...and to think that this time last year I was telling myself, "NaBloPoMo in November 2009!"

So. Things have been a mite busy on Mom Street, which I'm sure you knew thanks to my relative silence.

I've been a really crappy blogger. But! (And it's a very big But indeed. No, not butt. Although that's also very big indeed.)

But! I have been a very good mom/friend/MOMS Club officer/adopting mother. Since I last posted a real, honest-to-goodness post with, like, words and stuff, there has been this:



And this:


And also some of these:


Yes, I have hosted or co-hosted two Halloween parties and a baby shower. I am hosting an intimate Thanksgiving dinner next week.

I have chaired meetings, made holiday crafts for the preschool's Secret Santa shop, solicited donations for the preschool's silent auction and met with an adoption attorney.

I have been fingerprinted. Twice. I have been criminal background-checked. I have been to north and south Florida visiting grandparents both well and unwell. I have been vaccinated against H1N1. I have had a sinus infection. I have had a leaky roof repaired. I've called the FBI 7 times. I have drunk lots and lots of coffee.

Most importantly, I completed our homestudy.

The social worker signed off on it today, pending the receipt of our FBI fingerprints. The fingerprints are supposed to be released on Monday or Tuesday, so by Thanksgiving Day I'll be jumping out of my skin every time the phone rings Is it D? Do we have a baby? Be-still my heart!

Feel for my husband, y'all. It ain't gonna be pretty.

But for now, the merry-go-round that has been my life for the past few weeks (or is it months?) has stopped and I hope to have a little time to find a groove here on Mom Street again before I take my seat on the adoption roller coaster.

In the meantime, I changed my ringtone to Tom Petty's "Runnin' Down a Dream." It seemed like the right thing to do.

Happy Halloween!

From my very own Wild Thing.

Is Freud in the house?

So. I haven't blogged about the adoption in a while. Mostly because there wasn't a whole lot of progress to report. (I also forgot basic punctuation and grammar rules, apparently).

JR has been so overwhelmingly busy, and traveling so much for work that it has been virtually impossible to coordinate efforts like going for physicals and drug screens (which we've done), heading out to be fingerprinted and criminal background-checked (which we haven't done), and most importantly to immediate progress, finishing our self-studies. The self-study portion of a homestudy is where you essentially write your autobiography and then answer a bunch of invasive questions about yourself, your relationships and your parenting in the present and future. It is Not Fun. Mine has been done for weeks, but JR has been having a difficult time not only with writing it, but finding the time for it. When something so important hinges on your words, you want to get them just right and that's hard to do late at night after a long day of dealing with vendors and employees and business partners and travel. He finally finished it up over the weekend, and I promptly emailed it to the social worker so that we could arrange our second visit with her.

I'm trying to set up this second visit this week, because next week JR heads out on another trip and my heart just really can't take another multi-week delay. We'll see. I have to keep reminding myself that although she is our only social worker, we are by no means her only clients. Sigh.

I was filling out the requisite financial forms before bed last night (never a good idea) and proceeded to sleep fitfully, even getting up at midnight to see if the social worker had responded to my emails requesting an appointment time this week. She hadn't.

Just before the alarm (also known as my child) started going off this morning, I was trapped in a troubling dream:

JR and I had gotten The Phone Call. A birthmother had chosen us to parent her newborn daughter and we needed to get to her right away. The baby was in an Inuit village on a tiny island off the coast of Alaska and the only way to reach it because of the ice flows was by plane. We were waiting in an airplane terminal (not unlike the one in Wings) and a man who lived on the island and was going to be on our flight walked up and asked why were were traveling there. We told him that we were going to meet our new daughter and then bring her home.

He walked away with tears in his eyes and pulled out his cell phone. He made a call and I heard him say, "It's today. They're taking her today." Somehow I knew that he was talking to the birthfather.

The next thing I knew we were on a tiny plane that could accommodate 6 passengers, and all of the seats were full. No one would meet my eyes. We took off over very rough ice cloaked seas and our tiny aircraft was being buffeted by strong winds and I was trying not to vomit. Fog swirled in and I could no longer see. The turbulence got worse and worse and it felt like we were hurtling towards something horrible when a small voice called, "Daddy? Mommy? Good morning Mommy!"

Yeah. Anyone care to take a guess as to what all of that was about?

More Conversations with Grasshopper (You Can't Make This Stuff Up)

"Ben took my patient." Grasshopper announced shortly after clambering out the car after school on Friday.

"Ben took your patient?"

Solemn nod.

"I'm not sure that I understand. What is a patient?"

"It when you get mad 'cause you don't wanta wait anymore!"

"Oh! You mean PATIENCE! Ben took your patience?"

"Yes! I wanted to pway wif da blue car an I asked him if it could be my turn next and him said "yes!" but him not GIVE IT TO ME!

Foot stomp. Pouty lip.

"I'm sorry honey. That's tough, huh?"

Stifling laughter.

"Yeah. Him took my patient and I didn't have it no more."

Long-suffering sigh.

Conversaions with Grasshopper: the Deep Thoughts Series

I had one of the most important conversations of my life yesterday.

On a busy thoroughfare. In the rain. At 5:00 pm.

Because why should anything be unnecessarily easy?

Yesterday Grasshopper and I went over to Good Attorney's house for a play date with her son, Little Z. Good Attorney is 7 months pregnant and looks every minute of it.(I hope she doesn't kill me for saying that. I'm hosting her baby shower in a couple of weeks and that could get awkward.)

On the way home from their house, Grasshopper had some questions about the baby in Good Attorney's tummy.

"Why does her got a baby in her tummy? Did her eat it?"

"No! No, honey. Good Attorney did not eat a baby. Babies grow in their mommy's tummy until they..."

"Come out!"

"That's right, sweetheart, until they are born."

"Like I was in your tummy before I was born."

Oh, God. Oh God, oh God, oh God. I did not expect to be doing this in rush hour traffic, on Ponce de Leon Ave. in the rain!

Please don't let me screw this up. Please.

I'm so not ready for a pop quiz.

I haven't had enough rehearsal time.

Please.

"Well. No. You didn't grow in my tummy Grasshopper."

"Yes I did. Before I got born."

"No, honey. You didn't grow in my tummy."

"I grew in your heart!"

Huh? I know that "grew in my heart, not in my tummy" is a cliched adoption saying, but it's not one that I've ever parroted. I appreciate the sentiment behind it, but JR and I always thought that it would be confusing to children, especially young children. So we've never said it.

"Well, I've loved you since even before you were born, so you've been IN my heart for a long time, but you didn't grow there. You grew in another lady's tummy. She is your Birthmother."

"Why her is my Birthmother? Why I not grow in your tummy?"

Because the universe isn't always fair.

Because this is how we were meant to be.

Because I could never have created anyone as perfect as you.

"Because my tummy doesn't work right for growing babies. So your Birthmother grew you for me, and after you were all ready to come out..."

"I got bornded!"

"Yes. You were born and then your daddy and I adopted you and I became your Forever Mommy, and he became your Forever Daddy. We love you so much."

"Little Z has a Birthmother, too?"

Why the extra-credit question son? Did you really have to do this?

My palms are sweating so much I can hardly turn the wheel.

I can't even see your face!

Was this really necessary?

"Yes. Everyone has a Birthmother. For some people, their Birthmother and their Forever Mother are the same person. Like my mother is my Birthmother, because I grew in her tummy, and also she is my Forever Mommy."

"And my Grandmommy!"

"Yes, exactly!"

*silence*

"Why da winsheild wipers go swish, Mommy?"

I don't know baby. I'm just glad that I can tell you, "I don't know." and let the tears roll right on down my face.

I'm so glad that you're watching the wipers and can't see me.

I've practiced for this day since before I ever laid eyes on you.

Since those first nights after we decided to adopt.

Laying there in the darkness I would imagine this conversation with some faceless child (a girl, by the way) and picture us sitting on the beach, or in her bed at night enjoying snuggles before we tucked her in.

She was always at least 4 and a half.

I never once pictured having this conversation with a 3 year old.

But then, I never pictured you.

You are everything that a Forever Mother (or a Birthmother) could hope for.

I love you, baby boy.

I really hope I didn't screw this up.

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday

Don't you hate those days where you get yourself all dressed to go cut the grass, and the lawnmower won't start and then your cell phone won't pick up a signal?



Yeah. Me too.

Friday FAIL

Friday is rightly regarded by most people as one of the finest days of the week. It marks the end of the work week and segues us nicely into the weekend. It's arrival is heralded by cries of "Thank God!" and simply "TGIF!"

Today, however, has not lived up to expectations.

I woke up groggier than usual this morning because JR had a nagging cough last night that repeatedly startled me awake just as I was drifting off to sleep. "Cough, cough, cough" followed by precisely the right amount of silence to have me snuggling back under the covers and floating away to dreamland only to be jolted back to full consciousness by "cough, cough, cough." Oh, the joys of marriage.

Upon waking I was comforted by the realization that Friday was finally here and that although I had a lot on my schedule today, I would be doing it sans Grasshopper. He attends preschool on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings this year, and it's been lovely. Particularly since his school provides the option of Chik-fil-a lunches on Friday meaning that I don't have to figure out what to pack for lunch that day or worry about how I'm going to keep his milk cold since I seem hell-bent on forgetting to put his wee chill-pack back in the freezer after he brings it home.

I allowed myself extra time to read blogs and sip my coffee after my shower since, you know, I didn't have to pack his lunch or anything. And as so often happens I got sucked in. Before I knew what hit me the little clock on the corner of the screen said 8:10 and not only was I not dressed or fed, neither was Grasshopper. I can skip breakfast. A three year old cannot.

So I proceeded to race around screeching at the poor kid to "Hurry, hurry!" and "Find your shoes! We're laaaate!" (always so effective when dealing with toddlers) I threw on clothes, and put some on him. I located the missing sneaker (under the entertainment center) and threw some Cinnamon Puffins cereal into a baggie for him to eat in the car. I even remembered to comb my (wet) hair.

We raced out the door and I was quickly confronted with having the wrong car keys because my car is at the dealership and I'm driving JR's Saab while he tools around in the loaner vehicle. Crap. Crappity crap CRAP! I made Grasshopper sit on the front step while I rushed back into the house praying that JR had actually hung his keys on the set of hooks in the kitchen that we use for key-wrangling. He had. Hallelujah!

We finally got underway about 5 minutes behind schedule. Which isn't too bad because traffic is often lighter on Friday mornings. Oh Friday, how I love thee.

On the drive to school I mentally rehearsed my schedule: Drop Grasshopper off and head to Sam's Club. Then go home to put away refrigerated foodstuffs and organize the paperwork I need to fax to the homestudy agency. Head to Target to return a shirt and buy a gift for a friend's daughter who is turning one. Go to the chiropractor for an adjustment and then drive up to JR's office to have him sign some of the forms and make a copy of his driver's license. Then use his fax machine to send it all to the homestudy agency and maybe squeeze in lunch with him before racing back to school to pick Grasshopper up for his three day weekend (yes, our school thinks Columbus Day is an ACTUAL holiday). Alot to manage, but doable, definitely doable.

Until, that is, I pulled into the school parking lot and saw....no one. That's right. Not one car in the lot, not one light on in the building, nothing. It was Not Good.

"Where my buddies?" Grasshopper asks.

"Um. Well, I think that they must be at home Sweetheart. I don't think you have school today."

"But it a School Day Mommy. It Chik-fil-a Day. I want to go to schoooooool!"

"Well, I don't think that's gonna happen today Grasshopper. I'm sorry."

"Wahhhhhh!"

I turn into a parking space and call JR at work and ask him to pull up the school calendar on the website for me. He does. It runs through September 14. Helpful, very helpful. He asks if I want him to call the school, but I tell him that there's no point, that school should have started by now and that obviously that's not happening today. He listens to me rant. He listens to Grasshopper scream about schoooool. And then he LAUGHS and congratulates himself on working outside the home. The man enjoys living dangerously.

So we headed back home. And I proceeded to check nearly nothing off of my to-do list while Grasshopper dogged my heels asking WHY he didn't have school today. Why Mommy? Why? Why? Why?

And I couldn't tell him.

Do you want to know why I couldn't tell him? Of course you do! This story is riveting!

Because when I switched the September school calendar on the fridge for the October one that was sent home on the 2nd (which was, incidentally, a FRIDAY) I apparently threw away October and stuck September back up. Oh yes, yes I did.

So Friday, I am officially putting you On Notice. Next week you had better live up to expectations or I am going to have to demand a do-over. And margaritas. It's really the least you can do.