? I didn't...they mine them right here in the country. So we heard there was a guy that the hotel owner knows that could show us some emeralds for good prices. We called him up and he had a driver come and get us. We drove for about 10 minutes to a very nice part of Colombia. The jeweler was a very nice man who spoke english, originally from New York. His stuff was absolutely amazing.....and absolutely outrageously priced. Who knew emeralds were so expensive?? And not for nothing? I hate emeralds. Green is my least favorite color. So here we are in this little shop, having been picked up just to come here, and we didn't want to buy anything. I mean, even the smallest tiniest little speck of green earrings were $350. Medium sized things were in the $700 range, and the decent sized stuff (still not big, maybe 1 carat?) was like $3500. Needless to say we were mortified to leave there with nothing, and they guy obviously thought we were cheapskates. Oh well, sorry dude! We couldn't wait to get back. Of course, when we got back, the boy decided to have his meltdown. We thought it was turning into just a wonderful day...

But the day was saved by our wonderful friends E & A. They picked us up at 2:oo with their two daughters C and M, and C's boyfriend..and we went to Monserrate, something we've really been wanting to do. Monserrate is a mountain that is about 3,000 meters above sea level, and at the top there is a church and beautiful grounds. The best thing is the view...you can see the entire city of Bogota from there. We drove to the bottom of the mountain, and took a cable car up to the top. We had the best time with them. They are alot of fun and made sure we experienced everything. We walked through the church, which had a haunting statue of Christ above the altar. There was even a wedding about to start, and we caught a glimpse of the new bride. The grounds have beautiful statues for each station of the cross. There is a section that has alot of booths of people selling souveniers and then a section where there are a ton of food vendors. Not sure what some of it was, but it did smell good

We had a shot of something that I don't remember the name of, but it's tradition to drink it here. It is a shot of Aguardiente (a clear anise flavored liquor derived from sugar cane - it will grow hair on your chest) that has all kinds of herbs packed into the bottle. Then we tried another treat that consisted of a hunk of bocadillo (a solid piece of guava paste) eaten with a hunk of mild cheese (resembled bland homemade mozzerella). Interesting!

After we left Monserrate we went to the Downtown part of Bogota. I am informed by E that she doesn't like this part of town - it's kind of skanky (my words, obviously). But we went to a very old place (80 years in fact) that serves all kinds of good food and sweets. We ordered tamales, since we hadn't eaten them yet...very good - Plantain leaves stuffed with a mixture of corn and rice with chunks of meat. We also had the best hot chocolate I ever tasted. The funny thing is that when you get the hot chocolate, they also give you a plate that had a mini loaf of bread, butter, and a slice of cheese. I was confused about the cheese until I saw C shredding it up with her hands and putting it IN the hot chocolate!! HUH??? But that's what you do...put it in there and let it get all melty and gooey and then fish it out and eat it. You know what? It was purty darned good! You also butter up your bread and dunk it into the cup. Crazy Colombians!

After the restaurant we came back to the hotel, picked up the boy (the maid almost had a heart attack that we were taking him out in the cold) and went to A & E's home. They have a lovely apartment with a nice view. E gave us a little Ajiaco (the soup, remember?) and after we had some great ice cream made by C's boyfriend's brother. YUM. After everyone cooed over the baby for a good while, they took us back home. We were exhausted from a long but very fun day.

Today is Sunday and it has been a quiet day. We went to Jeno's for Pizza for lunch today. Jim has had a hankering for pizza since we've come here. Jeno's wasn't all that bad - certainly not NY pizza, but it hit the spot. Then we walked on the closed streets to a local hotel that had an art fair, lots of nice stuff but we didn't buy anything. Then back to the mall, Jim wanted to get some magazines to read - would you believe the magazines are like $10-$12 here?? I was going to by a Martha Stewart Living but forget it!! (Expensive magazines - not a very good thing) We came home and we had a nice family nap. It's almost 6 pm now and we are anxious for the week to start so we can finish up our paperwork. We really like it here, but we are dying to come home. I want my bed, my shower, and some different clothes to wear, not to mention see all of our family and friends!

Oh great - as I am sitting here the maid came up and used the phone. Guess what we're having for dinner? PIZZA! How funny is that! We shouldn't complain though, we think the maids have really been slacking with the food lately. The other night we had some kind of gristle cutlets that were totally inedible. We think it was the snotty maid getting her revenge.

Here are some funny pictures of the boy:

That's my boy!

One of the maids had enough of him kicking off his socks, so she put them where they wouldn't fall off!

An update

2006-12-14T14:55:00.000-08:00

Sorry I haven’t posted in a few days, I don’t want to leave Jim for too long by himself because we are trying very hard to entertain ourselves here. The boy is doing extremely well. He’s a very happy, content little man. Here are some more pics to share:

Well, we were excited to have McDonald's for breakfast even if he wasn't.

The Angel Sleeps

Mommy's finger tastes yummy.

So let’s see – got to catch you up on what we’ve been doing. The only interesting things that happened Tuesday was that we 1) Went to lunch at El Corral which is known for their hamburgers. They have every kind you can imagine. I had a curry burger with curry peanut sauce and mango chutney (shut up it was good). Jim some kind of BBQ burger. 2) We went to a place called Maku, which is a 3 story building that sells all kinds of hand made Colombian goods. We were very disappointed, because it was basically 3 floors of knick knack stuff. None of my family is into that crap, so we were worried that the only things we were going to bring back for the family are coffee and the baby.

The maids made paella for lunch that day, and Jim and I don’t eat fish, so we weren’t able to enjoy it. It did look good though. So we went to a very well known place here called Crepes & Waffles. Guess what they serve? Yep, everything you could ever imagine, either on a crepe or a waffle. Lunch was good but the BEST part was the dessert! I had a hot waffle with nutella spread all over it, vanilla ice cream, bananas and whipped cream. Holy cow, to die for. I will be making that sucker at home for sure.

In other news, Jim was christened with spit up, so now he is officially a dad. Oh wait, the boy already christened him in another way last week – My mom was right, you need to cover boys up when you change them (perfect arc off the bed and directly onto the foot). Needless to say I laughed hysterically.

Anyway, that evening we received a phone call inviting us to the home of Mercedes & Arturo. You may remember that these two are the ones who founded FANA many years ago, and Jim and I entertained Arturo in NYC when he visited some months ago. All of the Americans who are here were invited over for the evening, about 10 of us in all (the same people we went to dinner with the other night). Their home is outrageously lovely. I had two of Arturo’s famed Vodka tonics and they were very good. They had delicious food for us, and even gave us a little gift in thanks for showing Arturo a good time in NYC. It was great to meet you Nadine. I don’t think the rest of your group liked us very much but oh well. Maybe some of them got their hands on this blog and didn’t like what they read?

We did get a small bit of good news that day as well. Our orphanage contact called and told us she had spoken to our lawyer. Our case has passed the first and very important step in the process. There are three stages in all, and the first is the most difficult, because it is the first place where your paperwork can be rejected due to errors. We had none, so we can move on to the next step.

Yesterday was our vist to FANA and it was quite an emotional day for us. We started with a tour of the entire facililty. We were surprised that they encouraged us to take alot of pictures as we went along. We saw what seemed like every part of the entire building, including classrooms, playrooms, medical facilities, laboratory, kitchen, dining area, backyard, auditorium...even the finance and human resource offices. It was really an amazing place. Very clean and beautiful. Of course our favorite part was seeing where the babies are. We are not sure what exact room he was in, but we saw a typical baby room (complete with babies!) and saw how the nurses take care of them. All babies are kept on their stomachs in their cribs so that they develop strong neck muscles. We are assured that they can do this only because there is a nurse in the room 24 hours a day, and therefore can be watched. We now have him sleep on his back. The baby room is very sterile and looks kind of like a hospital room. I tried to take one little baby girl home with me, but alas, they wouldn't let me. There was also a physical therapist who comes in and does exercises with the babies, moving their arms and legs and interacting with them. We also loved the toddler rooms and classrooms, where we got to say hello to some more adorable Colombian children. Some are waiting for adoption, and some are still stuck in the system because their parents haven't relinquished them yet, or they have just been taken away from them from the Colombian child protective services. We were very impressed with the entire facility. Not only for the obvious great care they gave the boy and all other children, but for the amount of work they do in their community. They hold all kinds of classes for their community, including job skills and parenting classes. They have a huge presence in the community and work very hard to keep or make families.

After the tour, we met with Flor, the orphanage director to hear all about the boy's social history. I was frantically scribbling down notes, because they do not allow you to take any of the file with you. The file is sealed and is kept at the orphanage until he turns 18. At that time he is welcome to go to Colombia to see his file. We were fortunate in that we got alot of good information about how he came to be available for adoption and about his birth mother and father....much more than alot of people get. I did not get emotional until Flor read a direct quote from the birth mother as to why she gave him up and her wishes for her son. I made sure that I wrote it all down word for word so that we can tell the boy those words as soon as he is able to understand them. We even were allowed to see a photocopy of his birthmother's identification card. It was pretty surreal to look into the face of the woman who's child we now have. She was young and pretty, but did not really look like the boy, or me for that matter. I have tried to figure out exactly why we were so emotional about it. Perhaps because in that moment the birth mother was a real person, not just some name on a copy of a birth certificate we were given. And maybe because her wishes for her son were the exact same ones that we have for him, and for some reason God chose us to see that it happens. It's almost a feeling of unworthiness in a way. I hope that the information we have will be a great comfort to him, and will give him some sense of where he came from before he came to us.

We left FANA with a very good feeling, and can't wait to go back again in a year or so for a sibling for the boy. The staff are truly amazing, and encourage us to stay in touch with them as part of the "FANA family".

Today we went to a huge Craft Fair that was awesome. Artisans from Colombia selling their hand made items – everything from pottery, knitted garments, woven linens, macramé, jewelry, woodworking, kids toys, everything you can imagine (much better than that stuff in Maku). We got some really good items to bring home for our family. I bought myself a filigree silver ring which will be a great reminder of our trip.

So now you’re caught up. Are you asleep yet?

Is it me, or can you kind of see a hint of the man he's going to be in this picture?

Introducing the little Monkey!

2006-12-10T14:46:00.000-08:00

I am sitting here at the hotel and all is quiet. Jim is taking a nap and most of the other guests are out or in their rooms. The boy is sitting in a little seat on the desk next to my computer as I type. Every time I look over at him he smiles at me.

I had wanted to write a post to those still on the journey to adoption. To somehow convey to them how all of the years of trying and waiting, the heartache, the sadness, the nervousness, all of it, goes away the instant, and I mean the INSTANT you meet your child. But then I realized you really cannot understand this until it happens to you. I would devour adoption blogs and try to imagine what it was like when people met their child. I thought I could understand their excitement and joy. But what I felt was only one TENTH of what it actually feels like. I look at this precious baby and I cry every time. How on earth were we so blessed to be matched with this boy. The connection was instantaneous. It truly feels as though I have given birth to this child. A very long and painful labor for sure, but as with “real” births, completely and utterly worth it in the end.

So if you are still on the journey, please hang in there. The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is bigger than you can ever imagine.

A few quiet days

2006-12-10T06:50:00.000-08:00

Okay so first of all, I got my first troll comment! Thanks, I feel so accomplished now. Don't you just love when people post anonymously? Such cowards. So to the ignorant coward who called me pretentious because I am hoping to sign the sentencia this coming week, do me a favor and click that little red X on the top right of your screen. If you don't like what I write here, don't read it. In case you didn't know, the courts close here on December 18th, (8 DAYS AWAY) so they are pushing all of the cases through quickly. While we may not sign Monday or Tuesday, we will sign shortly after that, and what is wrong with hoping we will do it sooner than later? It's Christmas time and I miss my family. I am not asking to jump ahead of anyone, so what's the problem? I am sure if you were in the situation and had the opportunity to leave early you would take it. I am sorry if you are in a worse situation, but I didn't cause it, and I can't fix it, so don't be angry at ME. Okay enough about that!

I haven't posted in a day or so because there wasn't that much to tell. Friday was very quiet, we pretty much stayed at the hotel the entire day. Well, we did take a walk in the morning...to guess where? That's right, a mall! We only went into one store, and we did find a Colombian cookbook in english, but it was $75, so we think we'll just order something on Amazon! I got a stomach ache that day, so we didn't go eat Christmas cake with Alfonso and Estella. In fact, when I called them, they told me that Alfonso wasn't feeling well either, which leads us to believe that we ate something funky at the restaurant!

Yesterday Jim was picked up early to play golf with a woman from the orphanage, her sister in law and an American who is staying at a different hotel. He said it was awesome. The Vice-President of Colombia was playing behind them with his entire entourage, including men with machine guns and an SUV driving on the course. Jim said he played pretty well, the course was beautiful and he had a really good time. He made friends with the other American, who invited us out to dinner with their group.While Jim was away, the boy and I hung out at the hotel. TV, naps. computer time, more TV, more naps..you get the idea. I was happy when Jim came back and told me we were invited to dinner. We went to a barbecue place called Carbon de Pollo, and there were 9 of us. There was one other couple with their Dad (the guy Jim played with) and the rest were folks whose husband/wife had already left for home, including the woman who received her baby the same day we did. Most have been there 5 weeks or more already. Yikes. Next time I know we won't get this lucky and we will have to endure at least that much time. But we already think we will request the other hotel which typically has more Americans there. So the restaurant was good, basically meat and potatoes, charred on the grill. At this place the wait staff gets up with the band and sings a few songs and they were really....well, bad actually. They were all tone deaf and their faces indicated that they were forced into this little bit of humiliation. But all in all it was fun, it was good to be with other Americans. They have invited us to do other things, so we'll see. We think we will meet up with them at another small flea market near here. There is a kind of horse show tonight, not sure if we're going to go.

So the boy is doing well. We have noticed some changes in him, like he is much better at grabbing and holding onto things with his hands and he can now pull himself into a sitting position when he holds onto your hands. He has also become VERY talkative. We woke up this morning to the sound of him carrying on an entire conversation with himself. It is very funny. Especially since when he talks he moves his arms and legs alot and gets all excited.

Okay off to the flea market, talk to you later!

Thursday

2006-12-08T09:00:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the lack of posts - the connection here can be sketchy some nights. I've finally gotten around to posting the update from the last few days. I hope you enjoy them.

We didn't see our little guy for most of the day today. Our new friends A and E picked us up this morning to take us to the Catedral de Sal. It is about an hour's drive out of the city, and enjoying the scenery was almost as good as our destination! Colombia has an absolutely beautiful countryside, the mountains are amazing.

The Catedral de Sal (Cathedral of Salt) is a church inside a salt mine. There are 14 stations of the cross, as well as the usual parts of a church carved into the salt (It really is salt by the way, I tasted the wall). When you first walk in, you enter a very dark tunnel. The stations of the cross are big crosses carved in the salt and illuminated in the darkness. Our tour guide only spoke spanish so I wasn't able to understand everything they said, but you could feel the tranquility and spirit in the place. After the 14 stations we visited the parts of the church. The room with the baptismal font had a huge "waterfall" of salt. There was an opening high on the wall, and the water dripping from the opening deposited salt down the wall, which crystalized into a formation that looked like a real waterfall. It was a very quiet, dark place, with illumination only on the crosses or other statues. It was very peaceful. It was quite an amazing place and we were very glad we got to see it.

After touring the cathedral, we walked through another exhibit that explained how the salt is mined there. Then we stopped at an Archeological Museum which had very old artifacts found in various parts of Colombia. All of these things are located in the town of Zipaquira (see-pa-kee-RA) which was an extremely cool place. Lots of colorful things - stores, people...we really felt like we were experiencing the culture here. Upon recommendation from a police officer, we went to a local restaurant called La Cascada (the waterfall). I had Pollo a la Plancha (kind of a seasoned flattened chicken breast) and Jim had some Churasco (flattened roasted meat). For dessert we had Cuajada con Melado (click on the name for a picture) which is a typical Colombian dessert. It was like almost like a flan, but more sour than sweet. It's like a little mound of milk pudding sitting in a pool of thin caramel. It was pretty good - although I'd much prefer something with chocolate!

After lunch we tried to race back to Bogota. To alleviate traffic, there are certain hours you are not allowed to drive in the city, depending on the numbers on your license plate. For example, if your license plate ends in a 7, 8, 9 or 0, you are not allowed to drive in the city on Mondays and Thursdays between the hours of 4pm and 7pm. If you are caught driving during these hours, you get a very expensive ticket, like $300-$400. Unfortunately, we didn't make it in time. We got to the very outskirts of Bogota by 3:50 and A would not be able to drop us off and get home in time. So we had to stop somewhere until 7:00. Guess where? Yes, a mall! I have to find out how many malls there are here, it is so many I can't believe it. This one was new and HUGE. We walked and walked and walked. We looked at all the Christmas displays for the children - we were amazed at how many things they had for them to do. One area had a place where kids could write letters to Santa, another for Karaoke, another for building small wooden toys, another for decorating wrapping paper...I wanted to join in the fun! Of course Santa & Mrs. Claus were there walking around and saying hello to all the children. Although here they are called Mama y Papa Noel. We went into a shoe store and bought the boy these shoes that are popular here called Bubblegummers. Most of them have rubber soles that smell sweet. We bought a cute blue pair for him (although they didn't smell), we are told they are very high quality and are popular with the kids. Also a weird thing about the public restrooms here - and something you do wrong only once - the toilet paper is OUTSIDE the stalls...you need to remember to bring some with you into the stall. Weird. What is it with Colombians and bathrooms?

We finally got home about quarter after 7, and the baby was fast asleep so I guess he didn't miss us too much. I was so tired I barely ate dinner. We didn't go out to see the lights for the Festival of the Virgin Mary because it started to rain tonight. We did run out of the house to see a few fireworks though. No plans for the day tomorrow, but A & E invited us over to their house tomorrow night after dinner. From what I understand, her sister in law gave her a cake as a present of the Christmas season and she would like us to come over to help eat it. The baby gets to come too! They are just the nicest people. I asked them if they were tired of us yet, but they said no. Go figure. I do like to talk to them, we teach each other words in english/spanish and it is fun to try to communicate.

Wednesday

2006-12-08T08:56:00.000-08:00

We woke up early this morning to say goodbye to our Minnesota friends. I cried like a baby when they left. We just met them a week ago, but I got really attached to their girls. I got a big hug from V. They were excited to get on the airplane, and to get home to their dad who had left a few days earlier. They promised to keep in touch, and I really hope they do.

After that, we fed the boy and started to get ready for our Bienestar interview. I completely lost track of time, and realized too late that I had no time to give him a bath or to iron my pants. So the boy got a quick once over with some wipes, dressed him up cute and off we went with our orphanage contact, me with wrinkled pants. It was a long ride to the Bienestar office because of all the rush hour traffic. But it was very interesting to see the city from the car. The boy loves the car, and is completely mesmerized by the world whizzing by outside. Finally we arrived and had to wait a few minutes before we could go upstairs. I had my first stupid comment, and who'da thunk it would be here. A woman sitting next to me looks at the boy all dressed up in head to toe blue, and asks Nino or Nina? Nino dummy! Then we went up the stairs to a little waiting room. We saw the couple who we met on the day we got the boy, they were there for interview too. The building we were in was a very typical, old grungy government building, just like home. We briefly met our lawyer, who doesn't speak english. Eventually, when the woman we were supposed to meet actually got to work, we were called in to speak to her. She was a very teeny woman, no more than 4 foot 10 inches. Through our orphanage contact she asked us a few questions: How is the baby doing? Is this your first adoption? How did you come to adopt in Colombia? Do you think you have bonded with the baby? She seemed satisfied with our answers, and at the end she gave us Congratulations, and said that she hoped we show him lots of love and meet all of his needs. "Si, Claro!" Of course! After that, she reviewed our paperwork, and had to re-do one paper because it didn't have my middle name on it. They are very particular that all of your paperwork is consistent with all the names. After that was redone, we were free to go. We took a cab back to the hotel (our contact had to finish up with the other couple). We took a walk around our area to get out into the sunshine for a bit. We forgot the camera again, I need to take more pictures of the city.

We came back and sat outside until lunch. It was a beautiful day today, a nice breeze was blowing. A new couple arrived, they are from Spain and adopted a little boy in addition to the girl they already have. They are pretty shy and don't talk much. Their new boy is a screamer. After lunch we watched tv (Seinfeld, Frasier and (yes!) Will & Grace). I took a nap. We were pretty bored this afternoon. We were going to go to the mall with the American couple, but they snagged the only stroller so we couldn't go. We are getting punchy with the boredom. Every time the phone rings here (which is like every 5 minutes) Jim says out loud "I'm not here!". I crack up because no one even knows what he is saying. Oh, and you'll be happy to know that I got back at the maid today. After she starting rattling on again, making fun of me that I couldn't speak good spanish, I said to her (in perfect spanish!) "I understand everything but I don't speak well. What about you? Let me hear you practice your english!" Well she turned red and said "YES!" and ran away. HA! Not so easy is it?!

Oh I forgot to tell you a funny story yesterday. When we were in the mall, a couple walks up to us with their little boy in a stroller. They were saying how cute the baby was, and they asked me (in spanish of course) what his name was, and how old he was. After I answered, she looks at me and asks me where I'm from. Oh great I think, how am I going to explain? So I started to say the United States and then she said "Me too!" in perfect english! Guess where they were from? The Bronx. How funny is that? Her and her husband were on vacation visiting family. When we told them we had just adopted him they went nuts over him. And guess what, she said my spanish was very good (stupid maid is giving me a complex!)

Two of the french families signed their Sentencia today - that is the final adoption decree and it means that they can now get their visas and get ready to go home. They bought wine and snacks and we had a toast congratulating them on this big step. That is what we are waiting for now...to be called and told we can go and sign the Sentencia. Please keep your fingers crossed that we get the call Monday or Tuesday. This Friday is a holy day here, so it will not happen this week. So we just finished dinner, and the dining room was so loud Jim and I have a head ache. Kids crying and banging dishes, adults screaming in french. We just looked at each other and started cracking up. I am going to finish this post and we are going to retire to the quiet of our room. Good thing the boy is not bothered by all of the commotion. It's good preparation for our crazy family. The poor kid has no idea what's in store for him!

Tuesday

2006-12-08T08:53:00.000-08:00

Today was a good day! I hope I didn't sound too down on my last post. It's really not so bad here, but during the dull moments we really miss home. We wish that we could share our first experiences in person with those we love and not strangers. We are grateful that we are here in the first place, and all indications are that we will be here much less than most people. We will stay as long as it takes to bring the boy home!

Today you'll be happy to know (you and our arteries) that we did not have eggs for breakfast! We had tostadas frances, better known as french toast. It was very good! After breakfast we got dressed and ready to go to the Hacienda Santa Barbara mall. It is called Hacienda because it was built on the site of an old farm. There is a very old part of the mall, with cobblestone streets, and it is very quaint. We decided to take the boy with us this time - why not, moms take their babies to the mall all the time, right? The cab ride was a little crazy, I had to hold him while the driver bobbed and weaved through rush hour traffic. The ride only cost 5,000 pesos which is less than $3.00. We went with our Minnesota friends Pam, who is a spanish teacher, her mom, and her two girls. The girls tortured the poor boy the whole day but he took it all in stride. They insisted on pushing his stroller (borrowed from the hotel) all day, and helped me give him his bottle. They held his hands, and stroked his head, wiped his chin...they were so cute. I am really going to miss them when they leave tomorrow. Their mom commented how laid back we were about the girls playing with the baby and with them jumping all over me. I assured them that I am very used to kids and babies with my family! It felt just like home having them jump all over me!

At the mall we went into a music store to see if we could get some Colombian music CDs. The store clerk was very nice and opened up a bunch of CDs and let us listen to them all. We bought two, one that is very funky, and one by a popular artist here with alot of guitar type music. We also bought a little chiva (click on the word to see a picture) for the baby's bookcase. A chiva is an open air bus that is used to carry all kinds of goods and people through the countryside. It is usally packed to the gills with stuff, from chickens, to vegetables to people. There are some pictures of real ones here. I also got a little costume jewelry for me. Oh and the boy and I had our first experience with a baby changing station at the mall. I wish I took a picture. I would put it in a frame and label it "Baby's first public restroom". We did pretty good. With that under my belt, and the spit up on my sweater, I think I am officially a mom.

After the mall we went to a restaurant near our hotel that is known for authentic Colombian food. (I know, all I do is talk about the food - but it is the highlight of this trip besides my son!) I had a dish that was basically a big mound of rice with pieces of pork, chicken and sausage mixed in, as well as peas and other vegetables. There was a fried egg on top and plantains around it. Delicious! Jim had some kind of peasant dish that had big red beans, a big hunk of bacon, some ground meat (pork I think), and a fried egg. Very good. After lunch we came back to the hotel and just hung around for a bit. We sat in the living room with everyone and chatted. It's like the United Nations in that living room most days. Our orphanage contact stopped by to pick up some candy we brought to her from the US. She wanted those little mini snickers and milkyways with the Christmas wrapping. We chatted with her for a while, and she invited Jim to play golf later in the week, we think with some other American people and some orphanage people. That should be fun for him though I'm sure he's nervous he won't be as good as the rest. I'm sure he will! How cool to tell people that he golfed in Colombia though, huh? She also told us that our case should move along okay, so were hopeful about that.

Let's see...I don't remember much of the afternoon - I played with the girls some more - I even read a Curious George book completely in spanish. I hope I didn't tell a totally different story than what was written! Jim took a nice nap. Before you knew it, it was dinner time, porkchops with some kind of sweet sauce, rice and broccoli, oranges for dessert (not to worry, I've got oreos stashed in my room for a proper dessert). After dinner the sweater lady came back. We bought a beautiful hand made wall hanging that I hope our little guy will always keep as a memory of Colombia. But the best part of her visit was that I got a lesson on how to make little crocheted butterflies! It was very interesting to be taught completely in spanish! The woman was very nice and told me that she will come back tomorrow with some thread and a crochet hook for me to keep so I can practice making them. I even translated her verbal instructions to someone who wrote it down in english! I can't wait to make them, they are so cute! I have found that I am SO MUCH better at understanding spanish than speaking it! So I'll let you know how I make out with the butterflies.

After she left, at about 9:00 we came back into our room for the night. I have been on the computer for a while now, and at 11 I will give the baby his last bottle and then go to sleep myself. Interestingly, the orphanage woman told us not to wake him up for his 3am feeding and to ignore him unless he is really awake and crying. She said he needs to get used to sleeping through the night. Okay by me!

Tomorrow morning at 8:30 we have our Bienestar interview. We have made plans for Thursday with Alfonso and Estella to go see the Salt Cathedral. Apparently there is some kind of church carved into a salt mine. We also have tentative plans to meet up with more friends of friends who live in Bogota. Maybe lunch on Saturday.

Nuevos Amigos

2006-12-02T19:57:00.000-08:00

This morning we woke up early and said goodbye to our friends from North Carolina. I felt bad for them, their flight to Colombia had been their first time on an airplane, and they were not looking forward to flying back home, especially with a new baby. We took some great pictures with them, including an adorable one of the two babies together. We showered, ate breakfast and hung around in the living room, played on the computer and basked in the baby’s adorableness. Oh, and we gave him a real bath today – thank goodness he liked it.

After lunch (an awesome frittata with artichokes and spicy sausage like a chorizo, we called cousins of our friend (the one who originally told us about FANA), to say hello. We made arrangements for them to come and pick us up at the hotel at 2:00. It was a little strange for us to be meeting people we never met, not to mention people that don’t really speak too much English. I was a little nervous about what would happen. E & A arrived with their 20 something (and gorgeous) daughter C who did most of the translating. We hit it off with them immediately. They came and sat for a few minutes and held the baby while we broke the ice. They even were nice enough to bring a gift for the baby. Then they offered to take us around the city to see a few things. We went to a HUGE shopping mall and walked around. Like home, the mall is filled with huge Christmas displays. The theme was all kinds of deer – antelope, gazelles, you name it. Huge stuffed ones were everywhere. The funny part was that all the children were playing in the fake snow – most of them have never seen snow in their lives. We bought some Colombian coffee from a place called (what else) Juan Valdez Café and sat out on an open air veranda that overlooked some of the city and the mountains. We sat and talked to each other about the differences between Bogota and New York City. There are many things that are exactly the same. After we became more comfortable with each other I tried to talk a little more Spanish to make it easier to communicate rather than have Carolina translate everything. I told E (in Spanish) that if she spoke slower I could probably understand her. So she started talking REALLY slow like I had brain damage “Teeeeeneeeemoooossss fruuuuuttaaa blaaaaannnnccaaaa” I started laughing hysterically and told her “not that slow”. She was trying to ask me if we have this very sweet white fruit in America that is very good here. No, no white fruit that I know of. So after that it got a little easier, they spoke bad English, we spoke bad Spanish and all was well. After the mall we walked around this small area outside that had a few craft booths. Nothing that caught my eye. There is one area that has a ton of bars, including the “Bogota Beer Company” gotta love it. Then we drove to the most beautiful park. It was just getting dark outside and C was telling us that at night it lights up with Christmas lights. No sooner had she said it then all the lights went on at once. It was totally amazing. Every tree was filled with these big ornaments glowing with light. There was a HUGE Christmas tree all lit up. It really was a beautiful sight. It made me a little homesick, because we know that we are missing the Christmas season at home. With the warm weather here it doesn’t really feel like Christmas. But it really did tonight.

After the park we drove around a while. You know I had to ask the question “Where can I buy yarn around here?” Yarn was a word they did not know. I tried to explain knitting with no luck. Finally C lit up and said “Yes! From the Sheep!” Yes woo hoo! In Spanish it is called las lanas, and she asked how to say it in English. It was hysterical listening to her practice the word wool, which came out more like wooooool. Anyway, you’d be happy to know that there is a store one block from our hotel. I looked in as we drove by and it seems to have all kinds of trimmings and things, not just a yarn store. I’ll have to check it out soon. We came back to the hotel just in time for the baby’s next feeding. A and E insist on spending more time with us to show us the city. They said that they feel bad that we “have no one” here. They are very proud of their city (rightfully so) and want to show us around. We are planning to go to a flea market tomorrow afternoon, we are told there are some good Colombian goods there to buy. Oh, and we told them that we wanted to buy a cross from Colombia for the baby’s room. A said that if we would like, he would paint us a wooden cross himself. How special is that? We feel bad taking up all of their time, but we do appreciate being able to get out and see things.

Apparently on Sunday’s here, they close down some of the main streets and open them up to pedestrians. We are told it is a good day to take a walk with the baby. Maybe we will do that in the morning. There is a big mall nearby (Colombians love their malls, they are huge and they are everywhere) and it is lit up for Christmas, so we will walk there one night. We were told that it is perfectly safe to walk in our area. We were surprised at how modern this city is. We were told it was very poor here, but it is not at all like that where we are. Like any city, there are poor sections, but there are very chic stores here, big designer names everywhere. We did see a lot of the same stores we have too, like Dunkin’ Donuts, Tony Roma’s ribs, L’Occitane, Nike, Tower Records (we bought a Colombian Christmas CD), and many others.

It’s about 8:30 pm and we are now in our room chilling out. Dinner was pork loin, rice and roasted eggplant, onions and tomatoes, with the sweetest watermelon you ever tasted for dessert. We went right to our room after dinner…this house can get pretty noisy from all the people coming in and out, and we need some quiet time. The boy is doing well …we left him with the maids while we were out and he did just fine. I remember thinking when we were out that it was weird that we had a child waiting for us back home. Weird. My throat continues to be a problem, I sound like a frog now. I eat cough drops like candy. I can’t get enough water in me (which means I always have to pee ) and my lips are always chapped. I seem to be the only person having a problem though. Probably my resistance was down from the crazy 5 days before we got here.

So, another day down. Time goes slowly here but we are trying to enjoy this place as much as we can. I want to be able to tell the boy about everything we saw. It´s difficult to post pics here,and I´m not even sure if I´m allowed yet. Coming soon, I promise.

Day three!

2006-12-01T19:31:00.000-08:00

Hello All! We are still doing fine over here. It's hard to get time to be alone on my computer, it's very social here so I've been out making friends. Many people have left or are leaving soon, so I will have more free time soon. The below is a portion of an email I sent to my family on what we've been up to. I thought I would post it here, so that you at least had an update. Sorry no pics yet, it's intolerably slow to upload them right now. And skip over the parts you know about already!

Thank you so much for all of your wonderful comments. Reading them is like a little slice of home. I never understood how much my comments meant to others who have traveled to get their babies until now. It really is wonderful.

Dear Family

Okay, now that we have a little more free time, I can tell you more about what happened the last few days.

The flight
First, can we all start a letter writing campaign to get JetBlue to fly to Colombia? Delta stinks. The flight was delayed in taking off. We had the worst possible seats, the last row with no window and our backs against the bathroom wall. Squooshy seats with hardly any room. We asked the flight attendants twice (TWICE) about making our connection in Ft Lauderdale and we were assured that we would have plenty of time to make it. Imagine our surprise when we got to the Avianca desk, the agent looked at us in panic and said she thought it was too late for us to make it. She made some calls, clicked away frantically on her computer, and before you know it we were RUNNING through the airport trying to get through security and to the gate. Thank God we made it. Avianca is a great airline. They pass out magazines and newspapers, we got hot towels, a great meal and even watched a movie. It was a little challenging because the fight attendants really didn’t speak English, but we got by. I was able to understand that the movie would be playing in English on channel 1, and was able to place our order for lunch (Carnes o pollo? Pollo por favor).

The airport
This was a little tricky, made more difficult by the fact that we tired, excited to be there and the fact that I really really really had to pee (sorry mom, but I did). We got off the plane and made our way down this looooong corridor to a really looooong line for immigration. There are little booths set up and when you are called you go up to them and show your passport. The woman didn’t really speak English but we did a good job answering her questions. It was funny when she asked us why we were there and we said “adopcion” and she said back to us “vacacion?” But it came out bah-cay-shun? We went back and forth a few times until Jim showed her the word “adopcion” on our visas. Ahhhh, she said and she smiled. Babies make people smile everywhere! After we were cleared we found the bathroom (you’ll be happy to know that airport restrooms are the same everywhere – gross) and made our way to the baggage claim. This was a complete nightmare. Now I know how new immigrants must feel when they come to JFK. It was complete chaos there and I wasn’t able to find anyone who spoke English or were interested in trying to listen to my limited Spanish. Eventually we figured out that we needed to get a form (necessito en ingles por favor!) to get us out with our bags. I only filled out one form for me and not for Jim, and the woman at the door first stopped us and then waved us through with a look of disgust as I started jabbering at her in English that how the hell am I supposed to know what to do, its not like there are signs or anything! After that we made our way out of the terminal. I will always remember the wall of people standing right outside the door pressed up against the barricades. There really isn’t a place for people to come inside to meet family so they are all waiting outside. Through the crowd, Jim spotted someone holding a sign with our name. We eventually meet Manuel, our driver.

The First Night
Manuel speaks very good English, and he tells us that the place we are supposed to stay is not ready for us. There are other couples still there who have been delayed. Another room has been secured for us in another hotel. When we arrive, we lug all the bags into the lobby, only to find that we did not have a room. They were overbooked, and they tried to contact our agency but were not able because it was so late. This hotel booked us another room in yet another place farther away. We lug the bags back into the car – By the way, all the cars here are tiny. The car we were in had no front passenger seat to accommodate more luggage because the trunk was so small. We arrive at the address, but it doesn’t look like a hotel. There is a doorway wedged between some stores and our driver goes up and is able to talk to someone through an intercom. After some minutes a security guard opens up a big gate and we drive in. We snake down this narrow driveway to a dark parking garage. We lug our bags into a teeeeny elevator and finally arrive in the “lobby”. We sign in, order breakfast for the next morning and go to our room. Our driver calls our contact and we are told that we will be called in the morning to tell us what time we need to be ready to go to the orphanage. The room is kind of skanky but we are so tired we don’t mind too much. We finally lay down at about 10:30 and try to unwind from the day, and enjoy the silence together. After all, this is our last night as a childless couple! We sleep only a few hours at a time, but surprisingly well. We are awake at 6am and try to amuse ourselves until the phone rings. We were surprised that there was good tv – Fox News, CNN and I was even watching Spiderman in English with Spanish subtitles. Finally the phone rings 4 hours later, and we are told that the driver will be there at 11:15. Another agonizing hour to go. Now my stomach is really in knots with the anticipation. Finally, finally, the driver arrives, we load up our luggage and leave. First stop is the hotel we were originally supposed to stay in to drop off our bags, then off to FANA, the orphanage.

FANA
The ride from the hotel to FANA is about 15-20 minutes. People have said that Bogota traffic is crazy, but it was no worse than New York – much better I thought. FANA is located in a more industrial section of the city. There is a gate to be buzzed into the campus. We are dropped off and told to go in. I thought this was weird, I guess I was expecting a personal reception or something? We go in and are told to go to the second floor where Flor, the Orphanage Director is waiting for us. She kisses us hello and congratulates us. I start tearing up already (Elvis is in the building!). We are brought into a small waiting room that has two couches and is covered in pictures from all the other families who have adopted from there. There is another couple there from upstate NY who was there to adopt their second child. Today they would get a girl, their first was a cute (although obnoxiously rambunctious) 3 year old boy. The nurse comes in and goes over all of the baby's medical information (all is well) and goes over his feeding schedule with us. She does the same for the other couple. We then realize that they will be presenting the other couple with their child in just a few minutes. I made sure they didn’t mind that we were in the room. A group of 4 or 5 women come in (most whom we have met or spoken to already in this process) and take the presentation outfit, your camera and your video camera. Then they leave to get the baby. The couple is asked to stand up and wait. The group of women all escort the baby down the hall to meet their new family. A beautiful little girl with a whole mess of fluffy hair on her head. Crying, pictures, congratulations. Okay, our turn!

We stand up in the appointed spot and wait. We hear them coming down the hall. “Here he comes!” someone says. I start bawling, I can’t believe this day is finally here (Good Luck watching the video, it’s a tear jerker). Jim was very calm. Finally the group of women turn the corner, and all I see is this gorgeous baby boy being held out to me. All I remember is that I just kept saying “Oh my God he is so beautiful” over and over. (Okay, are you crying now? I am!) He is even more beautiful than his picture. He has very big eyes and very long eyelashes. He is giving me this very serious look as if to say “What's wrong with you lady?” He would not take his eyes off of me, even when I handed him to Jim. Jim held him for a while and we just stared and cooed at him for a while. He didn’t cry, he just kind of took it all in. He wasn't scared by Jim's goatee like most babies are. He looked adorable in the outfit we got him too (it was the right size!). After some pictures, hugs and kisses, we were asked for some documentation, and we ordered a case of formula. We were told we could leave, and that we would be called at the hotel when it was time to do the next step. We waited in the lobby for our formula and then went out to the car. I think we were only in there an hour, including the time for the other couple’s presentation. It was so amazing how they just kind of handed him over…I guess it really is just like giving birth! Here you go! Goodbye and Good Luck! We took the cab back to the hotel. Colombia does not use carseats, so I held him. He was very smiley during the trip and eventually fell asleep.

The Hotel
We are staying at a place called El Refugio (aka Carmen’s Place). It is a kind of bed and breakfast especially for adopting couples. When we arrived it was a little chaotic because a bunch of people were checking out and leaving for home. Carmen gave us an infant seat to put him in and told us to relax a moment while they finished up our room and made us lunch. The maids here cook breakfast, lunch and dinner, clean your rooms, babysit, and anything else you need. The lunch we had on that first day was so delicious. We were starving, and finally relieved to have him, so we really enjoyed it. It was some kind of little meat ravioli with this creamy tomato sauce chock full of shredded chicken. After lunch we changed clothes and gave the baby his first bottle. He sucked it down like a champ.

El Refugio is a very unique place. It’s basically a big house, with a big gate around it, and a nice size yard with a swing set and a patio set. It is clean (Cathe, you’ll be happy to know the whole place is sanitized with bleach every day, what a stink!) and friendly although well worn from the hundreds of families who have made their way through here over the years. Our room has a tv, a small refrigerator, a crib, a bottle sterilizer, and a baby tub. The only really weird thing is that they don’t want you to flush toilet paper, but rather throw it in the garbage. Pretty gross, and half the time I forget, because who does that?? There are probably about 7 or 8 room here in all. There is no heat or air conditioning and the windows can be opened but have no screens. There is a front office that has a free internet phone and a computer to use. There is also a laundry room for you to use. The funniest thing about this place is the maids. They don’t give a hoot that you don’t speak Spanish, they happily chatter away to you anyway. They are very friendly and go nuts over our little guy who is the youngest one here. They will get you whatever you need and help you with the baby. It is fun talking to them because I get to practice my Spanish. Sometimes the conversations get really funny trying to figure out what each other is saying. When talking to the woman, they refer to the husbands as “your meester”. They are also the most amazing cooks. The food is so delicious here we look forward to each meal. Lunch always starts with soup. Today we had some kind of fried dumpling made with ground sausage, warm potato salad with peas and green salad. They also give you something sweet at the end, usually fruit. Today was a fresh glass of blackberry juice.

We have met a really nice couple from North Carolina. Unfortunately for us (but great for them!), they leave in the morning. They adopted an 8 month old boy. They helped us immensely about how the place works, and the best places in the neighborhood to go. He speaks Spanish about as well as I do, and he loves to torture the maids. The doorbell is always ringing here, because you have to be buzzed into the gate. Late last night it rang and he got up to get it. Outside the gate was a guy on a bicycle. He goes over to Rosalita and says in a big southern drawl “Hey rosalita, es su novio en un bicicleta” (it’s your boyfriend on a bicycle). She got all flustered, it was so funny. Other than this couple, there is only one other couple that speaks English. They leave on Wednesday. They adopted a 5 year old girl named Valentina. They already have a 6 year old, Cecilia who was adopted from the same orphanage as us (I have an awesome picture of Cecilia feeding the baby). They are beautiful girls and they love to play in the yard. When all the Americans leave, we will be left here with two couples from France. It’s a good trick to try to understand Spanish with a French accent. One man is very friendly and he tries very hard to talk with us. He has a beautiful 6 year old girl Laura (pronounced with a French Low-da – rhymes with chow-da) who goes around hugging and kissing everyone. She loves to talk to me even though I don’t understand much of what she says. I played the movie trailer for the movie Happy Feet for her on my computer and she screamed ‘Papa, miren! Los penguinos son bailando!” Papa, look the penguins are dancing! So anyway, it ought to get interesting later this week.

The City
Where we are in Bogota reminds us a lot of a busy part of Queens or Brooklyn. Lots of stores, apartment building and office buildings. It is more green here though, and of course, there are mountains. It is very dry here, and I am struggling with a very dry throat and stuffed up sinuses. I have to drink a lot of water and use saline spray. The altitude doesn’t bother us much otherwise, although sometimes when I am really stuffed up it’s a little hard to breathe. There are horse drawn carts here that have garbage in them. We learned that they take the recyclables away, much like those big trucks we have at home. The weather is very nice, a little cool in the mornings and evenings, but during the day, in the sunshine, it gets downright hot. The maids here insist that you keep the babies bundled up, and we are always getting scolded for not having enough blankets on them. Poor little guy is sweating his little butt off, so much his hair gets wet! So when we are alone in our room I leave him practically naked so he can cool off a bit.

Today
Today we got up and had breakfast..there is a small dining room like in a B&B and you eat with everyone. Scrambled eggs, toast and FRESH OJ. Oh, and hello, Colombian coffee – con leche caldo es muy delicioso! We hung around in the living room with our friends for a while, then we got a call from our orphanage contact to say that we will be going to have some papers notarized today. She arrived a little later, we signed them and then walked over to the “Notaria” where we had them authenticated, and signed again. We had to take our index finger, press it on an ink stamp and then press it on a certain spot on the paper. Weird. We paid and walked back to the hotel. We had our delicious lunch, fed the baby and decided to go out.

Today it rained really hard, but Jim and I went out anyway. We left the baby with a maid and ventured out with umbrellas to go to the baby store and the grocery store. It seems that at every store here there is an abundance of staff ready to help you. I have gotten more confident and I try to ask for things when I need them. At the baby store it was obvious we were Americans, and when we finally went to the register to check out, there were three young people there giggling. Finally one of them gets brave and says proudly “Good Afternoon!” in perfect English. “Yes!” I said, “Very good! Buenos Tardes!” It was very funny. Then we went into a big supermarket. It was BEAUTIFUL inside, nicer than what we have home and HUGE. Again, there were tons of help everywhere, and lots of people offering free samples. We tried Avocado, cheese and some kind of corn fritter thingies. It was so fascinating to walk through the aisles and see what all the products looked like in Spanish. When we got back, we retrieved our baby, smiling and with two extra blankets piled on him. We just finished dinner (porkchops, rice and broccoli, fresh mango) and I am now in the room typing. My two princes have gone down for the count.

The Baby
Yes, I know that’s what you’ve been waiting to hear about, but if I started out with that, you would have never read this far. First, as you may already know, we've decided to keep his name. Sorry Laurie, but he just doesn't look like a Joseph, even though we do love that name. Also, when they hand him over to you, you really realize that this kid has absolutely nothing of his own, not even the shirt on his back. So while we understand the complications about such a unique name, we really felt compelled to let him keep the one thing he was given at birth. For those of you who don't know, Jim had a brother who died many years ago from polio, back before the vaccine. The baby's middle name is after him (Not my boss :) ) He is 3 months old today, and is a pure joy. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. I’m thinking maybe I’m in for some terrible two’s or something, because I can’t believe I was blessed with such a good baby. Kara, he is a lot like Nina, very curious and alert, and doesn’t like to be laid down where he can’t see what’s going on (I’m convinced it’s a sign of genius, they’ll go to Harvard together someday). He has cried exactly once since we’ve been here. He sucks his thumb when he gets tired or hungry (we haven’t resorted to a binky yet), and he may turn out to be an eyelash toucher like Marco! He loves to be spoken to and smiles easily. He eats pretty good (every 4 hours pretty faithfully), but the last two ounces go veerrrrryyy slow. Last night, he thankfully slept through the 3am feeding. Oh, and my colleague Andrea wanted a full report on the first diaper change. I’ll spare you the details, but the first one that “counted” was all you can imagine. I’ll say this: that nasty stuff gets everywhere, and it seems that the more places it goes, the more the baby will laugh about it. Ick. Daddy has been named the official baby changer. He had the honors for the first one, and although he used about 52 wipes, he did a good job. So Andrea, fear not, it’s not hard – all you do is take off the old, clean him up good and slap on the new. Cream only if he has a rash (Thanks Kara!). Parenthood is not nearly as hard or as weird as I thought it would be. We can not wait to bring him home to meet all of you. You will die of the cuteness, trust me.

We are now just waiting to be called for our Bienestar interview. It’s the welfare agency, and the interview is required before your case goes to court. Nothing happens over the weekend though, so we have a lot of free time. I will try to write more often, now that there are less people here, it will be easier. The best internet connection is in the living room, and when I am there I always get sucked into conversation.

Buenos Noches! Or as Carmen says: "Ciao Ciao" (I know, italian, I don't get it either)

We are three!

2006-11-30T18:21:00.000-08:00

Hola from Bogota!

It took me a while to get an internet connection here, so I'm sorry I didn't post sooner. Right now, I am sitting here typing in the living room of our hotel, and our beautiful new son is sleeping. But how we got to this point, is quite the adventure.

Wednesday morning was uneventful, we had actually gotten everything done in time, and left for the airport on schedule. We got on our Delta flight with no problems. We thought everything was smooth sailing, but uh...no, the fun was just beginning. Our seats totally sucked, we were in the LAST row, with NO window, in front of the bathrooms, in very squooshy seats. My throat started hurting and I was exhausted. We asked twice about our connection, because we took off late. Twice we were told we would have plenty of time. So when we get off of the Delta flight and go to Avianca to check in, imagine my surprise when the agent looks at me like I'm crazy, and tells me she thinks we are too late to make the flight! After some pleading, and frantic checking, she decided that maybe it was possible to make it. She decided to escort us RUNNING through the terminal. We did make the flight, but we were told our bags may not have made it. I'm thinking okay, well I'll just have to meet my son in a pair of jeans and a ratty hairdo - oh well, it's not like he won't see that again! Avianca, thankfully is a wonderful airline. We got hot towels, a great meal and a decent movie (you, me and Dupree). And, we were told the bags did in fact make it, yay!

We got off the plane and made our way to immigration. A long line not helped by the fact that I had to pee really badly. We got through that and ended up in the baggage claim area. Oh my GOD what a nightmare that was. Total chaos. People running around in all different directions and NO ONE speaks english. And no one cares that you do not speak spanish. I was finally able to figure out that I needed to fill out a form to allow us to leave with our bags. Once I got the paper in english, I filled it out and we moved out into the main terminal. All I remember is seeing this WALL of people standing outside the doors. They don't let anyone inside like they do in the US so everyone is outside, pressed up against the barricades. We spotted our name on a sign and found our driver. As we waited outside I noticed that it was a beautiful night. Kind of like an early spring night, a little cool, but nice fresh air. There were lots of trees.

We are supposed to stay at a place called El Refugio, which is a kind of bed & breakfast especially for parents adopting Colombian children. Our driver tells us that we will be unable to stay there for the first night, because some of the couples at El Refugio have been delayed. He takes us to another hotel where a room has been secured for us. Except when we get there, it hasn't. They have no room either, and they have secured a room at a different hotel. So we lug all of our baggage back down to the car and go to the new hotel. It was wedged between some stores, and it was all dark when we pulled up. Our driver had to speak into a speaker for a good 5 minutes before they opened the gate and let us drive in. The room was just okay, kind of skanky, but we were so freaking tired by this time, we didn't care. And what were we going to do anyway? So we lay down and try to sleep, try to enjoy our last night with no kids. We both slept okay, but only for a few hours at a time. We woke up at about 6 am and just sat around and waited for the orphanage to call and tell us when we would be picked up. It was sheer torture just sitting around and waiting. At least the tv had CNN and FoxNews, and even some movies in english. Finally she calls at 10 and says the driver will be there at 11:15. Another freaking hour to wait!!! Evenutally the clock hands tick all the way around despite my stares willing it to move faster, and the driver arrives. Here we go!

The orphanage is in another part of the city...more industrial, poorer I guess you would say. Just different from the urban city area that we are staying in now. If you have ever been to New York, it reminds us alot of Brooklyn or Queens here. Croweded streets, lots of stores and apartment buildings, and big office buildings. Anyway, we are dropped off at the orphanage and we are met on the second floor and escorted into a waiting room. We hand over the outfit we have brought to dress the baby in. There we meet another couple from NY who is there to adopt their second child. We meet the nurse, and she goes over his medical information again and his feeding schedule (thank the good Lord the kid drinks Similac). After a few minutes the other couple is instructed to stand up because their baby is coming! Their cameras and video camera are taken by the staff so they can document the event. In comes an adorable little baby girl with a whole lotta hair. Everyone's crying and taking pictures. Okay, now it's our turn!

So hubby and I are standing up in the appointed place holding hands. "Here he comes!" we hear. I start sobbing, I can't believe this day, this moment is finally here. A group of people turn the corner, and in the middle of it all, they are holding up the most adorable little boy I have ever seen in my life. All I kept saying was "Oh my God he is so beautiful!" over and over. He doesn't take his eyes off of me. Even when I hand him to my husband. He was probably like 'What is this crazy lady's problem?" We sign a few papers, and buy a case of formula and we are let free! Back into the cab to go to El Refugio, and no car seat! Our driver was very good though, he went very slow. Back at the hotel we got to change him out of his hot sweater, feed him and have lunch ourselves. We meet some of our fellow guests. We have met one couple from North Carolina who are very nice. Unfortunately for us, they are leaving Saturday. They are the only other people who speak english here. The maids speak spanish, and all the other guests are French. This should be an interesting stay. Thank God I have enough spanish to get us by. I have a new found respect for all of you going to Russia, Vietnam and China. We don't get a translator!

The only other problem we had here is that today we found out our medical letters had expired a few weeks ago. So the orphanage arranged for a doctor to come to the hotel and give us a quick exam. It was painless, and not too expensive. Just another crazy thing we had to deal with. Boy, you really have to be a flexible person to deal with this process!

So today we have just been enjoying our beautiful boy. He is very comfortable with us, he did not cry once. He is very alert and curious, he doesn't like to be laid down where he can't see what's going on. He likes to be held, and he likes to be spoken to. He is very smiley and doesn't really fuss. He eats pretty easily, although we threw him all off schedule today with all the excitement. We have spent most of the day just staring at him and trying to comprehend that we've been deemed worthy to be parents to him.

Tomorrow we intend to hand around with our NC friends for their last day, and maybe venture out to the various stores. I want to get my camera out into this fascinating place. It has so much character here.

Time for bed now. Please note that this post was just to give you an update. I read it back and it is boring as hell. I'll be wittier after I get some much needed sleep!

Adios Amigos!

2006-11-29T06:03:00.000-08:00

We leave here in just about a half hour. We're all packed, the house is clean, and we've said goodbye to everyone we know. I am doing better today, yesterday I was a mess most of the day, every time I pictured myself getting the baby I sobbed (good thing a crazy crying woman is par for the course on the NYC subway). My stomach is still upside down but that's to be expected. If all goes according to plan, we will be presented with our baby tomorrow morning. Keep on the look out for an update.

Still struggling with the name, I am hoping when we see him we'll know.

Okay, let's roll!!

Starfish family...you are the first to arrive

2006-11-27T10:25:00.000-08:00

For winning this leg of the race, you win a no-expense paid, adorable little boy.

Seriously folks, this is like my own personal episode of the Amazing Race. My husband and I had to drive to the airport last night to buy our tickets in person before midnight or we would lose our seats. Thankfully we got them, and they only cost us $118 each for taxes because my husband had enough frequent flier miles to cover both round trip tickets! SWEEEEEET! Yesterday was like a treasure hunt - we split up and conquered our lists, buying last minute baby things, travel items and visa documentation. Today I had to run to the Colombian consulate and apply for our visas. They said I can pick them up tomorrow! What a relief. So we will be leaving Wednesday for sure. I can't even believe it. The den in my house looks like a bomb went off. There are bags and crap all over the place. I need to figure out how to get all of it (or decide if it is not going) into suitcases.

I spoke to the nurse taking care of my baby today, she said he is a "big boy", he eats well, and sleeps well, and is always smiling! Oh man I cannot WAIT to get there! You know, it's funny...prior to getting the call, I would sometimes think about whether we were doing the right thing. Maybe God was trying to tell us that we weren't meant to have children. Oh boy did all that change when I saw his picture. My heart truly skips a beat whenever I look at it. I don't know if it's all in my head, my selfishness of wanting this beautiful child so much or what, but I really do feel a connection to him already. My husband feels the same. It just feels right. And the process, although insanely crazy, really is going relatively smoothly. I am not really stressed out, just anxious about doing everything right and getting there in time. I even registered yesterday! Yikes, what a nightmare, I can't imagine doing that pregnant. We were in BRU for 3 freaking hours. By the end my cousins were dragging me around like a cranky toddler. My cousin K had the gun thingie, and thank goodness she took charge adding all the things I would need..sometimes despite my arguing ("shut up, you do too need a wipe warmer, I'm adding it"). Thank GOD for them, really. My favorite thing is the bedding (I ultimately decided against the babystyle stuff), so me! There is so much stuff to buy, and really, most of it is so big, bulky and ugly. I couldn't decide on a packnplay, or an exersaucer, and I still need to pick a monitor. Their help was invaluable to me, and I don't know what I would have done without them.

Speaking of, I would like to thank you all once again for all of your comments. Every one of them means so much to us. Your encouragement is uplifting. I have tried to write back to each of you, but I don't always have email addresses. And in my fried brain state, in some cases I am unable to connect your blog name with your comment name with your email address. So if you haven't heard from me, it's not on purpose. I thank each and every one of you for your good wishes and funny comments. It is so appreciated.

As I sit here, I am waiting for our IT department to swap out my laptop to one with wireless so I can drag you along with me to the end. Gah!

I survived Black Friday and all I got was this lousy t-shirt

2006-11-24T19:44:00.000-08:00

Somebody stop me. I think I have purchased every blue piece of baby clothing in the tri-state area. I went through Carter's, Baby Gap, Old Navy and The Children's Place like the Tasmanial Devil. Must. Buy. More. Onesies. I got some really killer bargains not to mention some really adorable things. Here is the loot, and some of my favorites:

The prince onesie has some significance. You see my family already has one prince. Actually I should say HAD one prince. My brother is the apple of everyone's eye, and while it's true that he is nice looking, funny, successful and kindhearted, well, he is my brother, worse yet my younger brother, and if anyone out there has one of those - well, you know. So the day we found out about our little boy, I told my brother he's been dethroned. He must give up the crown. We will not have a christening, we will have a coronation. Therefore, when I saw this at the store, I had to have it. BTW, the next day my brother informs me that he's been promoted. Promoted? Yes, he said, I am the KING now. Ah, I see.

So I am mostly recovered from our day today. I could barely sleep (that face! those cheeks! a son!) so no sooner did I start to doze at about 12:30...the alarm went off at 3:15. We arrived at 5:30 am and the place was mobbed. Energized by new baby adrenaline, I wasn't too cranky. My companions, K and her sister however, made up for it. Yikes people..drink your coffee and suck it up. I didn't get everything Iw as looking for, but having K there to help me with sizing and styles was invaluable. I took advantage of her delirious sleep deprived state to get her to agree to register with me on Sunday.

I got home at about 11:30 and started making phone calls to get some questions answered. At this point, the only concern is getting our visas in time. I need to find out if the orphanage would be okay with us leaving maybe on Thursday instead, and if the consulate thinks they could turn the visas around in 2-3 days. We did put a flight on hold for Wednesday just in case we do get them quickly. We may also need to get our medical forms updated, but let's not think about that one just yet, okay?. Hubby did a great job today doing some other stuff - buying a camcorder, gifts for the orphanage staff and a kinko's run. Poor guy feels like crap...he has a nasty cough that he is trying desparately to get over before we leave. The doctor says he just needs to drink liquids and rest, but there is no time for that!!

I did crash and burn at about 5:00 though. I tried to sleep when I got home but the phone kept ringing. I got up and decided to start calling the airlines, snapping my husband's head off in the process. Then, the people I had made plans with for dinner totally bailed on me, and I got really pissed. Here I am going through this crazy whirlwind, and I still made time to see them, and they couldn't be bothered. Normally I would rant about this for a bit and get over it. Today I decided that the better way to deal was to sob uncontrollably for a half hour. A little teensy bit overwhelmed and overtired? Ya think? I took a hot shower (so long my palms were pruney), had some soup and a grilled cheese (thanks honey), put on pjs and watched reruns of Entourage. All better now.

Can't wait to continue the retail therapy tomorrow - rumor has it there's some fishy bedding at Baby Style with my name on it.