Thursday, May 21, 2009

Is this for real?

Although I am not a parent yet, I can imagine that parenting is pretty hard. As adoptive parents, we will share in most all of the joys and heartaches that non-adoptive parents encounter----the celebrations of birthdays and milestones, the sadness over loved pets who have gone on to "a better place" and the process of individuation that seems to happen much to quickly. While the role of a loving parent is the same no matter how your child joined your family, as adoptive parents we do deal with some extra issues. I think lots about the challenges and joys of attempting to instill a sense of pride in Y about the country from which she has come. I also think about how hard we as adoptive parents must think about things that might come easily for others....things like attaching to your child and helping them to feel safe and secure, helping your child adjust to boundaries and limits when they have never had them, showing physical affection to a child who has had only negative experiences with touch, helping Y/your child transition from a house full of other children (sometimes hundreds) to a small city apartment with only two other people.....these are big issues, people!!!!

My point? Parenting is full of joy, but also full of tough stuff. Parenting a child who has joined your family through adoption adds several extra layers of tough stuff that will stump us as parents. And because parenting is so tough (just projecting here...) and because adoption does bring up many important questions for the adoptee, the last thing we as adoptive parents need is something like this to make our children feel ostracized......http://orphan-movie.warnerbros.com/

I again ask the question, "is this for real?" And if so, what should we as adoptive parents do about it?????

Friday, May 15, 2009

Photo Friday...a (REALLY) random collection of pics

Pic #1: N and I acting excited about finding my long lost wedding ring (Dec 2008)


5/19/2009

Ummmmmmmmm

I accidently deleted all of the other pictures......maybe I will add them again later....

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Find out just how cool this man is............

Disturbia....(How to Catch a Thief)

Dearest Friends,

Today's tale is one of suspense and shock, and ultimately, a life lesson. After a lovely dinner with my fav pal S in which we celebrated life by consuming fried potato tacos covered in sour cream, guacamole, queso fresco and salsa (it was so worth it!) I bid her goodnight and went to do some "work" (ie: blog stalking, emailing, time wasting) on the computer. "Had it really reached midnight already," I wondered? I was intent on spending "just one more minute" searching through my photos from Ethio in hopes of finding more pictures for families who had received referrals. I knew I should go to bed, but why sleep when catching up on everyone else's life is so much more interesting.....

I heard some pretty loud noises coming from the house below us and guessed that our landlord had just returned from his recent trip. Yikes! The noise is actually getting really close to our porch...wait? Is someone opening the door? Yes, that does sound like the door is opening.

I flipped out and ran to the bedroom to wake up N. By this time I KNEW someone was walking through our house....I woke up N and scream/whispered "someone is in our house." N is a pretty heavy sleeper, but seriously hates that I tend to over dramatize things and wake him up on a weekly basis. This time was for real, folks........The footsteps intensified and so did the random paper shuffling and pounding around the house. N went out to confront the "guest" (In hindsight we agree that this was perhaps foolish...)

For those of you who have been to our house, you know that it is very, very, very old and has some strange quirks, which on my good days, I call "personality." One of those quirks happens to be hook locks on the outside of several doors.

As N went to follow the mysterious intruder, I frantically attempted to find my cell phone which was (typical) dead. I found N's phone and called 911...The operator told me twice to repeat my address b/c I was talking so quietly.....something along the lines of "someone is in my (*&(*& house and I don't know what the hell they are doing. hurry!!!"

Remember those quirky locks? Um, yeah, so N locked the "guest" (by this point we realized that we had never invited this guest to our house and did not know who he was) into the bathroom. Yup. That's just how bad ass he is.

I went outside.

I waited for the police.

They came.

They pulled out the guns and kicked open the door.

They took the man away.

We went back to the house in shock.

So, we don't know who he was or why he decided to pay us a visit. Apparently he was totally tweaking and perhaps went into the wrong house. All I know is that it was super scary and that I jumped twice today when coworkers approached by desk when I wasn't facing them.

During family safety training earlier today, we concluded that we will just leave the house next time this happens.

This story totally tops the time we found the gun on our porch.

Ok, I'm just trying to be sensational.

Oh, and the moral? Never feel guilty for staying up late wasting time on the Internet. If I had gone to bed earlier, it would have been much scarier to wake up with someone random in my house.

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

In case you were dying to know....

After my mysterious posting on May 1st, which dared my vast ocean of readers to guess what was behind door number one, I know everyone has been in deep suspense waiting for the answer. Special thanks to my friend M who made the sea lion comment after I said to her in frustration "doesn't anyone want to know what is behind the door?" Sigh....one day my blog will be buzzing. Until then, I will continue to entertain myself with IMAGINING how fun it would be to have a blog buzz. I digress...

Since I am patterning my blog after all of the blogs that I have so faithfully followed/stalked for the last five months, I was thinking that the next best step would be to explain a bit more about our adoption story. Here goes:

Adoption has been on our mind for a long time. I don't actually remember N and I have many conversations about it, but as a child, I desperately wanted my parents to adopt. On a fairly regular basis I would show them the "waiting children" pictures in the Sunday paper and talk about how Tommy would fit nicely into our family because he liked to ride his bike just like me. No dice. I did get my big break when my aunt adopted three children and I got to be very involved in the process of picking them up and bringing them home from the hospital. So, somewhere in my head, adoption as always been a normal and wonderful way to grow a family.

Fast forward: N and I always thought that we would have kids about two years into marriage...and we thought that every year for the next five...work/grad school/other interests became a greater priority. Additionally, we struggled with the concept of international adoption. Was it in the best interest of the child and of the country as a whole? We still wrestle with these questions, but..........................

While working at the Mother Teresa Orphanage in Asco we met a child. She is 2.5 years old, pretty much the cutest little girl ever and the Sisters were seeking a home for her. We talked...talked some more, thought, prayed and decided that we really wanted to adopt...HER! Maybe we even surprised ourselves, but most of our family didn't seem to be shocked!

Our process has had some real ups and downs. While we initially thought that we would just fly through all of the paperwork, our cute little "Y" has some challenges with her paperwork which presently prevent her from being adoptable. We were told by our caseworker in Jan that we would not be able to adopt her and that because of some really sad and crazy paperwork issues, she may never be able to be adopted. Devastation. Thankfully, neither N or I felt that it was really over. We pushed. We called. We investigated and finally I visited Ethiopia. While things are not necessarily ok now, at least we now fully understand what the problem is and that is comforting...to some degree. We wait.

In the meantime, Y is getting bigger, smarter and more active everyday.

Anyone else hate waiting? Somehow I am at peace...As the Sister repeatedly told us "If Y is for your family, God will make a way."