"i don't know"

i am so excited. packing has been crazy. i've been painting the house trying to fill in every last ding (to no avail of course) and i can just feel all the years of yearning for this baby coming to an end. but really, it's a beginning. the end of the wait, the start of our new life together as a family.

i keep imagining seeing her for the first time. the big doe eyes in person. i have silly fantasies she recognizes us from the pictures we sent and she runs up to us with open arms. no hesitation, no fear. just glee. but i think i do this little story in my head so i can get that expectation out of my system. sometimes the kids i've had since birth aren't even that happy to see me. and she doesn't know us. other than a few pictures she doesn't know anything about us at all.

it's also presumptuous to think that we as her waiting family know her. we know ABOUT her. we know what she looks like. we know what she eats. we know her nap schedule. we know what has been described as her "usual temperament." but we don't know her smell, or what it's like to touch her skin. we don't know the sound of her laugh or the pitch of her cry. we don't know if she's a messy eater. we don't know her favorite book. there are so many things to catch up on. it's meeting our daughter for the first time when she's already had her whole life up until this point without us. bizarre concept.

the boys are excited. they too have fantasies about what having a little sister is going to be like. my youngest is excited about being a big brother finally. the middle is excited to get out of the middle. the oldest is excited to have yet another younger sibling admire him. sometimes they gather in the pinkness of her room and wrestle. i look at it kind of like a dog peeing on a favorite tree.

i asked my oldest what he thought the best part would be. he asked, "are we going to have barbies?" yes. (i know, after my bathing suit dilemma maybe there is a tinge of hypocrisy. but i loved barbies and i never cared as a girl, teen or woman that i didn't have that waist, those boobs or that perky behind.) "are we going to have pink things?" yes. "are there going to be poopy diapers?" yes. he thought for a minute and then answered, "then i don't know." and then we both laughed. i don't know either but i am wholeheartedly looking forward to finding out.

i'm not nice

so class with the 4 year olds was totally uneventful as far as having to talk about anything regarding the baby. maybe it's because i brought chocolate milk and ice cream and they went easy on me. the most eventful thing was probably MY 4 year old, who decided to blow zerberts in the vicinity of my boobs in front all his classmates and teachers. all were fascinated.

we read a book and then one of the teachers said, "did you bring a picture of someone to share?" my kid said, "yeah!" he took out the 2 pictures i had brought and started sliding them past each kid on the rug saying, "see?" then the teacher asked "who is that?" and he said, "my sister!" the kids all looked. a couple smiled and then that was it. silence. no drama. no questions about race relations. or iran. no one pointed out that i had a significant pimple on my chin. or asked why my 4 year old boy has such long hair. no one wanted to know why we didn't eat meat. they didn't care. kids are cool.

kids ARE cool. but some adults are less than cool. i have fielded some of the weirdest, rudest, most prying inquiries about our adoption over the past 22 months. some of them have been so whack i just had to laugh. like, "ethiopia? huh. that means your kid's gonna be black you know." i wish so badly that in that moment i had replied, " BLACK??? no way! then we're calling the whole thing off!" but instead i just looked at them and in my dumb-foundedness came up with the whopper response of, "right." or the casual acquaintance who asked how i was, and when i shared the upcoming excitement with her, she got very close in my face, chucked my chin and said, "good for you! a black baby from africa!" so weird. who does that?

the most frequent comment we've heard from people is how "nice" we are to adopt. it's a seemingly insignificant thing to say -- and i am sure the people who say it think they are giving us a compliment. but it is a ridiculous concept. no one adopts to be "nice". no one. no one comes up with the cash, plows through mountains of paperwork, deals with the imperfect bureaucracy of our government offices, (and in our case 2 government offices) has the invasive visits from a random social worker (several times) who wants to know everything about everything. about you, your spouse, your marriage, your parents, your parents parents, your stresses, what you do for fun, your children, your fears, your hopes, your dreams (to name just a few) to be "nice." no one is that nice. trust me.

i remember now

feeling better. i went through these feelings with all my boys -- i mean different feelings but feelings that were uncomfortable. i'm a pretty mellow mom, but i do get in freak out mode in the face of change. once i realized (or remembered really. i've done this 3 times before!) that this is my pattern, i felt better. it's been awhile since i've had a baby.

slightly freaking out

i shouldn't start writing right now. i have 20 minutes. not enough time. but, it will help me get to the point. i am freaking out. i have 9 days until i get on an airplane to ethiopia. i mentioned the lists that the agency gives you. it has a whole bunch of paragraphs on "appropriate" dress. it is clear that i have nothing to wear. my friend who is ethiopian and coming with us says they don't know what they are talking about. you can wear anything. i have nightmares that i wear the wrong thing when i meet our daughter and they say, "uh, sorry. you offended us. too bad. no baby for you!" i just want to do everything right.

i stood in the baby's room last night rearranging stuffed animals, toys, the rocking chair. this morning it all looks wrong. i don't have any diapers in my house, but i did buy safety latches for the cabinets and have been bugging the hubby about getting the baby gates up again. and i guess that's another thing. what if she gets hurt? we have to have home visits every month. what is she falls down and the social worker says, "uh, sorry. you let her fall down. too bad. no baby for you!" and takes her away? i know that is totally off the wall, but it runs through my brain. will i be good enough?

the teachers at my preschool are awesome and so excited about the coming addition to our family. they asked me to let them know how i wanted them to approach talking to the kids about adoption. i should know how to answer that right? not right. i know how i talked to my kids about it, but being the template to teach a bunch of 4 year olds in mass about adoption? not comfortable. i don't know how to do that. in the winter our baby will be at that school and she's not going to look like most of the other kids. so i'm bringing a picture of her to the classroom and i'll just field the questions that surface from the kids curiosity. and do the best i can.

conflict

i went to target today. we have a love/hate relationship. i love that they're cheap. i hate that they're a big box store. but today i found joy in 2 things: an itty-bitty 2 piece bathing suit for an 18 month old girl (!!!) on sale for $1.72, and a hot-pink shag rug, not on sale technically, but about $400 less than what i'd been looking at in catalogs and online. and that translates as a sale to me! hoping the hubby feels the same way.

i was actually at target to return spit up bibs, pacifiers and pacifier clips. listen. it has been a LONG while since i've had a baby. and this baby has already had some life without me. it's been very difficult shopping to prepare for her arrival. the adoption agency gives you this list. it's a long list and some of the things on the list have something to do with your kid, and alot of them don't. but trying to figure out what's written for your child and what's written for everyone else's is difficult. thus, my impulsive purchase of the bibs etc. which were all on the list. my girlfriend said, "um, 17 month olds don't spit up." um, duh. reality check.

but in all fairness, my kids were with me from day 1. i didn't go from no kid to a 17 month old in an instant. and when all this goes down, i'm going to be in ethiopia. a land that is foreign to me. with a language and a culture that is different than mine. i feel like a pacifier, (even though i never gave any of my kids one before because i don't believe in them), would be one of those grounding, very familiar, american things to do in a place unfamiliar to me. from a practical approach, obviously silly. but from a psychological standpoint, i get it. i see me trying to get my bearings in anticipation of the unknown.

so, the baby room is not done. blackout shades, but no window treatments. changing cushion cover, but no cushion. bare floor. (getting to that.) yellow cushions on the rocking chair that match absolutely nothing. however, there is a cheery retro flower mural that my cousin and i painted by hand on light pink walls. and the ceiling is painted hot pink. my bubblegum machine from when i was a kid is in there. and my first ever stuffed animal. the drawers were empty until yesterday when i went over to the aforementioned girlfriends house and went through clothes that are still a little too big for her baby who will turn 1 in january. i kept saying over and over again, "these are so small!" her patient response was always, "these say 12-18 months. and they have the weight on them." and she's smaller than the average 17 month old. she only weighs 18 1/2 pounds. she will probably be swimming in these "small" clothes. i think i just can't wrap my head around it all. it's real, but it's not.

the hot pink shag rug was a very exciting find. i tried to call my husband (who has put me on a strict budget) for approval. he was on another call. not my fault. and i had to get home by 11. there was no time to wait! i plopped that sucker in the totally disgustingly germy orange target shopping cart and smiled as i quickly noted the rug was machine washable. woo-hoo!

now the title suggests there was conflict. maybe the assumption is the conflict was with target. or if i should buy the hot pink shag rug without the hubby's OK. but no. my conflict, that is still tugging at me now is with that little 2 piece bathing suit i bought for $1.72. it's backround is black. and the pattern design is hot pink, (sensing theme) light pink, turquoise and lime green. so far, so good. but the pattern. the pattern is cherries.

cherries. on a little baby girls swimsuit. the giddiness and the deal and the cuteness of the tiny suit has given way to my association with cherries. you get it. you know what i'm saying. my husband had already discussed our distaste for the "princess" slogan on the butt of girl's "juicy couture" velour warm up suits. or the princess slogan on any girls clothing item for that matter. we just don't like it. (maybe it's because we're jews -- who knows?) and the clothing that sexualizes little girls as women -- unacceptable. is this bathing suit and extension of that way of thinking? with 3 boys i have never had conflict over clothing purchases. i don't buy camouflage because i think it glorifies war to little boys, but other than that? can't think of anything i've had "design" moral conflict over. what to do, what to do...

completion

since i was 14 years old, i've wanted to adopt. i remember being in my room, listening to the radio. they were doing a story on the crisis with china's children. the girls. i was dumb-founded. i couldn't believe it. i was in 8th grade. it was in this moment, my dream of adoption began.



so how do you pursue something like adoption in 8th grade? well, you don't. technically. but i guess when this became what i wanted, i was like the kid who decides to be a doctor. you live your kid life, and you have this adult dream on the horizon that you slowly move towards. i never, ever faltered from this dream. it morphed, (the when, the where etc.) but in my heart it was always going to happen.



on my 3rd date with my now husband, i asked what he thought about adoption. not marriage. adoption. we were at the botanic gardens by the little japanese house, by the trees, by the water. he shrugged and said, "um, why not?" good answer. because, if he had answered "no", he wouldn't have become my husband. maybe that sounds terrible, but would you stay with a person who wouldn't support and share your life dreams? i hope not.



did he share my long honed passion for the idea? of course not. i introduced the idea to him. he was 24 years old. i can look back on that moment and many moments since then and see how freaking lucky i was. it was a weird question to ask. in general and specifically on like, a 3rd date. but he gave a good answer. which worked out, since i'm in love with him.



so life went on. we got engaged a year later, married the year after that. i wanted kids right away. my husband? not so much. kids? yes. but not immediately. so 5 years passed and we had our 1st child. 21 months later came #2, and 22 months later #3. suddenly we had a loud, joyful chaos: 3 maniac boys, 2 dogs and a house in the burbs. life was good. life was great. but life was incomplete. someone was missing.



we both wanted to pursue adoption internationally. for me, since i first heard that radio broadcast which was about children in a far away land , i always imagined a child in my life that didn't look like me. came from somewhere different. came from somewhere i wanted to celebrate. the journey to that "where" was never a straight line for us.



there were places we ruled out immediately. and places that ruled us out. there were countries we didn't have an interest in for all kinds of reasons: no interest in the culture; no desire to explore the land; dislike of the cuisine; politics... some of the reasons may seem petty, but one thing we knew for sure. wherever our child was to come from, we had to be not just willing, but passionate about learning more. we had to be committed to incorporating the culture, language, art, food and essence of our child's homeland into our home the best we possibly could. through a variety of ways, through bumps and curves, for a number of reasons, our hearts led us to and landed us in, ethiopia.



so, we began this process 2 years ago january. i called my friend who is from ethiopia, and asked her to tell me, truthfully, how she felt about an ethiopian child being raised in an almost completely white suburb by jewish hippy folks. i shared with her every anxiety i had about it. she laughed and said we were a wonderful family. she said she knew the kind of love we had in our home. she said she thought it was meant to be. she said we had good friends, good people in our lives. i cried tears of joy in the trader joe's parking lot. the simplicity of her answer gave me courage.


it only took 4 months to submit all our initial paperwork and complete our home study. the real work began when all of that was over. the paperwork kept me busy. when that was done, all we had to do was wait. and wait. and wait. until july, when we received our referral and our daughters beautiful face came into focus. and you know what? it was a really, really long wait. because i've been waiting for this child since i was 14 years old.

maybe i just need to get a window treatment...

i have pots. pots that have been sitting all summer long filled with good dirt. dirt i bought in the store and was supposed to use gloves to touch. i haven't planted anything in that rich, fertile soil. i've walked by those pots again and again and i've noticed them with little care. suddenly, they have become as obsession and a slight source of shame. i have to plant the pots. everyone else has planted their pots. if i don't plant these pots, it's a testiment to my continuing failed domesticity. i rushed out to the hardware store yeterday and purchased 6 mums. they will be tasting that soil this afternoon. i'm going to impress the mailman who has walked by my empty pots many a day. yes, i care what the mailman thinks.

sometimes the mailman walks by and the kids are insane, my house is a pit and i'm unshowered. this is all revealed to him by this huge bay window we decided to leave "untreated" in our livingroom. and on most days i like it like that. i can see the blooming bushes we planted last year. the sun comes in. the occasional bunny or wandering cat flits through the yard and we watch hoping the two never meet. but then there's the mailman. he's not peeping. he's just walking to deliver the mail. he always looks up, headphones unabashedly obvious but still aware of things around him. he always smiles and waves at us. but i sometimes feel like he get this innacurate snapshot of my life, where i am at my less than fabulous. and in a moment, the mailman has decided how my family lives and how i'm a frenzied, non-showered parent with out of control kids. and maybe it bugs me because this snapshot has some truth to it. because after he leaves me with more bills and plump must-have advertising/coupon packages, i am not suddenly calm, primped and in control. and then of course there are those unplanted pots. i think i might hate my mailman.

i don't know what i'm doing...

i don't know what i'm doing. i'm not sure what a blog is exactly. maybe i talk about my kids -- all the whacked out things they do and how they make me laugh? and how they make me not laugh too? but i think that maybe this blog is for me. so i don't go insane. mommyhood can be kinda rough. mostly because i'm not who i thought i would be. or who i aspire to be. but luckily, my children are very forgiving... i don't have any advice (today). i'm undeniably very imperfect.

i am the mom that never sends the 2nd set of clothes. i get the calls for the emergency contact forms i never turned in. i forget to pay for the bus that takes the kids to enrichment and no matter how i beg, i end up having to drive the first day. i forget to send an apple on apple day. i forget to put my mother-in-law on the "pick up" list at camp and she's almost arrested for trying to get my kid in the carpool line. i forget to send gym shoes on gym day. i forget meetings. i lose library books. and CD's. i can never find my reciepts. i forget to brush my teeth. and theirs. i forget to wash my dogs. as i'm typing this, i'm reminded i have an overdue comcast bill. and last night when i jokingly said i was going to kill my husband, he said, "you can't! you haven't paid my life insurance bill this month." and you know what? he's right.

i'm just a mom who tries to see the humor in some mishaps and moments with my kids. and in life. like, when i'm playing "madlibs" with my almost 8 year old son, and he asks me for a body part, maybe i don't answer, "boobies!" or maybe i do...