how do mothers accomplish ANYTHING?

OK, so I had a beautifully empty day on my calendar. I envisioned myself working out, doing meaningful special together-time projects with the kids, cooking something that doesn't involve following directions on a box, learning my Bach, and re-styling Eleanor's hair, which is getting fuzzy and dilapidated (don't want to be the bad white mama now!) And now it's 9:30, I'm exhausted, and I can't figure out what I did all day. So I'm trying to estimate:

Getting dressed and ready to go: 5 minutes
Cooking/cleanup/dishes/feeding children: about 2.5 hours total
feeding/changing/actively playing with baby: about 2 hours
Workout at gym: 1 hour
jogging to/from gym with kids: 1 hour
shower: 20 minutes
working on "school" type stuff with kids: 45 minutes
trying unsuccessfully to get violinist to focus: 30 minutes
gardening/seed planting project with kids: 20 minutes
Adoption paperwork: 30 minutes
working on CBS study: 30 minutes
braiding Eleanor's hair: 2 hours
writing down what I ate: 15 minutes
breaking up fights/arbitrating/sending kids to time out: 45 minutes
blogging: 10 minutes

reading: zero
watching TV: zero
playing video games: zero
working on thesis: zero
laundry: zero
cleaning bathrooms: zero
learning my music for rehearsal Friday: zero

That adds up to about 13 hours I think, and I've been awake since 7:30, so we're missing an hour in there somewhere. Maybe that's my problem: the missing hour. Actually, that probably involved answering emails, taking a few phone calls, and politely telling the two Mormon "elders" that I was too busy to chat. Is waking up earlier really my only option for clean clothes, clean bathrooms, finishing my degree, and not getting fired from my music gigs?

a couple notes

This morning:

Eleanor, squealing in mostly-fake terror: "Mommy, there's a spider in my room!"

I look. I see no spider, nor anything else crawling.

Miles, in his bossy big-brother way: "Count the legs. If it has 8 legs, it's a spider. If it has no legs, it's...uh...a fuzz. Or a hair."

Eleanor: "Ummmm....it has two antennae and five legs!"

Miles, disparagingly: "Then it's the fan. That's the only thing that has five legs."

I would like to include some Juliet anecdotes here, but so far she mostly just sits, cheerful and grinning at us while she eats her fingers or perhaps a shoe. She is working on creeping, but so far only manages to go backwards, and gets very annoyed about it.

Still zero luck on solid food with her. For a couple weeks, we tried just sticking chunks of whatever we were eating (that was not a baby-taboo food, that is) onto her tray. Every single time, she throws up. So the doctor suggested we try very liquidy rice cereal for several weeks. She does the usual baby tongue-thrust thing and doesn't eat that either. And yes, if it gets too far back in her throat, she starts retching again. I guess it's possible that she just isn't ready for solid food yet, but she's 7 1/2 months old, so that's a little unusual. I'm beginning to wonder if there could be something with her tongue or throat that's shaped weird and triggering her gag reflex too easily. We'll give the rice cereal a couple more weeks, and then bug the doctor again. She is taking in plenty of formula, at least, and can finally hold her own bottle - yay!

Miles: first violin solo recital!

Miles has now been playing violin for five months (he started when he turned five - it was his birthday present), and today he had his first solo recital. And he really rocked it! He takes a private lesson once a week and is also in the weekly group beginner class. And I have to take a moment to brag, since this IS my blog, and bragging is kind of what blogs are for sometimes: although he is the youngest in the class AND started the most recently (everyone else started in August, at the beginning of the school year), he was the only one who got to play TWO songs at recital (and he was playing the most advanced rep of the beginners). He'll be playing a few songs with the "intermediate" group (mostly 7-10 year olds, it looks like) at the upcoming April group recital, and probably moving up to join them in a few more months.

Here he is! OK, I have no idea what's up with the leg-thing he's doing in the first song - maybe that's the way his nerves express themselves? But he did a nice job, and his pitch is not too painful for a beginning string player!



Yes, he was forced to wear the outfit, and complained about having to dress up. He wanted to wear pajamas. To borrow a phrase from my mom's friend Kaye, "Oh well!"

A joke no one else will think is funny

Today, on this lovely spring-like afternoon, I went for a jog and took Miles with me on his bike. On the way home, he was complaining about a very loud car, and I took on the Daddy role briefly and explained about mufflers. I felt rather proud of myself.

A few blocks later, a van screeched to a halt, brakes squealing. I explained that that car probably needed new brakes, and that was why it sounded like that.

Miles answered, "Yeah, it sounds JUST like macaroni cooking in a pot!" Um...?

It took me a second, but I got it. And now I will explain it to you:

We have a magnetic induction cooktop (which, incidentally, I LOVE when it's not being repaired). When a pot of water is boiling, and steam is escaping between the lid and pot, because of the magnetic vibrations it makes this very high-pitched metal-on-metal squeal until you reach over and adjust the lid.

Precisely like a van in need of a brake job.

So yes, Miles, that guy's brakes did sound like cooking macaroni.

Not measuring up

The other day I was noticing, not for the first time, that African-American women don't appear in public without being pretty put-together. This is a trait I admire, but a habit I've failed to develop myself. This is a generalization, but for the most part,

Black women:

- have their hair styled

Emily:

- a ponytail IS a style, right?

Black women:

- have their fingernails long and manicured

Emily:

- only bites hers when watching movies. Mostly.

Black women:

- wear make-up, and often have really awesome skin underneath it.

Emily:

- makes it a goal to put on mascara on days she leaves the house.

Black women:

- wear not-insignificant amounts of jewelry

Emily:

- a couple years ago made a resolution to try to look more put-together. This involves trying to remember to wear earrings most of the time.

Black women:

- accessorize in other ways (scarves, designer purses, belts, hats, etc.)

Emily:

- see previous. Have not worn a belt since high school. A scarf is for keeping my neck warm outdoors. And of course I own a purse, or maybe it's a diaper bag. More than one would involve shuffling my stuff back and forth, and I'm too lazy for that.

Black women:

- wear clothes with labels. Today, one of my Muslim friends (a very modest woman) was jogging in her headscarf on the treadmill, and Miles read her butt aloud: "Love Pink". I told her she was corrupting my son by advertising on her rear.

Emily:

- wears workout clothes with labels. Sometimes they say Old Navy.

Black women:

- wear shoes that are an important part of their outfits (a couple ladies at my gym have gym shoes in 10 or 12 colors, to go with each outfit)

Emily:

- wears shoes that are comfortable and flat. Buys multiple pairs of the same shoe when she finds one she likes.

Hmm.

You see, when I think of accessorizing, in my mind that's something as simple as putting on a bra. After all, if I can go to the grocery store without it, then it counts as an accessory (and therefore optional) in my book. So shoes are not an accessory, but by that definition, a bra is.

Sigh. Yet another way in which I'm not the ideal cultural role model for my children...the question is, do I care enough to invest the effort into changing this rather than working to change something else about myself (perhaps something with deeper moral or spiritual significance?)

We'll see, but the exit polls are showing a slim chance at best.

Jumping back on the bandwagon

Adopting AGAIN?

Are we crazy? Are we trying to get our own TV show? Or have we somehow failed to notice the 6-month-old in the next bedroom?

No, no, and definitely no. But there's a short version and a long meandering version here. Let's start with the short, simple one today:

Last week, we submitted our pre-application to adopt again, this time from Haiti! The international process will probably take close to 18 months, so that's why we're starting so early (and in case you're wondering, I cannot imagine having an additional child right now...but we are pretty confident we do want another, and we would like for Juliet to have someone within 2 years of her age, hence...this plan).

We’re hoping to adopt siblings – if things go smoothly (which they won't, since nothing is totally predictable in adoption) we’re guessing we would be bringing them home in summer 2013, so when Miles is 6 1/2 , Eleanor is 5, and Juliet is 2, we’d be bringing home a 3-4 year old and a 1-year-old, or something roughly like that. That’s the ideal anyway, but we’ll just see how it goes; kids don't come made-to-order to fit OUR needs, so we want to be open to as many variables as possible, including the age of the children. The one thing we will probably not flex on is the maximum age; Miles is adamant that he does NOT want an older sibling, and I've read enough about adopting out of birth order that I believe displacing him as the oldest would be pretty traumatic and cause a lot of sibling resentment. So that limits us to kids under age 6 (in 2013, that is).

For those of you curious about adoption, here's a few facts:

Unlike many countries, because of the poverty and recent disasters in Haiti, there are more children in need than families waiting to adopt them, which is pretty heart-wrenching. In terms of a time frame, our home study will probably take 3-4 months. The home study is the process where you submit a whole bunch of paperwork - financial data, medical histories, criminal background checks, etc. - to a US adoption agency, get interviewed by them, and then finally they do actually check your home (mostly to make sure you do have a bedroom for the child you want to adopt, you don't leave guns or household poisons lying around, you do actually have heat and running water, etc.) Then they write a home study, which is the document that certifies you have been approved by a licensed agency to adopt. It's a whole lot of paperwork and time to net you four pages of paper.

After that, we send our dossier (lots MORE paperwork, including annoying stuff like certified notarized stamped original birth certificates for everyone in the family) to Haiti. This will probably happen in mid-June, when Scott turns 35 and we are finally old enough to qualify; Haiti has some pretty stringent rules about who they accept as adoptive parents, though it's apparently quite possible to get a waiver for some of them, since otherwise almost no one would be allowed to adopt from there).

And then we will probably get our child referrals pretty quickly, probably within a month or two (a referral is when you get assigned a child, sent photos and medical/social information, and you have to accept the referral and commit to that child or else turn it down and ask for a different one). And then it’s about a 12 month wait (estimated) to go through all the court process, paperwork, immigration, etc. until you actually bring your child(ren) home. One nice thing about Haiti is that it’s so close, we can fly there to visit “our” kids once we have a referral. They have a guest house where you can live with your adopted children and get to know each other, etc; that’s pretty cool.

So that's the short version. If you'd like to know more about adoption in general or about our journey in particular, I always LOVE to talk about my favorite subject!

Juliet's adoption is complete!

Hooray!

This morning we had our adoption court hearing in Salt Lake City. We flew out last night (fussy teething baby plus late night wasn't a great combination) and flew home this afternoon, so it was a whirlwind trip.

Here I am with Juliet in her Adoption dress (aka Christmas dress, I know. I figured I put enough work into it that she better wear it at least once more,'cause it's getting short.)



And adoption court was pretty...um...uneventful. I won't say boring or pointless (though I might think it), because after all, adding this little girl to our lives is a wonderful gift, and we treasure her. But some of the paperwork and legal hoops feel less like treasures, and "rituals" not being particularly important to my personality type, this one felt like rather a bother.

To clarify: many of the adoption court judges in Salt Lake City will waive the requirement for an out-of-state family to appear at their adoption finalization. We drew a fairly new judge, though, and he required us to show up in person with the baby, in order to answer a few earth-shatteringly vital questions like, "Are you married to the man sitting next to you?", "Have you seen this document before? Is that your signature on it?", and "Do you realize that this child will have the same rights as any biological children?" (to which, with an inward eye-roll, I wanted to reply, "um, of COURSE...that's the whole point why we're here!") I confined myself to a polite series of yesses, though, thank you very much!

Here we are in the courtroom with the man I grew to think of, not precisely as Evil Judge, but perhaps as Nitpicky Judge (who was a very nice and kind man who probably cares deeply about the welfare of children, which is why he wanted to see us in person to make sure we're not meth addicts or involved in child buying or something).



Our lawyer (whom we'd never spoken with before) did a fine job, as he ought to for $200/hour or whatever it is we paid him.

And we received an entirely unexpected blessing, too. The adoption agency sent a representative (as apparently they are required to do). After we were finished and waiting for copies of our paperwork, this woman told us that her youngest adopted son was Juliet's double-first-cousin! Jules' birthmom is a twin, and her twin sister had placed her son for adoption five years previously.

This was just so thrilling to me! We have a closed adoption with Juliet (not by our preference), so we do not have any contact with any of her birth family, though if they ever choose to look for us, we've told the agency to please give them our contact info. So while Miles and Eleanor will grow up able to email/call/Facebook/visit with with their birthmothers and even a few other birth relatives, Juliet will likely not have this option. This cousin may be the only relative she would have the option of meeting. And I call him a double-first-cousin because not only are their mothers twins, their fathers (the boyfriends of the respective twins) are apparently also brothers.

AND this adoption worker, bless her heart, brought us copies of a number of photos of her son, of Jamie (Juliet's birthmom) and Jasmine (Marcus' birthmom) with baby Marcus, AND of a young Malasha, Jamie's older daughter and Juliet's full sister, whom she may also never get to meet.

I am getting teary just writing about this, but the thoughtfulness of this other adoptive mother really blessed me, and I hope I can do the same for someone someday. What a gift: the gift of family, of origins, of a biological connection to someone. Juliet may never desire that, may never care; I know some adopted children don't. But I am so grateful to have this to share with her just in case she does!