Distraction

We're here, but it's been hard to focus on much.

Rachael the Seattle ho and her shining hubby Tim came for the weekend.

We realized we are almost too smart to figure out the rules for Cranium. The questions, we get. The moving and drawing of cards and such? Hilarious mutiny, repeated reading of the one page of directions.

Also, J was not pleased that I ripped up a stupid card. He's funny about stuff like that, I think because he and his sister were on combat rules through childhood. So then I bent the corner of another to see what might happen. "Stop that! It's an expensive game- we bought it at Starbucks!"

Heh.

I guess little sisters never change.

Hoping it won't take 40 weeks...

M- Sighhhh.
J- What are you thinking?
M- What if we get her?
What if we don't get her?
J- Yeah.


Tonight I was totally blubbering watching Hotel Rwanda. I know it's an emotionally challenging movie (and an excellent one, at that) but it still felt out of character. My slow morph into my own violence-intolerant mother is taking over my mind, yes, but still, I am not a weepy woman. I distinctly remember giving J crap for tearing up at a movie when we were dating. I regularly laugh out loud when Toby pulls out his yelling-late-afternoon-bored cry after being bumped on the head with a feather or somesuch.

This whole picture-show motivated loss of emotional control tells me I can bet the next few months might be in crystal-intense focus for me. You know how photographers use a soft filter to make life look nicer? There won't be any of that.

People cheezily refer to the adoption process as a paper pregnancy. That kind of word goofery generally annoys me, but I have to say the weepy moodiness aspect is similar for the first day anyway.

Dig n' Read

How ironic is it that as my 500th post approaches I'm getting anxiety about coming up with something cool? 497th time's the charm?


I've been painting our kitchen in Behr's Bon Voyage (it's a little bluer than in the pic), which happily matches the colors of a vintage globe I found at the Goodwill Dig 'n Save the other day.

The Dig 'n Save is a distillation of consumerism, a universe of materialism complete unto itself. Life, death, and boxes of junk. Goodwill occasionally takes an entire shipping container and delivers it to the store to be picked over and bought for pennies on the deeply-discounted dollar. Gramma's estate sale remnants and the twins' outgrown playthings all find their way to a blue bin on wheels stuffed with dusty goods. The pro shoppers patiently line up around empty spaces in the hangar-like facility to await another bin's emergence from slapping-open tan doors.

I have seen beautiful things: a hand woven rug, a like-new Brownie Movie Camera in its box. A woman buying clothes (1.49/pound!) for her grandkids and another for an orphanage. Children running wide-eyed and giddy from bin to bin, free for once to pick out what discounted treasures they can glean from the discarded detritus of suburban life. A box of another kid's toys holds a secret fascination, and a box of mysterious origins through which you must journey to overcome the worthless is the holy grail of kid materialism fantasies. It's the dusty old attic for kids of urban sprawl.

This week I took my mom along, because I knew she would love the thrill of the hunt and not be too put off by the need to Purell upon exit. We found some trinkets (the aforementioned globe lights up!), and a book shelf dealie I'll paint to match some room. We never have enough space for books, prolific little breeders that they are.

In short: Dig n' Save, I love thee. I told you I was cheap.

What are YOU for?

Adoption research involves learning about some of the saddest and cruelest things man does to his compatriots every day. Today, in fact.

I'll spare you the graphic- I'm sure you've heard plenty just being alive. One story I gotta tell you, though, sounds just like the set-up to a crummy joke: Did ya hear the one about the American parents who neglected their kids for video games, starving them with abundant food in the house? Child services found them in time, thankfully. Now that we're in the thick of looking at adoption, every news bit about international instability and poverty makes me wonder what is happening to the kids there, a though closely followed by, 'hmmm, do they have adoption programs for US families?' Did you even know that some insanely desperate countries still close their doors to adoptive families? Did you know that Romania is one of the worst countries in which to be an orphan, and yet a certain politician barronness (Cruella DeVille, we'll call her) pretty much single-handedly stopped foreign families from adopting -SAVING- those kids a few years back by suddenly closing that program entirely? Romania now records fewer institutionalized kids thanks to her efforts. Notice I said "records", not "has". Google it if you don't believe me.

You're thinking, blahblah dee blah. Everyone knows the world is depressing, what am I supposed to do about it? How about arranging something tax-deductable with monthly auto-giving available and extremely high ethics ratings? Seriously.

Please think about sponsoring a kid through World Vision or any other program you like. If you are sitting at a computer in a warm dry place and know you'll have food, friends, and safety for the next year, you know you should be giving back. World Vision is a good thing and I hope to get seven more kids sponsors this year- please do check it out and maybe tell a hundred friends.

The link is also in my sidebar.

Better safe than... oh, very funny.

J took this picture a few nights ago when it was still cauldron-like here and Toby was enjoying a piece of ice and running around the living room engaging in some serious nudie time. I couldn't figure out when I downloaded it why I look so ticked and tired. In retrospect it's clear I must have known that tonight I would be freaked out (pppbbbltltltlt to the nurse advice line) and take Toby to the emergency room only to find out he's got jock itch. Yes, jock... itch. He's too cute to have the word "jock" be used in reference to his, er, area.

At a year and a half, Toby is officially a toddler. Is his having the medical issues of an older, damper, wrinklier man part of some elaborate hazing?

Toddler Sitz, take 2

Today we tried rehearsing with Toby again and it was way more fun. This time I thought ahead and gave him some crack grapes & cheese in his high chair, and set him where he could watch Anne's fingers on the keyboard. Like a fancy wine and cheese chamber concertfor the one year-old set. He totally dug it, especially the Lyle Lovett and the Vivaldi.

In fact after Anne left with her magical musical toy he pulled me aside over by the toybox and said, "One word, Mama. Jawdropping."

Die, suckers!

We have sugar ants. Jerks.

I put Borax and sugar all around the outside of the place and continue to squish the suckers and wash 'em down the sink. What's that one about scooping up the fieldmice to bop 'em on the head? Anyway, just when you feel clean again there they come in their stupid little ant formations with their lameoid friends and neighbors. I hate them so very deeply.

Seeing those sickos sent me on a cleaning spree and we now need to have a garage sale. Our stuff- the piles and boxes and closetsfull- has finally seriously ticked me off.

That's it. I've forced you to read about grindingly boring cleaning and the infestation of casa del Ward. The end is nigh.

100 degrees, 100 years old, same diff.

So guess! what the 8-year old boy said when the grumpy chick at the zoo told him to stop kicking his cohorts.

"You're not the boss of us."

And in his beady little miscreant eyes I saw reflected the stodgy old crone I have worked so hard to become in all her glory, straggly hair streaming proudly in the wind. I thought about shaking my cane and taking a victory lap around the entrance to the zoo, but it was wayyy too nice a day, so I shuffled off to the public transit I rode in on. Toby tried to hide under his hat but later on he helped me open the Metamucil, so I guess he's recovered from the shame.

father & son

J Version 3.3

Thirty Three!

I love you.
Happy birthday, and thanks for letting me rob your cradle, darlin'.
You amaze me daily.

My sister's cat's tapetum

Gobsmacked

This evening at 6:18 pm Pacific, I experienced one of the best moments of my life. And I know it- how many are so lucky?

It was Toby, naturally. He was waking from a nap and I started singing his name from the bottom of the stairs, so by the time I made it to his door he was ready for our most recent game. He flings himself back down and pulls his blanket back over his tousled head. I drop down and crawl toward him, wondering aloud where Toby went.

He is a laugh prodigy, captivating. He kicks his feet, doing this move that looks like that break-dancing snake on the floor maneuver while the laughing cascades out. When he finally quiets down, flips over and reaches past the crib railing for me, I get a bouncing boy hug. If he's really happy he pats my back or leans into me and puts his hands behind his own back.

Seeing this for what it is... I'm grateful.

I'm not the only one in love- here he is with his girl Natalie.

Violence, Electrocution and Illegal Explosions

My husband is a winner, I've got proof!

He called the local AM(4-7 everyday!) talk show, answered two questions about the week's news and voila! we get free movie tickets and a dvd of Mel Gibson's Apocalypto. I've heard it's incredibly graphic, so I'll make J watch first. I'm still completely pissed off that I saw Pan's Labyrinth. That director is a talented jerk. How do you say jerk in Espanol? Sadly, I know how to say slightly worse, but would rather not... anyway there's violence and then there's gratuitous self indulgence. Jerk.

We're heading to Aumsville for the 4th so we can set off our Washington State approved fireworks without worry of setting the rest of the townhomes on fire or getting arrested or something. Oh yeah, baby, we're wild.

Also, we have to make sure all the cows are still incarcerated at Casa del Heifers in Heat. I sure hope they are respecting the newly electrified fence, because what am I going to do, play a merry tune to lure them back in?

To my American contingent I say, Happy Fourth!

Break out the cigars!

A new blog is born. Bored!

I was tired of worrying whether all the adoption-talk was inducing a glazed-eye coma in all 2.3 of my readers. So I fired me up a brand new one!

It's linked in my sidebar, or click on over right...... HERE.

Cue these dudes,

Ahhhhhhh-oooooooo-
ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

The first and last time...

...he'll be put in the backseat of a cop's cruiser. Unless of course he decides to drive one after graduating as valedictorian and saving a pack of boy scouts from the jaws of a bear with nothing but a paperclip and three Weeble Wobbles.

The Nazarene church up the street had a block party today and they had us at "firetruck". It was a great setup, with dunk tanks and bounce houses and a big huge inflated slide thingy. I can't tell you how disappointed I was that Toby's too small for all that. Because I wasn't, not one little guilt-ridden overprotective parenting bit. I am a worrier, and a darn good one, and those kinds of toys make me think of the statistics on freak accidents resulting in a toddler with at least a black eye. Shudder.

He's repeating a lot more words lately. He says mama, but usually it's more like Moe mooooooe, with his mouth stuck out in an exaggerrated "o" as he staggers over to me in a silly mood. Then he gets a twinkle in his eye and hits me on the nose or clocks me with a toy. Did you know my sister nicknamed me Mean Streak when I was his age? Oh justice, thou art cruel.

I was asking J for some favor today while carrying Toby upstairs and he started saying "honnney" in such a way that I knew I was being petulant just from the way he repeated it. How embarassing. He also likes to say Go!!!!! in the car, which he apparently picked up from the exceedingly rare times I would eeever say something like that to my fellow very capable drivers. Not me, nope.

We are in a difficult (for me) limbo, staying or going, and I feel the capilaries I've put out in Portland shrivelling from disuse. J very logically pointed out that the roots are for me and the point is that I need to feel them, so why retract them yet. This is sounding like a bad Oprah, but anyway I thought at the time it made buckets of sense.

I hate to feel a lack of direction, and it's not easy for me to thrive without deadlines, connections and concrete goals. It's depressing, actually, and feeling dumpy makes me want to sit around on my butt all day, which feeds the blues and it's just such a bourgois problem to have I think I might have to slap myself. I suppose I could just enlist the kiddo there...

Toby and the Behemoth

NOT about adoption!

Look, we went to Santa Cruz! With the pelicans! And the boardwalk lights! Plus, the moon!



We had an eventimous week. We went to California and stayed in by far the coolest hotel I've seen. There were antique Brownie cameras in the Norwegian Blue/ Chocolate Brown lobby, and large swaths of velvet randomly hung all over the modern scandesign place. There was a Rubic's Cube to play with in our room, along with a really great selection of design magazines and nifty artwork framed in those huge-mat-thin-black-frames.

Because I so loved the decor and was more than a little dazzled by the attention to design, I spilled an entire caraffe of skim milk on the nicely appointed breakfast buffet table. It was okay because everyone there was interviewing with Silicon Valley, so they had been right there with me in awkwardston in one way or another for much of their geekster lives. The waitstaff didn't even blink, bless her heart.

When we got back from Cali, I went straight to Aumsville to help with Cowgate '07. There's this total heifer in heat, see, and my dad let me play around with big sharp spikes, welded wire panels and a hammer for a couple of days. We mended the fence, though come to think of it those exact materials might have been useful in convincing her to stay put by means of... persuasion, know what I mean? If she could build a memory to last more than the 3 seconds she has available, it! could! work!! (Young Frankenstein rulz.)

Here's that horny cow with my friend's baby.

The Flawster System

Have you noticed how great a mom-in-law I have? Take a look at her comment on the previous post. I know, it's just not fair. No explaining Jonathan, though...

Anyway, I figured I'd get around to the foster-to-adopt thing. Thank you, fair readers who might still be slogging through my blog, for tolerating one more post on our adoption research.

We haven't totally given up on the good old US of A yet, except for one thing: I think it might make me a criminal.

There is no WAY I am capable of dropping off an in-process of adoption toddler I love at their birthparents' home for court-mandated visits during which they will suffer the kind of treatment that required their removal from the home in the first place. If I had evidence the parents were screwing up again with a child I loved, I would be crushed and angry and... it just would not work for me.

The other huge consideration is Toby. I'd rather not parade kids who might be, might not be siblings through our home only to lose them because of nutty legal problems.

I literally have to limit my exposure to the stories out there about what happens to kids in the system in the States. Most happens at the hands of their bio-parents, despite the impression given by a few well-advertised cases of foster parents being evil. Just this morning, for example, I read that in a huge survey of the kids themselves (1951-1984), 90% "always feel safe" in their placed homes. I also read a story about some seriously messed-with, messed-up kids being given to some unwitting family by the state of Florida (who refused to warn the family or share the boys' extensive psych files and is now paying a settlement) with poor consequences all around.

We haven't written off a domestic kiddo completely, but it is a very bleak state of affairs here. I am not convinced open adoption is better for the kids, and I don't like the idea of trying to win over a birthmom to have her pick us from a pageant of other potentials. We're meeting with some friends who have been through several types of adoption and hope to get some good advice and clear leading.

**********************

Meanwhile!
Do what's in front of you.
Run your own race.
Is there any better advice out there? In fact, the first friend/mentor I remember telling me this was herself an adoptive mom to a developmentally delayed behaviorally challenged toddler and a crack baby. Both boys are completely at or above average now, and a big happy part of her life along with a baby she had the year we left Madison.

You Crane

The country we are most intrigued by is Ukraine.

Adoption is different there in several important ways.

First, you are not allowed to use an agency in Ukraine. This is meant to eliminate a potentially corrupt middleman and to discourage human black market style transactions. You can hire a translator, or facilitator, but that's it.

Second, photo-listings of waiting children and pre-selection of any kind are illegal. This is also supposed to stop human traffickers and pre-bribing somebody to get a particular child.

Third, unless there is a health issue, children are kept in the system unavailable to foreigners for one year from the time they are documented.

I respect Ukraine for doing what it can to avoid immoral practices in adoption, but I can see a couple of potential deterrents for me here.

On the day that you are finally given your appointment with the state-run agency, you are shown books full of photos of waiting children and are expected to choose a few to enquire about within about an hour. The agency then calls the child's orphanage to confirm they are available (some of the files are old) and that nothing drastic has changed about their situation. If the child is sicker than the file indicates or if a long-lost relation has resurfaced, you may have to move on to another face.

If it looks like a potential match, you are sent on a trip to the orphanage. Some are a long way (17 hours in a decroded train) away. Sometimes when you reach your destination, other children are brought to you first, and may recite poetry or sing. If your heart hasn't shattered into a surprisingly small and black mess on their Eastern Block floor at this point, you may then see the child you selected from the books full of children. You have some time to consider the child and may visit several days in a row before announcing your decision.

The whole thing is wrapped up by a little more paperwork (am I signing up for another doctorate here?) and then you are officially family. Sometimes people don't find their child on the first few tries. You are allowed two appointments with the main agency, after which you are sent back to your country to recover and then may ask for one more appointment. Most people find their kids on the first trip, but others don't. With travel expenses and application fees (to the Embassies while you're filling out a year's worth of forms) most can expect to pay between $10,000-20,000. These fees also help defray the cost of the care the child receives while they are in the system, but are payed whether the parents travel home alone or not.

I respect the intent and think it's one of the best attempts at fairness I've come across. I just don't like the Jeopardy-timing parade of kids in need. That would take a LOT of prayer...

It's a system.

Finally

I talked to Rachael today, who would be like my evil twin except are you sure she's the evil one, because between us maybe we actually need, like, what are sets of four babies called, quartets? Anyway, we're made for each other, that squeeky little violin playing hobag and I, and I missed talking to her and was thinking up nasty things to send to her house so she would call me. And then about a 30 minutes after thinking that, she did.

I didn't answer right away- I have this mental problem with answering the phone sometimes even if I'm bored and lonely. But toDAY, finally, we chatted about stuff and she doesn't know it yet but she totally inspired me to get out the door and go for a run.

Except I walked because that jogging stroller is still missing its propeller and it's eleventy thousand degrees in the shade.

The thing with Rachael is that she is a very obsessive person, too. And I can always count on her to have some great thing going, like a Very Restricted Health Food Kick or a Very Demanding Workout Streak or Ticking Off Socially Conservative Legalist Churchfolk Jag or even sometimes Practicing.

So I hung up the phone, ran right upstairs and took a 30 minute nap while Toby fought sleep with all he's got. We both gave up and I could not think of a single reason why I shouldn't get outside and excercise. Believe me, I tried.

It felt so incredibly great, it would be so nice to do that more often. I'll have to consult my rigorous schedule, and see if Rachael might move in with a cattle prod or perhaps a .22 rifle.

Dance, you nancypants violist! she'd screech, Dance!