Spleeeeet!

Isaac has been dancing a lot lately. It is spectacular.

We are humming along, rolling, tripping, falling into rhythms. Every day ends with me surprised how much we stuffed into it, and a list of things leftover nagging me to stay up to the wee hours getting a few things done and procrastinating many more.

Primrose and Isaac, the personality twins, wake up at about the same time in the morning. Sometimes Toby joins them and he’s tall enough to lift her out of her crib while J and I get ready and start breakfast. She wakes up so happy it's ridiculous. It's a Rockwell painting all up in here for the first 5 or maybe 6 minutes of every day.

Footed pajamas, eldest brother reading. A wholesome start to any day.

Tomorrow we have her MRI and (hopefully last for a while) blood draw. She’ll be sedated and it’s supposed to take about four hours from check-in to release. I'm trying to keep my hands open and unclenched, to follow wherever God's going with this thing. Being grateful and also worried is a sour mix, hard to sustain. 

She did this "All Socks Are My Puppets (TM)" move in the front row of the Eugene Symphony kid's concert.
It was entertaining. I especially liked when she clapped enthusiastically for us with one ensocked hand.

I am looking forward to the day after the results from the tests, the day everything relaxes and goes back to getting back at it. I painted my nails (almost never do the fingernails because it feels weird when I play) all sparkly tonight and then realized that's what I had done the day before she met us at the Children's Welfare Institute. She may be doomed to go through life with a strange aversion to tacky nail polish. I am throwing away the bottle if it's a bad day. 

Still a fan of balloons. Well played, spaghetti factory balloon animal guy!

The last few weeks haven't been pretty. I had a disgusting case of pink eye which led to an infected cornea. I missed a symphony concert. It was a bummer. It feels better now, but I think it takes me longer lately to get back into our schedule whenever something pushes us off it. It's either a 3-kid thing or a 40-something thing. I think it's high time I re-read Getting Things Done or Letting Things Go or Drinking Wine for Fun and Profit.

Some folks on a homeschooling forum I read were responding to a mom asking about adoption from China and I found reading the thread depressing. One of the respondents in particular warned her to be wary of any blog saying everything is "wonderful" in their family after adoption. I know we are still so new to this, and we truly were prepared for harder things, but it stung a bit to feel like our experience still doesn't count in the spectrum. I hope the person who posted the thread wasn't discouraged. 

Isaac has figured out how to climb poles over concrete.
I told him not to climb higher than my head.
Our insurance company doesn't read this blog thing, right?

Thankfully one of her super-powers is not massive upper body strength.

We are not making this up, exaggerating or leaving out a bunch of bad stuff, though part of me still waits for the other shoe to drop. Maybe there is a hidden medical need. Maybe she'll display Radical Attachment Disorder or she'll be a terror and hate us when she's grown. Maybe she'll hate adoption and fight against people being allowed to do it. Maybe she'll wear fringed jeans jackets and play electric piccolo in a new country band (sorry, that was harsh but I have to go there, after all these are our darkest fears. Spleeeee-eeeeeet!).

Right now, from my blissfully unqualified position, I believe it will not matter if any or all of those things happen. Crap, I am tearing up realizing and writing this. Don't worry- the tears are no longer contagious. It's so sappy. I have drunk all the koolaids because this whole thing including the years of waiting and the financial sacrifice is just so worth it. 'Worth it' isn't even in the right universe. 

So tomorrow we tackle the MRI. I'm just going with banking on her forgetting the whole thing.

MWAH!