Waiting and Learning (And How Learning Helps Waiting)

Michael taught me to glue and nail crates this weekend.  This is the first crate I put together by myself.   (I didn't do any of the sawing; that will be another lesson.)

We're going to be participating in five craft fairs/art bazaars this year, four of which average 1500 to 3000 people in attendance.  We're leaving the actually "big" ones that average 5000 or more people for next year.

We became DTE last Friday.  Right now, I'm occupying myself writing a list of 36+ fun activities that our family can do that are "out of the norm" to make each month of waiting fun.  I need to add in a buffer so that once we hit the three-year mark of waiting, I don't spiral into some crazy lady vortex with no activities or purpose left.

Michael has requested that he and Million can construct a outdoor clay oven as one of them.  That will be on this summer's docket.
Other examples are: visiting a lighthouse, going to a chocolate shop and watching chocolates being made, visiting a garden conservatory, going to an airplane show, etc.

The objective is to defeat the dreary and long wait with new educational opportunities for us to obsessively research about each month.  When I look back at our best waiting months from our last adoption process, I saw us in the midst of huge demolition projects in our home, learning to clean wool and spin wool into yarn, having an insanely large herb garden, and learning to cook Ethiopian meals.  Learning (at least for Michael and me) defeats the boredom which leads to discontent.

And if we can impress on our boys the fun of self-education and that The Wide World is an adventure waiting to happen, I'll be happy.

What are some ideas of family-friendly-ish activities that you wish your parents were crazy enough to do with you or to teach you?

To wait...

and then we wait.
today, we mailed our dossier off for little sister.

I think with every child, there comes a different kind of anticipation.

When we were adopting Million, someone told me that adoption waiting isn't as hard if it isn't your first child.  I remember blogging that on our adoption blog and getting a lot of nasty comments about "how do you know? you don't know our situation..." Of course, I understand the upset that a comment like that can cause, because it didn't exactly validate their pain.  But I see truth in it, too.

Especially now that we're waiting again.  And looking at a wait that will likely be four times longer to referral than our last one was.  (crossing fingers that we don't end up with all the waiting AFTER referral that we did with Million's case...)

But it is different.  It doesn't feel so desperate.  It doesn't feel so life altering.
With our wait for Million, since we were still "yuppies", I felt the need to announce it to the world that we were adopting.  I felt slighted when people didn't remember that I was a mama-to-be.  I had a whole blog about the experience of adoption.  I hung on every word in internet forums about Ethiopian adoption, skin care, hair care, etc.  I obsessively checked the wait list to see what "number" we were.

With our wait for Creedence, there was an anticipation that was brought on by education.  We went to so many child birth and natural pain management courses along with educating ourselves with scads of books.  Quite naturally, we anticipated labor and delivery as "the big event" and (I think) failed a little in preparing for life afterwards.  We're recovering now and have nearly a normal life as a family of four.  I didn't feel slighted when people didn't know I was pregnant at seven months along.  In fact, I thought it was funny that I was still getting "is she or isn't she?" looks and dropped jaws.

I'm not claiming that this adoption's wait won't be difficult.  That would be an absolute lie.  Especially, I anticipate, when we hit the two-year mark of waiting for a referral.  It will just be a different kind of difficult.  It won't be filled with the intense longing of a woman without children at home.  It won't be a status change from yuppie to stay-at-home mom.  It won't be a brand-new adventure that no one we know has ever done before.  We have a support network.  We have friends who have adopted from Ethiopia whom we write to and talk with on a regular basis.  We have friends in Ethiopia.  We know the sights, sounds, and smells of several portions of Ethiopia.

At the same time, we will be constantly reminded of our adoption process, as our business will be our main source of providing the remaining funds for the adoption.  Every time Michael builds a crate, or every time I answer an e-mail or change a listing, we're working towards bringing a daughter into our crazy lives.

So, dear wait, I plan on being your good friend and worst enemy for the next several years.  I plan on growing, learning, changing, being challenged and stretched.  I plan on embracing you, oh wait, and allowing the worst moments and best moments to shape me and mold me as a woman, as a wife, as a mama, a daughter, a sister, and a friend.  You don't intimidate me, wait.  You excite me.  With God's help, I will be a changed woman because of you.

A New Chapter: Colouring Our World With Hope

Tonight we "passed" our homestudy.
While the paperwork is not actually in our hands, it feels good to be done with that once again.
So different than last time.
Last time we passed our homestudy, we went fairly immediately to Target to buy a hedgehog baby blanket for our little boy.  And I bawled in the car.  It felt so good to be approved and accepted.  Good to be endorsed in written form, especially after a bad relationship with our first agency's social worker.

This time, Million was already in bed, and my stomach was cramping up from a little too much sitting down in one day (we attended a wedding immediately prior to our social worker's visit), so we nixed the celebratory run to Target.  I camped out on the couch while Michael made me a snack while we watched "My Fair Lady".  There was not really a huge amount of emotion.  Just a "well, that was easy" feeling.  Maybe I'll get around to buying a girly something or other this week sometime.  I'm still working on procuring things for baby #2, so it's hard to focus on items for child #3.

One wise thing our social worker emphasized at our last visit was not to compare adoptions as "better" or "worse".  Each adoption is its own animal.  She said a lot of times people get disappointed or disillusioned with their second adoption because of the rose-colored glasses they had with their first adoption going so well.  (She did note that we might not have this issue because our first adoption process was a little....problematic...but that she just liked to tell people worst-case scenario.)  She said people get upset because the referral doesn't happen the same way, the wait time is different, the online networks aren't as supportive, and they don't connect with their travel group in the same way.  I think this is really wise advice, especially considering the projected wait times are so much longer now (and constantly increasing in length) than they were in early 2008 when we first started Million's adoption, and the general atmosphere of the adoptive community is quite a bit different than it was.

Currently, it's cold outside.  Autumn usually brings a little more Bob Dylan and Etta James into my life's soundtrack...so when I was thinking of a song to mark tonight's accomplishment, I was a little surprised to hear Chicago's "Colour My World" pop into my head. (My dad would be so pleased...)

But it's appropriate.  "Colour my world with hopes of loving you."