It's official. Caring for young children can make you behave like a crazy person

So I'm babysitting the kids for Lisa and Scott tonight. Do you ever really get used to the chaos that is two children, aged three and five? If one of them isn't screaming, the other one is creating a huge mess. We were trying to play a game while waiting for the pizza deleivery guy. Finally, the doorbell rings and I run downstairs to answer it. Gracie insists on coming with me. O.K. fine. We open the door and both step out onto the front porch to keep the dog who is barking furiously from going out. We stand there for a few minutes while he runs my credit card and gives us our food. I notice he is smiling a bit strangely at Gracie, and then at me, then back at Gracie again. I don't think much of it, until he turns to leave and Gracie walks down the front steps and is waving goodbye. It is then that I notice she has no pants on! And no diaper either. Yes, that's right, I let my niece stand out on the front porch in sixty degree weather in front of a total stranger buck naked from the waist down. Niiiiiiiccccee. I'm available for babysitting, if anyone is interested! Cheap! Then when we got inside I looked in the hall mirror and noticed I was wearing the pink pair of these. I had forgotten that Gracie put them on me. No wonder he was smiling strangely at us! He must have thought I was crazy!
I think I might be, just a little, and I don't even have kids yet!

Vacation, all I ever wanted

Vacation, got to get away. Now that song is going to be stuck in my head all night. Ahhh, the eighties. I have managed to get away on a mini vac-kay. I had a four day weekend due to an event at my school, and I flew up to San Francisco to visit my sister and the kids. So far all we've done is eat. Seriously, we've been out to eat three times already and I've only been here a little over twenty four hours. Tomorrow we're going to the farm, and then I'll babysit the kids so Lisa and Scott can go to a party. Sunday, we have more eating planned, as Lisa and I are meeting up with Mary-Mia for lunch. Monday we come home. It's good to get away for a few days. Joe couldn't get off work, so I'm missing him, but having a great time with the kids.


*Oh my gosh, how could I post this without mentioniong the awesome new look? Isn't it beautiful? I can't take credit for it though. It was all the doing of Heather over at Digging a Hole to China. She graciously offerred to re-design my blog, and I'm so glad I took her up on it! She can do yourss too, for a small fee. It is well worth it! Thanks Heather!

Yet another doctor

Today I added yet another doctor to the ever growing list of those I already see. I went to a Podiatrist. I have been having some trouble with my right foot for the last four months or so. I am having quite a bit of pain on the flat side, right below my ankle. At times it becomes so painful that it is impossible to wear a shoe on that foot. This is problematic for me because, well, my job kind of requires me to wear shoes at all times. So I went to a foot doctor. I really liked him. He was very nice, and funny. After asking me a bunch of questions about the pain and watching me walk, he diagnosed me with "cuboid capsulation". The cuboid is a bone in the foot. It has become irritated because I wear crummy shoes and I am overweight. This has made my cuboid bone very unhappy(his words, not mine). In order for it to heal properly, he wants me to go and buy some good hiking shoes and wear them at all times. I mean every single minute of the day that I am on my feet. He doesn't even want me to go from the couch to the bathroom without wearing them. The idea is to immoblize the foot so it doesn't become irritated anymore, so the swelling will go down. He also wants me to have it massaged three times a day with a block of ice that I freeze in a Dixie Cup. And he says my leg should be level, so someone else must do it. This could be a problem for me. I only saw my husband a total of sixteen hours last week. I leave the house at 6:15, before he even gets up. Does this doctor think I just have a personal assitant on hand twenty four seven who I can summon to massage my foot every day, three times a day? Riiiiiiight. No problem. Maybe I can get the kids to do it? (Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha -that's funny! These aren't even my kids!) So I'm not sure what I'm going to do about the whole massaging thing. As far as the hiking boots go, I'll give it a try, although I'm not sure what that's going to do for my sense of fashion. Hiking boots are fashionable, right? Especially with capri pants. And skorts, because it is still hot here. I was thinking something like these. Yeah, those will go with the outfits I wear to work. Or how about these. I'm going to look like a total geek! Nevermind the fact that I have to convince my husband that I have to buy one hundred dollar hiking shoes! Well, the alternative was a shot in the foot(which I declined politely) and wearing one of these for three weeks. Now that's fashionable!

Bat out of Hell

That's what I drove like today. Like a crazy person. Over the speed limit, changing lanes without signaling, honking at people who got in my way. Like a Bat out of Hell. But Michelle, what would posess you to drive in such an unsafe manner, you might be asking yourself. To get the last few documents of our dossier in my posession. I drove over sixty miles today. I obtained all of the letters I need. Joe and I both had blood drawn. (They forgot to test us for Hepatitis when we had our physicals. Can you believe that?) This paperchase that has lasted almost a year is now officially over. Now we wait for the letter giving us our group number(the same as DTC). When that day comes, there will be much celebrating at my house. But for now there is relief. A huge sigh of relief.

Sunday Scrappin'

Joe worked all day today, so I decided to do some scrapping. I have signed up for a monthly scrapbook class in which they give you the theme and supplies for the month and you create a layout. They judge the layouts in class, and award prizes for the top three. I have never really submitted my scrapbook pages to be judged before, so I was kind of nervous about it. Today I just decided to sit down and do it. I am quite happy with how it turned out. The theme was "First day of school". I decided to use a picture of myself as a child, since I don't have any first day pictures of my own child(yet). This photo is actually one of my husband's favorite. I was four years old and it is my preschool picture. I don't remember a lot about that day, except that I did not want my picture taken. Thus the expression on my face! I remember the photographer trying everything he could to make me smile, but I was having none of it! Notice my sister smiling angelically in her photo. I also made a couple of Halloween cards. Next I will be starting on my Christmas cards. It's never too early!

A Better Day

I am feeling much better today, physically. Mentally I am still a stress case, but what else is new? I talked to the adoption agency five times today. They are getting on my nerves. The letter the CPA wrote wasn't quite right and they want another one. They also want another letter from the nephrologist, when yesterday they said it would be fine without it. I forgot to sign one of the forms I sent(duh!), so I have to print another one out and send it to them. Did I mention they want all of this stuff today? Uhhhh...Sorry! Neither our accountant or my doctor worked today. Whats up with that? So it will have to wait until Monday. If things continue to go wrong like they have there's no way we are going to make the deadline to be DTC this month. At this point I'm so stressed out and tired that I'm not sure I care. What's one more month in the whole scheme of things? To top it all off, we bounced a check to them. Joe was suppposed to transfer funds and he didn't. How embarrassing. I'm pretty sure it can only get better from here. At least it's Friday!

The day from hell

Yesterday was the day from hell. I didn't feel good, was exhausted and had adoption drama that I really didn't need. I have been feeling lightheaded and nauseous for the last three days. I'm not sure why. I was so tired I fell asleep sitting on the bench out on the playground at work. Its a good thing I wasn't alone with the children! Something is obviously not right. Maybe I'm coming down with something. I just got up from a two hour nap. The adoption agency called yesterday. They want all of our paperwork by this Friday so we can be DTC in November. Otherwise we'll have to wait until December. There is no way I'm letting that happen, so I agreed to do anything I had to in order to get them the required paperwork. This means making multiple phone calls to our doctor because they forgot to fill in the results for our Hepatitis tests. All I needed was for them to fax the results to the agency. Pretty simple, right? Riiiiiggghhhtttt......The only problem is that our doctor is out of town for the entire week, and he is the only one who can do this. WHAT? Since when can't a nurse fax test results? I've about had it with this doctor. No amount of begging, pleading, yelling or crying would make her change her mind. It is ridiculous. Anyway, one frantic phone call to the adoption agency later, and they agreed to process the paperwork now and wait until Monday for the test results. Phew. Drama that I do not need. Then I had to drive to Long Beach to pick up a letter from our accountant verifying Joe's income. Nevermind that we already have letters from all three schools verifying this info. Nooooo...our agency thinks it doesn't look good that he has so many employers and they want a letter simply stating that he is a teacher and what his gross monthly income is. Fine. We had the letter done, and I had to go pick it up. In rush hour traffic. Yay me. It took me an hour to get there. Then I had to hurry up and get it to the mailbox place so I could overnight it to the agency, since suddenly she decided that she wanted the paperwork on Thursday instead of Friday. Ummmmmm, again with the rush hour traffic. Needless to say, it took me another hour to get home, and I missed the Fedex guy by fifteen minutes. Oh well, they'll just have to settle for Friday. Then I had to rush off to meet up with the gals from my infertility support group(which was lovely, by the way). It was the only good thing about yesterday. But man was I exhausted when I got home and fell into bed at 10:00. I'm still exhausted.

P.S. I can't really call it my "infertility support group" anymore. Out of the original five of us, three have gotten pregnant or had babies, one of them with twins. Although I am extemely happy for all of them, I have to admit I feel like the "failure" of the group. No pregnancy for me. Maybe I won't feel that way after we bring Sophie home. I hope so.

I got this sign today to hang on my front door when it gets a little closer to Halloween. I think that pretty much says it all. God Bless my husband for just smiling and saying "that's cute" when he saw it, instead of some smart aleck comment.

Look what I got off of Freecycle

For....you guessed it.....Free! I have responded to a least a dozen offers, but never got anything because so many other people responded to it first. The guy that gave it to us said he received thirteen responses, and mine wasn't even one of the first, but because I said I would come and get it today, and I didn't ask a bunch of questions about it(the condition, the dimensions, etc.), he chose me. Pretty cool! My Dad has been after me to take the dishes that belonged to my Mom, but I had nowhere to put them. Now I do! It is in excellent condition. It is just missing the glaass shelves that go in it. I should be able to replace those pretty easily.

Look what came in the mail today!

Woo Hoo! That means we are right on track to be DTC in November! Yay! As soon as I get the letter from my doctor, we are set. I am so relieved. I thought it would never come!

My Husband is Home Sick

And I am sooooo happy! Ummm..Not that he's sick. That he's home. On a Friday night! Do you know how long its been since he hasn't worked on a Friday night? Neither do I! But it's been at least six weeks. And what exciting things are we doing now that we have a week-end night together? We're watching Dancing With the Stars, since he couldn't watch it when it was on. Woo hoo, we are wild and crazy I tell you! He didn't feel up to going out, being sick and all, and that's fine with me. I'm just happy not to be sitting home alone on a Friday night. I hate his part time job. Hate it. I wish he didn't have to have it. I wish we weren't broke. I wish he had gotten this job at the beginning of summer, instead of at the end, so we wouldn't be as far behind on the bills as we are now. I should be thankful that he was able to find something part time that fits his teaching schedule. I am thankful that he's home right now(even though he's sick) because I have been lonely without him.

I am not freaking out(that much) anymore. Thank you for all of your comments. I have spoken with my social worker and she is convinced that this is not a problem. We are going to try and get the nephrologist to write a more positive letter, that states my disease does not compromise my life expectancy, and that the drug therapy has been successful. If he won't do it, I'll find one that will. My main concern right now is that we get our Log in Date in the next month. Joe is going to call about our I171 tomorrow. It has been seven weeks since we were fingerprinted, and two weeks since I sent them the additional documentation they asked for. I'm tired of waiting already! I'm ready for this paperchase to be over. I want to place this in God's hands and have faith that everything will work out the way it is supposed to. It's all I can do right now.

Freak Out

Today I heard from our adoption agency. We are exactly two pieces of paper and one I171 away from our LID. Finally we are getting to the end of this paperchase that has been going on for close to seven months. They wanted to "discuss" with us the impact that my recent kidney disease diagnosis may have on the adoption. Basically they warned us that China could turn us down due to my disease. Now we already knew this was a possibility. This wasn't such a huge surprise. It was the seriousness with which they broached the subject that scared me. We asked them what they thought the likelihood of this happening was. They said they couldn't speculate. All she would say is that China is very particular about health issues, and mine definitely raises a red flag. Suddenly it hit me like a ton of bricks. This might not work out. We might not have a baby at the end of this. We might go through all of this hassle and heartache and spend thousands of dollars and still not have a child. And that's when I started totally freaking out. Like hyperventilating, crying kind of freaking out. Joe had to talk me down. I am starting to freak out a little just thinking about it. I know there are no guarantees in life. But the reason we chose to adopt and not go further with infertility treatments is because it was a "sure thing" that we would have a baby at the end. I don't think I can do this and wait up to two years and then be rejected at the end. I just don't think I can. Joe thinks we do not need to worry about this. He says the adoption agency is simply covering their ass in the unlikely situation that China did turn us down. He says this is something that we have no control over and therefore should not waste our time worrying about it. If it is meant to be, it will be. Isn't he just the voice of reason? Of course, I cannot do the things he suggests. I must. freak. out. I have no choice. It's what I do. And so I am asking you, internet buddies. Please leave me a comment and tell me about yourself, or a friend, or a friend of a friend of a friend who adopted from China despite having some terrible health affliction or disease. Please tell me that China is not going to turn us down simply because I have kidney disease. Heck, lie if you have to. Because right now, you're all I've got.

September 11

Tomorrow is September 11th. What can I say about this day that hasn't already been said by hundreds of other people much more eloquently? I didn't lose any loved ones that day. I don't live anywhere near New York, and didn't experience any of the terror. And yet that day will forever stand out in my memory as one of the most terrible days of my life. I remember sitting glued to the televesion for hours on end, watching the smoke rise from Ground Zero. I was alone that night, as Joe had a class. I was sad, scared, and overwhelmed. The next week was a blur. In the months following, Joe would often come home and find me watching a talk show or news program about the missing or dead, and I would be sobbing uncontrollably. He asked me why I watched these shows if they made me so sad, and I told him I needed to. It was the only way I could feel connected to that tragedy. To know a little bit about those that had died. I won't be posting anything tomorrow. In many ways tomorrow will be just a normal day for me. I will get up and go to work and go about my daily life. But I will also be thinking about all of the people who lost their lives that day, and the heroes that saved so many. I will light a candle and say a prayer. I will remember.

Long Time No Post

Has it really been four days since my last post? Boy, time flies when you're busy. Lisa and family are visiting, so the last two days have been spent in Laguna Beach where they're staying. I love when they come and vacation here because then I get to live vicariously through them and pretend that I'm on vacation too. All day today was spent at the beach. It was such a beautiful day! A perfect beach day. Then I took the kids so Lisa and Scott could have a much needed night off. We met up with Papa for dinner at Red Robin, then back to Aunt Michelle's house. Uncle Joe hasn't even been able to see the kids yet, because of course he is working every night. Sigh. Oh well, I had fun anyway. Now the kidlets are asleep and I am relaxing with a glass of wine. A very good day.

P.S. Of course I have pictures, but I am too lazy to upload them now. Maybe tomorrow when Joe is yet again working and the kids are heading home.

P.S.S. Entertainment Tonight is showing videos of Steve Irwin and family and now I am crying. It's just so sad. Time to lay off the wine!

Ho Hum

Not too much going on around here. Had a nice, relaxing Labor Day. I got a lot done. I've decided that one of the things I am going to do while my husband works every single night is clean and organize my house. I have already done our bedroom closets, and this weekend finished my scrapbook area. Next is the baby's room. That is going to take some time. There is so much junk residing in that room right now. My husband is such a packrat. I'm going to start in one corner and just work on it until its done. Heck, I have plenty if time! Still waiting for our I171. It's been almost a week since I sent them the paperwork they requested. I hope it comes soon.

Crossing the Line

My husband and I have a lot of pets. I think it might be a side effect of the infertility. Among those pets are our two dogs. And like many other people, we treat them like people. They are allowed on the couch. They sleep in bed with us(under the covers!). But the one thing I swore I would never do is dress them. We both think that dressing your dog in clothing is silly and that is a line that we would never cross. Until now. This is completely my sister's fault. When she was visiting a couple of weeks ago, she bought this for my dog. Yes, it's a pink T-shirt with the Chinese symbol for "Love" written on it. And I have to admit, it's kind of cute. And yet still so wrong. But I secretly like it, and even admit to surfing the internet looking at other T-shirts for her. Don't tell my husband. (This is how I entertain myself while sitting home alone while my husband works the night shift.) For a hilarious picture of my dog wearing the shirt, go here. I'm going to get some new hobbies. I promise.

Thanks to the people that offerred suggestions on how to keep myself busy while my husband is at work. Don't get me wrong, I do have some friends. (No, really. I do). It's just that they have husbands, and kids, and lives and stuff. This is just an adjustment for me, since I am used to my husband being home and us doing stuff together. Its only going to be for the next six weeks or so, so I'll survive. But thanks for taking the time to comment. I do appreciate it. I actually have about a dozen projects that I want to do, and having all of this alone time will give me no excuse not to do them! Oh, and here are some pictures of all the work I did in my room at work. I wish I had some true before pictures(before it was painted and cleaned). It is really a trasnformation!

Big Labor Day Weekend

I have a big Labor day weekend ahead. Tons of stuff to do. Parties to go to, people to see. NOT. I actually have not one thing planed. My husband is working for the next four days, four to midnight. That means for the next four days I will be doing what I am doing right now. Sitting at home alone in my pajmams reading blogs. Exciting stuff. I am hating my husband's work schedule right now. I miss him. I don't like being home alone at night, and going to bed alone. Because our schedules are so opposite, sometimes I go two days before I see him again. Sigh. I really need to find some friends.