Where have I been?!

It’s been many days since I last posted and a few things have happened. Of course a small event called Christmas happened. It was so much fun, yet we spent way, way too much money. We usually budget about $400, but this year our spending was well over $1000. Granted dh and I both bought each other presents that were quite pricey, so that put us about $400 over budget right there (I got dh a game camera and he got me a food dehydrator!). But we went insane on the kids! Check this out.

There’s a bunch of wrapped presents there on the left, but see those 2 bags, they’re called Santa bags, from a lovely lady that gave the pattern to me a while back so as to save on wrapping. Those 2 bags are stuffed to the brim of presents for the kids, and that doesn’t include the 2 stockings so stuffed full of crap that we couldn’t fit most of the presents in.

That’s a lot of toys and clothes for 2 kids, doncha think? I think there should be more to share in the presents .

Speaking of more kids, dh and I had the talk with the girls. It went just as I had expected it would. Reservation, yet excitement, but their excitement was hilarious. Picture this, sitting in front of a fire place with 2 kids between us, ages 5 and 7. At this point we’re trying to explain to them our thoughts on adoption as well as the changes required for our family in general. They were a little taken back at the thought of not receiving as many toys, but you know what got them both excited the most? A minivan. Yes, the very thing my dh hates with a passion, a minivan. Both of them want a van very much and are willing to sacrifice a few less toys and additional siblings to get one. It absolutely cracked me up, but a kids perspective is just what we needed, I think we were getting so serious about it forgetting that in the midst of this is children, the very source of entertainment in this household.

One other thing that happened is dh talked to his dad about it. From what I understand of the conversation went very well, but had a new twist to it. Dh’s extended family, meaning not his immediate but his cousins, are blended and it is not one big happy family. I shouldn’t say that, it is now, but it’s been hard to get here. His aunt and uncle married when his aunt’s kids were 4 & 5 and the uncles kids were between 6 & 10. It was utter chaos with 5 kids suddenly thrust together under one roof. They all made out wonderfully, but they were never treated as ‘family’ by the extended family. Here’s what I mean, the uncles kids are not in the aunt’s extended family’s will because they aren’t “her” kids, get it? Yeah, confusing without names, but that I don’t have permission to post. In other words, the kids were never really accepted, and it made dh and I both wonder about the acceptance of the immediate family of new kids. My fil is a wonderful guy, and will give his honest thoughts, and he did. He said it will be hard on us four to get used to it all, but we must know that these kids will be loved as if they were given from my womb. It made me so happy to hear. I just wish dh would get off his patootie and talk with me some more. I need to know where he stands with this, where he expects it all to go. He keeps ‘waiting’ for confirmation from God, but he looks for it out of this house, not within, which is seriously sad.

He bought me a book called something like ‘discerning God’s will’, it was so good and confirmed all I’ve felt all along that this is something we are to pursue, and right away.

I’m seriously surprised that this hasn’t been a longer blog. After all, look how yappy I have been in the last month, the length of my blogs (I actually wrote ‘globs’ first!LOL!) have been quite long as of late, and then I go 6 days without posting and type a non-typical short post as my first? Weird. Guess I’ve said it all before.

Yesterday was a first

I did not obsess about adoption one moment. It could be that my throat was screaming in pain to distract me, but I didn’t even think about it … much.

This is when I spout out how much I love Canada. My dd and I sprang off to the urgent care the moment dh came home to be with our other dd. It wasn’t a huge wait, but there was a wait, and we were seen, prescribed meds for her bladder infection and my tonsillitis and sent on our way, and I didn’t get a bill. That’s Canada, you’re sick, you’ll be seen regardless of your income level.

K’s on antibiotics again (second time this month, different infections) and I’m on some penicillin now, yipee, but at least my throat will feel better in time. I was actually really saddened to hear tonsillitis, it’s something I used to get a lot as a kid, and at that moment, the dr’s were on their ‘won’t ever take tonsills out even if you get it 4 times a year’ kinda kick, which was just after their ‘let’s yank out any tonsills that flare once’ kinda kick, and just before ‘hmmm, let’s see how many times you get it as to whether we’ll remove them’ kick. Do you ever notice how drs will go in spurts all at the same time of this kind of stuff? Asthma was a big thing when I was young, a lot of kids had inhalers, even I did. Although mine wasn’t asthma, mine was a type of pollution poisoning from staying in Athens for too long on a school trip. You’ve never seen pollution till you’ve been to Athens, ew.

Long story short … actually, screw that, this is my blog, I’ll make a friggin long story if I want to . We’re sick, but my fingers aren’t.

Talked with dh a little bit last night before bed. He allayed my feelings about him, and I tried to make it as gentle as possible. It’s not his fault money is often on his mind, he was raised like that, to think that money is a huge priority even though it’s just a side-kick to life. He told me his biggest concerns were about the family dynamics, what would happen if we adopted a child that is, well terrible to take care of, more like a burden than a blessing as most of these children have seen far too much in their little lives, and that kind of scarring doesn’t heal. I was relieved to hear that and told him I was worried that all his concerns were over money, because of the list he sent me. He told me it was an old list, but the new additions weren’t anything to do with money, but more or less can we handle a child who won’t be like ours?

Hell yes. But we’re still waiting to see if it’s right for us. I’ll do all the researching, he’ll pray and we’ll both wait till after the New Year to make a final decision. I just can’t imagine not having more kids, does that sound weird? Even though we both made the decision to mar dh’s balls with a vasectomy, I still can’t imagine my life without a bunch of kids around me. And no, I can’t just test it out by being a day care provider or teacher’s aide, those aren’t my kids, it’s not a matter of babysitting, it’s matter of having more kids of my own to teach, to love and to care for.

*sigh* and here I thought I wasn’t going to think about much with a sore throat, yeah, right.

Oooo, if I don’t get back on I gotta tell you about our great day planned tomorrow with just the four of us (and yes it would be better if there were at least 2 more ). It’s a new tradition of ours, only been done once so far, where when it’s my parents’ turn for Christmas (we rotate with my ils) we spend Christmas eve doing our own thing. This year we’re eating like a bunch of piglets!LOL! Ginger beef, shrimp (ew), veggies, chips, deer pepperoni, deer sausage, cheese, crackers, egg nog with spiced rum (oh, that’s just for me ) and other stuff. We’ll watch Christmas movies like crazy and eat, then head to church at 9pm for the evening service. It’s a Catholic mass, and thankfully it’s not at midnight, but I get so creeped out with the amount of people, it’s scary!LOL!

Merry Christmas to all!

He doesn’t want to talk about it

But I do, is his wants more important than mine? Take a wild guess what I’m talking about, I’ll even give you 3 tries, but the first 2 don’t count. I should change the title of my blog to be ‘Adoption Musings of a Frogged Mind’ that way everyone will at least know the theme of the entire thing.

So, not only did dh bring home a Disneyland catalogue, but he emailed home a ‘pros/cons’ list that was so utterly horrid (things like – Con “have to put extra effort into raising family” ), not horrid really, but just …. WHAT?! He’s now pushing it to the back of his mind. Well I’m sorry bucko if you don’t feel up to talking about it, there’s 2 sides in this marriage commitment and yours is not the only one, I NEED to talk about it.

I also wrote a ‘pros/cons’ list as well as a few others;

1. ‘Reasons to adopt’ – also has reasons to not, now or later.
2. ‘Adoption adjustments’ – adjustments from every point of view from our house, our vehicles, to our kids, to the extended family.
3. My answer to his ‘pros/cons’ – meaning my rebuttal, there’s no other way to put that when he puts stuff like ‘Con – trips to Disneyland out’ since we’ve never been how the f%*# is this a problem?
4. Many articles on how to adjust the family, what is needed, etc.
5. And the last one is the exact costs associated.

I get the reason to make lists, as I’m a serious list girl, but lets be serious and reasonable, and for goodness sake quit exaggerating. It’s sort of made me mad, but more frustrated with what he’s grasping at. He made another list of ‘things we’d have to give up’ they included stuff like archery (we had given that up as a family anyway for other reasons beyond our control, how is this different with more kids?), hockey (he won’t have to give this up if he makes bonuses at work which are likely), but exaggerated on camping, fishing and hunting as if he could NEVER do them again. Dear Lord man, if you can predict the future let’s bottle that baby up and sell it, then we can afford lots of kids since it’s all about money anyway.

I truly think that is what it comes down to for him. Most of his reasonings were completely about money, and that makes me seriously sad. 3 years ago he gave up a very well paying job to make half the amount and be at home with our girls. I thought he seriously understood that money isn’t important, let me rephrase that, lots of money isn’t important. We have plenty to get by on. Yes, we won’t be able to take yearly ski trips, trips to Disneyland or even camp as much as we used to, but for cryin out loud we didn’t do yearly ski trips, trips to Disneyland anyway, and camping we said we’d slow down on anyway.

I’m just so frustrated because he emails stuff like that home and knows I’ll want to talk about it and then bottles up when he gets home and doesn’t want to talk about it.

I think I’m going to talk to him tonight, and tell him I’m talking to the girls about it seriously. I don’t think we could go any further without their input anyway.

I exploded on a dear friend

Yep, you heard read right, I exploded my thoughts upon a poor unsuspecting friend. I was a little stunned at the reaction though, not that it was bad. When you think about getting pregnant and tell a friend, they jump up and down with excitement, help you plan the new room, ask about due dates, they don’t even think to mention the downfalls, the what ifs. But when you think about adopting the first thing that pops out of their mouths isn’t words of congratulations, but words like, “wow what made you decide that?”, or “why not just have more?” or “that’s going to be hard work”.

I hate to say it like that, my friend is a wonderful person who is very supportive, caring and listened to me babble. But it wasn’t quite what I was expecting from someone who won’t be seriously affected by this decision, say, like a family member would. She has a 2 y/o, and jokingly said that I could have hers for a week and then I’d be outta that ‘phase’. The difference is, it wouldn’t be my child, when we adopt, no matter what age, it will be my child from there on in, there’s a no return policy at the public adoption agency.

It actually makes me a little worried to hear her words. Especially when I was talking about dh not wanting to buy a van and such trivial justifications for not adopting more than 1, she agreed with him to a point, saying it is definitely a valid feeling, and I agree, but it’s still trivial, am I right? I’m worried about my family. His will be wonderful, I have no doubt about that, his parents are very supportive of any decisions we make. Not that my parents aren’t, but my mom is such a pessimist. Actually, I truly believe our dads (fil included) would be the easiest out of all of them, including any siblings. Both our dads are just big kids. My dad loves kids so much, and watching him with kids he hardly knows makes me ever so sure that he would love and accept any extra children without conditions. And it’s not that the rest of them won’t ever accept them, but will definitely have reservations for a while. I’m sure my mom will due to her singular experience with adoption with my cousin. It tainted her, and even though she loves kids, would have wanted 6 (her words), I can’t see her being behind us completely at the beginning.

I do have to say though that my mom and mil would both warm up to new kids very quickly, as would any other siblings of ours. One pair of persons I forgot about including in this talk about ‘acceptance’ is my current kids. How will they react? They’ve already been approached about the general topic, but we haven’t spoken to them since about adding to our family.

I’m making a list, because I love lists, that helps me to put into perspective my reasons to adopt. So I broke it down into ‘Reasons to adopt (now and later)’ and ‘Reasons to not adopt’. So far I have about 7 for and 3 against, but the 3 are dh’s points regarding vehicles and such, not really my reasons because I can only think of one, and that one is ‘we are set in our ways’ meaning we have things paid off (not the house, but no loans), we’re investing, we’re backpacking, our family fits in our truck/trailer, those kinds of things. But really, they mean nothing to me personally. They are an excuse to me, and I don’t like that.

So I’m going to continue to make my lists, check out kidlets, and find any and all information regarding adoption. Why does the phrase, “if you build it they will come” keep sticking out in my head?

Tho, thdo I look thtrethed thoo you?

Of course not, that’s because the entire side of my face is completely numb. Yup, I just had a visit with my dentist to replace a filling. Thankfully, for your sake I won’t continue typing in the exact manner I am speaking.

That title is to read ‘So, do I looked stressed to you?’, but as of this moment it is spoken as it looks up there. Good times, good times.

Dh tells me he can’t think of this anymore, by this, I mean adoption for those of you not in the know. I feel bad for him, I really do. He’s such a guy he internalizes all stress, so all stress is bad for him. All this stress does to me is make me better, I know that sounds weird, but hell, I even type better with stress.

What’s kinda weird is how his position moves so much with regards to it all. Mine hasn’t wavered since the first mention of adoption, it’s still incredibly strong, and I haven’t felt any different about it at all, even with all points considered (I’ll post about the changes needed to be made when this goes through at another date). But dh has wavered so much I wonder if he is seriously considering it or just pushing it off as another womanly thing, or as if I’m going to drop it. It’s not going to happen. I think he thinks that if he puts it off long enough I’ll leave it alone, but actually it’ll just piss me off!LOL! Not because it’ll be too late or something, but because he didn’t have the balls to go through with it for truly pathetic reasons (yes, they are pathetic).

I guess I should be nice, he does read this blog occasionally, and also, I’m speculating as to the reasons why he’s internalizing it all. I think he’s truly afraid, but of what I’m not sure, it’s most likely a combination of a bunch of things. Life’s too short to worry that much.

I’m sure my brain will cease to exist any moment

Especially if I don’t stop thinking about this issue 24/7. It now no longer has a name, it is an ‘issue’ because I feel like I’m going to explode.

I want to take a moment to gratefully thank all the wonderful people who have contacted me about adoption, and what adoption means to them. I am so blessed to have people in my computer who will still talk back to me when my insanity level has reached an all time high.

I’m being patient now, I really am. I haven’t brought the ‘issue’ up with dh in 2 days. In fact, he is the one that has brought it up. We’re firm in the belief that God hands us things we need, right in the nick of time. Last fall our truck was on it’s last legs. The beautiful old beast had 350,000 kms on it (it was a diesel) and was no longer pulling our 12 year old 5th wheel trailer well, it’d still do it, but it sure as hell didn’t like it. Dh doesn’t make a ton of money, even though the area we live in would make it seem so ($400,000 homes, $75,000 purple Hummers driving by ), but we definitely make do with the fact that we don’t need much. But we do need a vehicle to take us to the mountains, which are 45 minutes from my front door. I can see them daily, but it’s not quite enough.

So with all that in mind, we started browsing around to see what we could afford. Then we found her; a beautiful 2003 red GM truck, and within our price range. We both actually think it was undersold also because it hadn’t even been worked over by the garage yet, just arrived the day before. It was perfect.

Fast forward to this year, the ‘issue’ and adding a few more kids to our load. The truck has 5 person seating, and very difficult back row if there is more than 2 kids back there, so you can guess what dh’s dilemma is. I don’t want to make dh sound like he’s materialistic, he’s far from it, but God brought us that truck because it was what we needed, dh just, well he does love the damn thing.

I’ve always felt that yes, God gives us things we need, when we need them (*note-need and want are 2 different things ), but they are things for that point in time. It doesn’t mean that we are to keep them forever, but for the use they were intended. That truck’s use was to get our family of four camping, backpacking and fishing in the mountains. It has served its purpose, and still is serving its purpose at this immediate point in time. But that could change.

Dh also pointed out that maybe it’s a sign that we have 3 extra bedrooms in our house (meaning 3 on top of the master bedroom, 2 currently occupied by our bio-dds and 1 is an office) and 3 seats in a vehicle. He does have a point, but are we not to make any changes to accommodate a new child into our home?

Anyway, as you can tell, we’re still working on it. It’s funny how when a family considers adoption over giving birth, there is so much more thought into it. If we were thinking of getting pregnant (if we still could), it wouldn’t even be an issue, we’d just do it and make the adjustments as they came. But, because it’s adoption, we stumble on these purely trivial parts of the equation that really haven’t anything to do with the reason we’re adopting in the first place. ‘Trivial’, meaning stuff that can be altered but not extremely simple to do so, like rearrange the house and trade in a well loved vehicle. They really have nothing to do with our desire to add to our family, and bless some deserving children of a home to call their own forever.

*sigh* and on, and on, and on, and on it goes.

‘I fight with my sister too much to have more’

That was my sick dd’s reaction to the question of, ‘if you could have more sisters or brothers, would you want to?’. Her honest reply was no. Granted, she’s been sick for a couple of days and her sister has been bugging her non-stop to play, so I’m sure that was an influence. After a bit of silence, and a little shock on my end, she said, ‘I don’t really fight with my sister that often, it would be okay to have more’. I felt a little relieved, and Bing also let me know that she would want to continue being the eldest.

This started because dh spoke to our youngest, Punk, last night a little. Now to make this more understandable, we weren’t coming out to let them know of our serious considerations, but feeling out to see what they think of the idea. We both feel it’d be too much for them to absorb all at once, so we’ll do it a little at a time. Now Punk is a smart, sweet girl, but very distracted, and often forgets things as soon as they’re mentioned. Dh thought she was an easy target to feel out, so he asked her last night how many more siblings she’d want, and she said 2. He didn’t mention adoption much because it confuses her a little bit, but he just said adding to our family.

Fast forward to our cuddle time this morning. All 4 of us are in there snuggling and Punk pipes up and says, ‘mom you could put the crib right in here’. After dh and I both slammed our mouths shut we figured out that with that ’sneaky’ talk dh had with her put the thought in her mind that we were having more babies. So, in her brilliancy to help the family reorganize the house, she suggested we board the new addition in our room. Poor thing seemed really confused when we said we weren’t having anymore babies, but then we realized she was quite confused about adoption. So I explained it again, going to the local site and showing her the children available and at that point, she made the connection. They both feel adoption is a really neat idea, to give kids the chance to have a family.

It seems one step closer to the realization that I’m going to be a parent again. Granted, the rest of the family hasn’t been told, but that’ll come later. I don’t feel my family needs to be consulted like my kids do as it won’t affect they’re day-to-day living like it will the kids. I know it’ll be such an adjustment for all. Especially my grampa who is ill with emphysema and blind, so he won’t get to ‘meet’ the new additions as well as others, won’t be able to see them to meet them.

It’s coming, I can feel it, it’s like a slow moving train I’m waiting on a platform for. I can feel it coming, I can hear it, but I can’t see it yet, it’s not that close.

*sigh* a completely non-productive day

That was most wonderful. I didn’t even spend the day obsessing about adoption, which is a first in a while. Although I did think of it, it wasn’t the focus of my entire day. It was a great day actually.

It started at 1:30am with my eldest, Bing, screaming my name that she had just puked. You would think that would not be the best start to the day, and I’d have to agree. But, if it weren’t for that, and the fact that I was up and down until 7 am, my mother would not have felt completely sorry for me and come to the rescue with hair dye, a foot bath, and nail polish. The wonderful woman walked into my house holding children’s electrolyte for my sickie, a foot bath/massager, and some nail polish. She was giving me a manicure, foot massage and pedicure. Dear God it was heavenly.

Bing is still somewhat sick, although she hasn’t puked since about 10 am. Which is really good. She’s held down the electrolyte, water, weak tea, 2 cups of vegetable broth and has now held down some noodles. Please God let her hold those babies in for the rest of the night. There’s nothing like noodle vomit on sheets to ruin an evening (trust me, I know from experience that regurgitated noodles do not come out of sheets easily).

So, we did nothing, but enjoy ourselves today and it was fantastic. I feel so blessed, really I do. I was missing one thing today though. I realized I haven’t spoken to another person IRL about our adoption plans (or lack thereof). It took everything I could to hold it all in. My mom, God bless her wonderful heart, has potential to be very pessimistic about adoption as my cousin is adopted and it was a mess (herpes, fetal alcohol among other drug usage during pregnancy), and it has turned her sour to the wonderful possibilities that exist.

I wanted so badly to ask her how she would feel about adding more grandchildren to our midst. What made it worse is she asked me today if dh and I would visit them in Arizona if they bought a condo down there. I, of course, said yes, knowing full well that if we adopt, there’s very little chance we’d make it down there much as flights are out of the question for 6 + people, and driving with 4 + kids would be just downright torture.

I do want the opinions of those outside the realm of adoption, but I’ve also been seeking those within. Those that know where I’m at at this point in the venture, that know our struggles, and can answer our questions. I could possibly phone the local government that deals with adoption, but I’m afraid I’d be rushing it by getting to that point much sooner than dh. Although we are at similar points in the decision now, I don’t want to jump the gun.

Actually, dh said to me that when he talks to me, even in a negative manner, about adoption it seems like it’s the right thing to do. As soon as he stops talking to me, or is thinking about it elsewhere, say at work, he thinks differently, less emotional, more rational and logical. In other words, the financial end gets to him a lot. He’s so comfortable where he is with regards to finances that he doesn’t want to alter that, and I understand that. I would rather not have to alter our standards of living either, but I know a child, or four , would bless us so dramatically that we wouldn’t even notice it much.

He said something interesting to me last night. He said, “you know if God blessed us with twins right now out of some miracle, we wouldn’t even think twice about making the changes to adjust for the addition (i.e. buying a van, baby seats, etc)”. But for this we hesitate and think it out and plan it and wonder if it’s right, etc. I realize it’s a different adjustment as the kids we’ll adopt will be older (up to 7 y/o) and not as easily adaptable to our way of life as an infant, but that’s life.

Shit, and here I thought my day wasn’t going to end on this note. Ah well, I know it’s supposed to happen, I’m just beginning to learn the patience I need to have for it to happen in God’s time.