Whole Lotta Shakin' Going On

Dearest Child,

Last Monday was one for the books. To fully tell the story, however, allow me to back up a bit.

Each weekend has been booked solid since Christmas, so I had marked the weekend of March 21 & 22 to sleep and catch up on all of the TV shows that were threatening to be deleted on our TiVo. I had it all planned out: I’d sleep until 10 or 11, then I’d watch nine hours straight of Little People, Big World. I get such a kick out of watching Matt & Amy Roloff. I definitely relate to Amy Roloff (family and God first is her motto), and Jay can definitely see a lot of Matt Roloff (he, too, is s a dreamer who was a born entrepreneur).

The weekend I had dreamed of longingly, however, was not the weekend I was meant to have. You see, your Aunt Beth was two weeks from marrying your Uncle Tom. And she needed help to get things ready. Lots of help. I agreed to have them over on Saturday afternoon (along with your Grandma Max and Aunt Cindy) to help make favors and things for the wedding program. We had planned to spend a few hours working on these favors and we were going to cap off the evening with Uncle Tom’s famous BBQ tri tip.

And then I was going to spend the rest of the evening curled up on the couch watching Little People, Big World.

It’s a good thing we cleaned up the house on Friday night, little one, because we had a “houseful of relations” all day long. Several of your daddy’s cousins stopped by that day, and ended up staying to help. We ended up having ten people over for dinner that night, and do you want to know the sad part? We haven’t had guests over in forever and I’ve been dying to use our dining room again properly, but we couldn’t have dinner in there because the table was full of paper crafts for the wedding! We had a blast, though, and I was reminded once again just how much I enjoy spending time with your daddy’s cousins and family. Little People, Big World would have to wait until Sunday.

The next day, your daddy and I went to church (excellent sermon on trusting God for the details; a message I definitely needed to hear). Your Aunt Beth came over again with Grandma Max to finish up the favors—despite all of our best efforts on Saturday, we just couldn’t get it all done. We worked through the afternoon and finished with dinner (at least this time it was around the dining room table). I was so exhausted from working all weekend long that I slapped some zit cream on my face and just collapsed on the sofa that night. I think I managed to sneak at least an episode or two of Little People, Big World in, so the weekend wasn’t entirely lost!

That night, however, I couldn’t sleep. I tried every trick in the book, and I just could not.go.to.sleep. I gave up around 1AM, and picked up the computer to browse facebook for a while (your Uncle Grant, also on Facebook at the time, gave me a pretty hard time about being online so late).

So I suppose, all things considered, I shouldn’t have been surprised that I slept through my alarm on Monday morning. I woke up with a start, panicking because the alarm was flashing 7:17 and I had to be at school at 7:20. I ran around the bathroom getting ready while your father rushed to get my car started and for what was sure to be a race to the school. A shower and proper make up would have to wait, and a ponytail with jeans would have to do for the day. By some miracle, I managed to be at school just as the bell rang. And actually had a decent class period with my advanced drama kids. A few hours later, however, it dawned on me: the zit cream.

In my rush to get ready that morning, I left the zit cream on my face. While it dries clear, after a while it starts to flake off. And I had liberally put it on both sides of my face (I think two pimples were competing with one another as to which one could outgrow my nose first). Nuts. Oh, well, I don’t think the kids noticed…or if they did they at least had the courtesy to not laugh at my face to my face.

Lunchtime wasn’t so much lunchtime as it was run-home-and-grab-a-shower-and-try-to-salvage-what’s-left-of-my-face-time. I felt more human after that, and went about planning lessons for the home hospital student I would be teaching that afternoon.

After school and before home hospital, I came home, anxious to sneak in another episode or two of Little People Big World. I didn’t bother to bring my cell phone in the house with me; I didn’t want to be interrupted and was determined to salvage whatever relaxation time I had in the precious one hour I was home.

Two episodes letter, I was in the car, rearing and somewhat ready to teach home hospital a mile a way. I glanced at my phone, noticing I had a voice mail. Further inspection revealed that the call I had missed was from “Adoption Kim” (I had given our social worker that moniker because I feared that I had more than one Kim stored in my phone and didn’t want to be confused when answering the phone). I didn’t bother to listen to her message, opting instead to call her.

Adoption Kim answered the phone fairly quickly, and started talking about how different offices do their surveys differently. My mind is racing at this point, thinking that somehow they’ve been offended by the customer satisfaction survey I’d filled out the week prior (note: I had not said anything negative, so I don’t know why this was a concern but that’s beside the point). Then she started saying something about our profile being shown to a birth mom who was due on April 10th.

At this point, my heart was really racing because…was this the phone call we had been dreaming of?

I didn’t have to wait long, because Adoption Kim took a deep breath and said, “She picked you.”

She kept talking at that point, but I wouldn’t be able to tell you exactly what she said because from that point on my heart was racing so fast that my brain forgot how to listen. I told her I’d call her back and made a quick u-turn and raced home to tell your father the news.

The past few days (it’s Wednesday now) have been a whirlwind of phone calls, emails, message board posts, texts and loan applications. I don’t know how I’ve managed to keep teaching (and this includes two night classes at Fresno Pacific University!).

All I know is that I have not stopped smiling and these next three weeks can’t come soon enough (while at the same time I don’t feel like it’s enough time to get everything ready for you). Both your father and I are a little nervous; we’re not sure how we’re going to come up with the rest of the adoption fees in time for the big debut, but I’m trusting in God that He will work out the details. If He is giving us a child, He will also provide for our family.


Hope to see you soon,
Your mommy

Big Bird's Eyelids Are Too Small For My Liking

Dearest little one,

It's been two weeks since I last posted. Oops! Truth be told, these past few weeks have been a whirlwind of crazy happenings and not much happening at all happenings.

On the happenings front, I've been working a couple of extra jobs (doing tutorial), and tomorrow night I pick up yet another one: teaching children's theatre at Fresno Pacific University. I absolutely love it, but I got to admit, the idea of being gone until 10 two nights a week is a little bit daunting. On the homefront, lives are changing left and right around us. Your Aunt Beth & Uncle Tom are getting married in a few weeks, and Daddy's cousins Brent & Bethany are expecting their son Keston any day now. I saw your Aunt Bethany at a girls' weekend a few weeks ago, and she looked like she was going to pop that baby out of there in any minute! Getting a little closer to home, and I think I can officially say this now: you're going to have a cousin! Your Uncle Grant & Aunt Erin are expecting a baby of their own this August.

On the not much happening front, you guessed it, not a whole lot of action on the adoption front. We're still waiting, and that impatience that I've written about so much has been replaced with a calm peacefulness. It'll happen when it happens, and that's good enough for me.

In the meantime, your nursery is filled with items that people have donated for the mega garage sale that we're planning on having in the next month. I'm slowly going through the house and finding things to be sold. So far, the entire guest room is scheduled to be sold. I had thought about keeping it around for your grandmothers to spend a few nights here when you come home, but I think I can get way more use out of a room to lay out all of my scrapbooking stuff. I can't wait to get it all set up; I think that when it's ready to use (instead of being packed away and dragged out on random weekends like it has been for 5 years) I'll be able to use it much more.

I did, however, manage to haul all of my scrapbook stuff out this past weekend to finish up your ABC book. It's super duper cute, and I really look forward to filling it with pictures from your first year. I think your daddy said it best when he said that I may as well do this type of scrapbooking now, because when children come into our lives there won't be a whole lot of time to meticulously glue on Big Bird's eyelids with tweezers!

I think it was worth the work, because isn't it cute?

Lots of love,

your mommy

P.S. Some of the pages have been left blank because we don't know if you're our son or our daughter.
P.P.S. Some of the letters were really hard to come up with words for. E? I? J? X? That was tough stuff. I really had to put my college degree to use on those ones!