December 2

One year ago today, I received a phone call that made me the luckiest mama in the world.

Two weeks earlier, after waiting for an adoption referral for almost 1 year, rumors had come out that Ethiopia was closing it's doors to single women. These rumors had surfaced before but this time they felt more substantial, more real, more scary. On the forum, single mother clients from other agencies were posting that THEIR agency was stating the absolutely, positively, single women could no longer adopt, no exceptions. My agency was silent. Repeated emails from those singles in process received responses of "inquiries are being made/discussions are being held".

Response from the forum was unbelievable. Knowing that officials in Ethiopia read our forum, other single mothers who had gone before posted photos and stories about their families in support of those who would hopefully come after. Two parent families steadfastly supported us with thoughts and prayers of hope and support. And we supported and comforted each other, telling each other that it would be all right.

Until, on December 2, 2008, I received an email announcing that I could register for a conference call on December 5 to hear an update on the program as it related to single moms. I emailed my social worker with one question... "Is this a good thing or a bad thing?" Not really expecting a response, but needing to ask anyway.

Three hours later, my social worker called. She made some vague statements about the situation while I sat in my chair with my stomach sinking and my eyes welling, trying to be positive and polite, because really none of this was her fault, but thinking that this was it, she was calling to tell me that it was over - game end. When all of a sudden she said, "so based on that, I'm actually calling you with a referral - do you have time to talk?"

Fast forward fifteen minutes later I am looking with shock and awe at an email photo of my beautiful baby boy.

Fast forward four months later, almost to the day and I'm landing in Dulles airport with a smelly, exhausted but oh, so brave little guy.

Fast forward one year later and I've just tucked my little one into his crib after bath, bottle and happy bedtime cuddles.

As a friend just emailed me.... Happy referraliversary. Happy forever more. Happy December 2, baby.

When I was seven months pregnant, I had a chocolate craving one night and the only thing chocolate in the house was this weird pancake mix. (It's important to this story to know that I don't cook... seriously don't cook.) So I follow the instructions, mix up the batter and put a pancake in the pan and am standing there watching it when all of a sudden, it occurred to me that I didn't know how you tell when to flip the pancake. Onset of panic attack. I mean, I didn't know when to flip the flippin' pancake for Pete's sake, so how was I going to feed a child for 18 years?!?! I told my husband that I couldn't do this, that I'd changed my mind and we should get another cat instead. He's looking at me like "what is your problem" and I just kept repeating "the pancake, the pancake". Took me about 3 days to get over the pancake trauma. The ironic part is that pancakes are now the only thing my 4 year old will eat so I make pancakes every morning and some mornings I still get the shivers when it comes to flipping.

ETA: I wrote this post on another forum a while back and was thinking about it tonight. I guess the thing that I've learned over the past 4.5 years is that as a mom, you can not know something and still find a way to make it all work. I STILL can't tell when to flip the pancake and have many, many, many burned pancakes to show for it, but my little boy is healthy, happy, and totally fine despite my many shortcoming.

AND.... Krusteaz now makes pre-made microwavable pancake. One minute, 55 seconds and you are all set. No flipping required.

Atinafu's first hair cut today at Al's. I believe it was Al himself who did the cut. Al is an artist. No doubt about it. I watched him cut the hair of the gentleman before us and Al was focused hair by hair on perfection.

We got Atinafu in the chair and he did ok for the first 3 or 4 minute. The the screaming started. We finally had to stop because he got himself so worked up. End result, we got maybe 3/4 of a hair cut and I think it just about killed Al to leave it a bit unfished but there it is. Even unfinished it's cute as heck.

Uncle J commented on Facebook.

He looks AWESOME!!! I'm sooo glad you took him to Al's. The family tradition continues. Be sure to tell Atinaufu that his Uncle Jason loved going to Al's while he was in college. I need to get Myles and Mitchell down to Al's as well. Good job mom!!! Give both boys my love.Uncle J

My response

Thanks! I can totally see us in four or five years going to Al's and Atinafu making me sit in the chairs up front while he goes to the back to sit with the big guys. You need to bring Myles and Mitchell down to Tucson and we can have a group field trip to Al's. Hugs and love to everyone!

Mom Conundrum Number 1

Johnathan asked me today if his ear was big. My first thought was that someone had told him he has big ears. Now, Johnathan's ears are sweet and kissable but they are not, if truth be told, modest in size. Still, I was indignant that my child had been subject to a big-ear comment and I was all set to assure him that his ears are the perfect size for him when I actually looked at the ear in question and HOLY COW! It was twice the size as normal. Best I can guess is that he was bitten by something and had a reaction with associated swelling.



Let me say that I hate this kind of mom stuff. I feel totally inadequate trying to decide if this was a "no big deal", a "wait and see" or "needs immediate care before he goes into allergic shock" situation. I was stuck between giving him some Benadryl and waiting to see if that took down the swelling or taking him to Urgent Care. I finally tried Urgent Care but after waiting for an hour and watching the waiting room fill up with people with issues that were clearly worse than ours and watching the triage process, it was obvious that we were going to be there for at least 4 hours. The ear looked slightly less red and he wasn't wheezing so I hummed and hawed and home we went for a dose of Benadryl and monitoring. Ear observation is made more complicated by the fact that he's passed out from the medication and sleeping on the ear that needs watching. Hopefully things will look better in the morning.

I am a "Meaner"

I've just been informed by Johnathan that I am the meanest mom EVER! I think that's quite an accomplishment. All those mean mom's throughout history - multiple Borgias and the mom from Mommy Dearest, etc, and I have topped them all. All because a shower must be taken and hair must be washed this afternoon prior to dinner at grandpa's. :)

But hold the phones, maybe I'm not quite the meanest ever. Several fellow moms indicate that they too have been given the coveted title. Rae did not allow her son to eat that 5th popsicle and Lisa reports that she makes her children actually put their dirty clothes IN the laundry basket. Lisa additional claim is that she has several children naming her "meanest mom" and that number of votes does impact the outcome of the race.

I informed Johnathan that I was embracing being a mean mom and was going to work diligently in perfecting my meaness. He was slightly disconcerted by this concept and allowed that perhaps I was a "nice" mom after all.

He's crawling!!!

Atinafu is officially crawling! This is so huge for us. Our PT, Charlene, thought that he might skip crawling and I am soooo happy that he didn't. The weight bearing and shifting on his left side will really help strengthen the arm/shoulder/elbow/hand and once he's walking it will be harder to get him to put that much effort into working that arm. He started out with a sort of "limp" to the crawl but it's getting more and more fluid. He's also choosing to crawl on all fours rather than the commando scoot he was using before. Go, go, go baby!