The Boys

Granny came to town to take care of me while my parents do all kinds of weird stuff with my baby brother. Baby Brother says, "Oh, my!"

Little Brother's Birth Story.

Last week at this time I was just starting to feel the effects of my lovely epidural and was about to give birth. The thought that it was just a week ago fills me with an irrational anxiety and sorrow. How can I feel anxious about something that has already happened?

Friday night October 26th we spent at our church's fall festival as a family of 3. It was Big Brother's birthday and he looked like a sweet baby in his lion costume. On Saturday I had a baby shower in my honor, and someone predicted I would give birth to a baby girl on November 14th. Sweet, I thought, I have some time left (although I didn't feel like I'd go past my due date of 11/9). Sure enough.

Saturday night Randy, Big Brother and I went out to dinner at The Oasis and endured endless comments from a couple at the next table about how cute he was. I was 38 weeks and 1 day pregnant, still enjoying my pregnancy emensely, and loving my pregnant body (besides the foot in the ribs). I loved being pregnant. It was very easy for me. It was something I thought I might never experience and figure I won't experience it again. Now it's over and I'm sad. Beyond sad - hormonal.

Sunday we celebrated BBs birthday with a few friends, as evidenced by the picture a few posts ago. A family of 3 celebraing together. That evening Big Guy's birthmom came to visit for the evening and next day. On Monday we had family pictures taken - a family of 3. (Four, really, as Kelly is family, too, but you know what I mean - she doesn't live here with us!) I drove Kelly to the airport on Monday evening and talked to my friend Mell, an eye, on the telephone.

Monday night I said to Randy, "I suppose we should have some sort of code for when I go into labor." He had a meeting the next day at 4:30. I can't remember what we decided. That afternoon I took BB outside in his Halloween costume to take some pictures. It was very awkward for me to squat down on the ground to take them, but I wanted to make sure we got some pictures. I had no feeling that I was going to be in labor that very same day.

We came in and I put BB for a nap. "Ah," I thought, "Some free time for me." I had a snack - some caramel/chocolate with nuts apple. As I was in the kitchen putting the thing away at 3:51 pm, I had a really strong contraction. I recognized it as a contraction for sure, but certainly didn't think too much of it - just that I needed to lie down. I made a trip to the bathroom first and noticed some (TMI) mucos plug descend from my body. (Ew - gross, I know.) I thought I'd better lie down for sure. I was slightly panicked, although I know you can wander around without a mucos plug for weeks before delivery.

Down I went, into the bed at 4:15, and as soon as I did, I felt a medium gush of fluid. "Oh, God," I thought, "I think that was my water breaking." Four gushes later I was certain. I was not ready! I had a bag packed, but I was not ready! Thank God Big Baby was asleep and I could get my act together (haha).

Since I wasn't certain that was amniotic fluid (who was I kidding?), I called the doctor's office and they said to come in right away, and since it was after hours to go to labor and delivery. I called Randy but couldn't get him, because of said meeting, and then I called Stacey to ask if she could come over for Thing 1. She was over in a half hour. I'd started having contractions around 7 minutes apart by the time she arrived, and Randy hurried home. We thought we might have to meet him at the hospital, but by the time I was ready he was about home.

We drove to the hospital, me contracting all the way, about 5-7 minutes apart like a good girl. We checked in at 6pm. By about 7, after 3 hours of labor and painful contractions (duh), I decided on the epidural. Dr. Littles was my hero.

When the epidural kicked in I knew I should rest, but I made and answered phone calls instead. We took a few pictures. When I checked in I was 3 cm dilated. Then she checked again an hour and a half later and I was a 6 and 100% effaced. When she came back in at 9:45 or so I was dilated to 10 cm and ready to have this baby! What??? It had been about 6 hours since my first contraction in the kitchen.

(Oh my gosh, typing this just brings me back and sets my heart aflame with excitement, nervousness, and panic. This was last week - did this happen to me? I can't stand it.)

I must have started pushing at 10:00. My friend Rachel had given me some tips on how best to do it, and I heeded her advice. 20 minutes later Little Brother was born. I felt a lot of pressure, but no pain since I had the epidural. It was such a relief when his shoulders and body came out - and really weird, too. Right now, strangely enough, I am longing for that moment again. It's over now - the most anticipated event of my life, and I can never go back. It breaks my heart.

LIttle Bro had his cord wrapped twice around his neck, but suffered no trauma. They just unwrapped him and out he came. His first Apgar score was a 9 because his hands were blue. Big Bro's first Apgar was a 4! They put the baby on my chest first as I requested, and I held him for a little while. I loved him for sure, but he did look weird! (Bad mommy.) He had the cutest hairstyle - practically bald on top and long and straight in the back like a monk or BIlly Ray Cyrus back in the day. He has blue eyes, loooong arms, loooong legs, and a skinny body. No butt - just like mommy and the rest of the Thompsons! He also seems to carry the Thompson chin - not a bad feature.

Last week right this minute I was comfy-cozy from the epidural and yakking on the telephone. I think Karen was pretty surprised when I answered her call from my labor and delivery room! She is due the same day I was.

My sweet baby is waking up right now. This is merciful for me. I feel calm when I'm nursing him, for the most part (after the latch), and Big Bro is in bed so I don't feel torn between these precious gifts. I'll save my nursing adventures for another place, but let me just say it's the hardest thing I've had to learn. It's like 8-12 workouts a day that are both physical and cognitive.

Anyway, I'll chronicle more of my hospital experience soon. It feels good to get things in writing. It was an amazing experience. My husband just said, "There's a lot of loss in this experience, too." This sounds weird, huh, but it's so true. I feel the loss of my family of 3, of my time with my firstborn, of my pregnancy, of LIttle Bro inside my body, of the experience of childbirth that is over, the loss of my sanity due to pregnancy hormones, the loss of my abdominal muscles! (ha), of sleep, etc.

I am not complaining. I feel so blessed. I feel so overwhelmed by emotions and postpartum hormones. It's really nuts. I told someone the other day, about how much love I feel for these guys, my sons, that right now it wasn't a happy love but a crazy, obsessive love that makes me feel like I can't handle this experience. I know I can, though, with God's help and my family friends. People do this all the time, right? Right.

Wow.

New Baby!

Born 10/30 at 10:29 pm. 6 lbs. 15 oz., 19" long. All are well!

Sugar high!

For my birthday party I had chocolate cake! My friends Stacey, Jose, and Brent came over for subs and cake. I liked it a lot until I got it in my eyes. My eyes are brown and not the color of blue frosting. I ate my cake in my high chair on my Great-Grandma Nana's old tablecloth!

I'm One Year Old!

I'll post a picture a little later, but our little baby boy is a year old today! All of the sudden he looks like a little boy to me rather than a baby. He's trying to talk, starting to walk, and just being so darn cute!

We have mellow plans for the weekend. We'll go to our church's Fall Festival tonight for awhile to show off our lion, then on Sunday we'll have a few friends over for sandwiches and birthday cake. Elmo and Big Bird will be on the cake. The sheet cake I purchased comes with a free baby's cake for him to destroy. People recommended chocolate for a bigger mess.

I can't wait until Randy is home and we can celebrate more. Baby has some presents to open!

It's early, but...

I couldn't resist posting this pics. Who knows what could happen by Halloween! (Nothing, please, nothing.)

In Memory of Pawpaw.

Baby's Pawpaw died today of cancer. He was 73. Baby really liked him - he always seemed to know when Pawpaw was going to tease him.

He was a ham. When Pawpaw would take his daily vitamins he would jokingly deal them out and say, "One for you, one for you...." He loved to turn lights on when we read and would say, "Better, one? Better, two?" like the optometrist. We went to visit a few weeks ago when he started feeling really sick and he said, "Randy is a good son and you are a good daughter-in-law." I had a feeling that was the last time we would see each other. It was.

We're going to miss you, Pawpaw. We love you.

Happy Anniversary!

Yesterday was our 5 year anniversary! We had a new babysitter come and she and Erik seemed to get along great. Who wouldn't get along with this kid? In any case, we had a really nice evening.

We went for dinner at Carmelo's restaurant which we have seen advertised and plugged a lot, but had never been. It was wonderful. There was an accordion playing in the background at a perfect volume, attentive waitstaff, and great food.Randy's was prepared at the table. It was really nice and we tried not to talk about kids the whole time.

It's hard to buy gifts for each other when either of us could go to the store and buy something we need, so I like to get inspiration from whatever traditional anniversary gift is meant for that year. This year's was wood. Hmmm. We are at max cap at the house, so I can't exactly buy him a workbench for the garage that is filled with other stuff. So I decided one of my gifts would be to clean off the dinig room table so you could see the wood. Clever, huh? I'm not much of a homemaker, so this is like a present.

My other gift was Randy's idea and not mine, but I did have to endure a restroom full of crickets to pick it up, so I figure I get some credit. It was the Tiger WOODs PGA tour game for PSP. Clever Randy. He gave me a silver chain to replace one that broke. The modern 5th anniversary gift is silverware, so he said he bought me silver wear. How about that, huh?

Check us out in our usual picture spot.

Happy Birthday, Grandma!

My mommy sent you a card but Columbus Day messed it up! (I told her to send the card on Saturday but she forgot.)

The first picture is me when I'm really tickled by something interesting - Mommy making a face, Elmo, etc.

The third picture is how I like to try to undress myself in the morning.

I'm learning to walk.

I went to play at my friend's house today and he had this cool push toy. My friend's mommy took a few videos of me, and in this one I don't fall over!

Also, we got an email from my birthdad today. Isn't that cool?

I'm a Big Cousin!

Up until a few days ago I was the youngest of five cousins. Now I have a baby cousin! I'm a big boy. I can teach my new cousin lots of stuff about being a boy.

My new computer

We both have new computers! Baby's is bilingual, though, so a little more unique than mine. He really loves to open and close it.

This little story has nothing to do with computers, but it is a heartbreaking little story about a boy and a girl. We took Baby to our church's Friday Fun Spot tonight (one Friday a month for $2 childcare) and put him down on the floor. There was a little girl in an exersaucer and Baby pulled up to stand on it and was watching the little girl. Well apparently he looked menacing because she burst into tears. Then he started to cry and looked so forlorn that I started to cry. It was heartwrenching. I thought my baby's feelings were hurt because he was trying to make a friend and she cried. That just breaks my heart. Watch, the two of them will grow up, fall in love, and get married, and I can tell the story about how the three of us cried in the Friday Night "Fun" Spot the first time they met.

Dedication

Our sweet baby was dedicated to the Lord today. That means that we pledged to God that we would pray for Erik and raise him in a Christian home so that when he is old enough he can decide for himself to ask Jesus Christ into his heart as his Lord and Savior.

Mr. Baby was sick with some sort of virus this weekend, so he was a little subdued, but he was an angel. He kicked his legs as Randy held him during the dedication and he grabbed our pastor's tie and microphone as Dr. Bowman held him for the prayer. It was a beautiful ceremony and we feel so blessed to be this kiddo's parents. Praise God!

Tee hee - Paris Hilton is funny.

This girl, I'm telling you, she's enthusiastic.

I admit I am a People Magazine junkie. Well, I don't subsctibe, but I do buy the mag when I travel and check the online site.

Recently Paris Hilton said that Nicole Richie would be "the best mom ever." I thought, huh? Ever? LIke better than any mom that ever was? I knew it was an exaggeration, but it struck me as being very silly. So today I went back to ol' people.com and saw that Ms. Hilton is taking acting classes because, "I'm going to make sure I do the best job ever." Really? Like even a better job than Nicole Richie will do as a mom? How are both these things possible at the same time?

Cute Paris, thanks for the laugh. I was feeling stressed this evening but now I'm just so glad to be me.

Person-first language

I'm into language. It "bug's" me when people misplace "apohstrophe's" when the point is to pluralize the word.(Apostrophes imply posession, otherwise just add the s, man.) I cringe when I hear preposition problems like "Where did you get that at." (Where implies direction/location, you don't need to add the prep.) But the worst of all (yes, I know, don't start a sentence with the words and/but/or, although they can get you very far. (Oh yes, and 'or' and 'far' don't rhyme)), is the lack of person-first language, especially on professional documents.

I was over at Christine's and she posted about a CDC report about the prevalence of autism. You can visit almost-Kansas for that report, because I'm just going to address the lack of person-first language.

"A person with autism," is much better language than "an autistic person." The latter implies that autism is the most salient and important descriptor for that person. A person with autism has much, much more in common with anyone else in the world than he has differences. He was conceived in the same way, he was born, he is a human being with thoughts and feelings, etc. An adult with Down Syndrome has DS. She is not a "Downs adult." It kills me when I hear about a "Downs baby." What is that?

Anyway, just think about this. Mull, stew, ponder, you get the drill. Autism, just for example, means many things. Some people with autism don't communicate verbally, some are articulate. Some people with Down Syndrome get married, some live with their parents. Probably some get married and live with their parents. People without Down Syndrome do that, right? No diff.

We can celebrate our differences without letting them define us. We're all human beings created by God, and what connects us is much bigger than the things that separate us.

Now watch those apostrophes, people, or I'll come after you. Knock, knock - grammar police...

We're helmet-free!

Yesterday we graduated from the cranial reshaping helmet. I was so happy. It really hasn't been a big deal since the first few weeks when it seemed like he'd be in the helmet forever, but it is SO nice to snuggle this guy's bare head. He's gotten a lot of kisses and nuzzles today. Here is a picture of the day he got his helmet off.


We also had a lot of tears today from bonking our head on chairs, the floor, the dresser, etc. I found Baby several times lying on his back crying like he'd lost his best friend. That helmet sure did protect this acive guy's head.

We're really happy with the results. Someone who didn't know that he'd had such bad plagiocephaly/braciocephaly wouldn't be able to tell me looking at him. (Especially wince most people have not idea what those words are.) I'll publish before and after pics soon, but the "before" pictures are on a different computer.

Thanks, Hailey, Dr. Bud and Hanger Orthotics!

Travel adventures.

For the weekend we went to visit my inlaws in the Fort Worth area - a four-hour drive from where we are (another hyphenated word - enough, already). On Thursday night we had dinner at some friends' house and had Baby Man out in the evening, which we try not to do often, but we had fun and he did great.

The next day we hopped in the car - you know, after about one hour of figuring out what to pack for the baby - and set off at his naptime. He did great on the trip up, with a stop at Wendy's on the way for some Cheerios and junk food for us (hey, I had a salad, give me a break).

Without going into all the details, traveling with a 10-month-old baby isn't easy. He did some car naps, extra visiting, slept in a new place, woke up to unfamiliar surroundings, missed his kitties and his toys, woke up in the middle of the night, etc. He probably sat in the car for 9 hours in three days, which isn't fun for anybody. As far as babies go he did great, but it is SO nice to be home.

On our car ride home yesterday we talked about all the things we were going to do today on Labor Day. Now that we're home I just want to sit around, surf, blog, and watch TV. I did make some rather yummy gingerbread pancakes for breakfast. Maybe that will be my task for the day.

Stray Cat Strut

This morning I awakened to a loud BANG! and some very strange meowing. A skinny, scary looking grey tabby had jumped our 8 foot tall wood fence/wall and was in our atrium. Chez was hissing at him with her bottle-brush tail as full as the dawn, and the banging was the skinny cat trying to jump back over the wall. He made it, too, which shows superfeline strength, in my opinion. That is a tall fence!

So all morning the cats have been going berserk. I think they are trying to get to all the food before "that other cat" does. I'm glad it wasn't our male cat out there fighting, because the last thing we need is another makeshift litterbox. The planters out there are quite fertilized already.

I have used so many compound words in this post I don't know what should be hyphenated, one word, or are words I'm making up.

I see a shadow out there...please, please I don't want another cat. Don't make me fall for this skinny dude. I won't.

Pregnancy update and a picture at the end.

It's hard to believe I'm now over 30 weeks pregnant. Over the past few days it's like this baby is a contortionist. There is some body part yet to be determined that keeps roving all over the place. Its favorite places are behind my bellybutton, up in my ribcage, or way the heck over to my right side. What is it? I assume it's a foot, but who do I look like, the Bionic Woman? I can't see through my own abdomen. (Nor can I really see much below it, if you must know.)

I haven't written much about pregnancy on this blog, if you haven't noticed. It's a precarious position to be pregnant after infertility and adoption. (Go see Thelma for a really great post about romanticising motherhood.) In a way I think I've tried to minimize the miracle of this pregnancy for fear that I would make adoption seem like less of a miracle or hurt my dear friends who are struggling with infertility. In turn I haven't posted as much recently because the main thing going on in my life right now is children. During the day I care for a 10-month-old alternating with napping to care for myself and a feetoos (I know a fetus is a baby, but I like to say "feetoos." Say it - it's fun.).

At my last appointment I was a little over 28 weeks pregnant and by ultrasound the baby measured 3 lbs. 2 oz., and I can't remember how tall. Tall, I think. I passed my gestational diabetes test, which is great because I'm into ice cream and chocolate these days, on top of my milk cravings and fruity tastes. I've gained 20 pounds, which is on track for normal, and aside from a stomach-emptying hurling festival a few nights ago, I've felt really good.

The thing is, I'm not getting any smaller. It took me a long time to "show" because of my height and broad shoulders, but now there's no hiding. Now I'm thinking that 10 more weeks give me a lot of time to become gianormous. If I gain another pound a week for the rest of the pregnancy I'll be pushing 200 pounds at the end.

It's amazing how much 20 extra pounds will hurt your feet. I bought this fabulously expensive and not exactly glamorous pair of Birkenstocks to help with that, and I cannot say enough about Birkenstocks at this point. I put them on the minute I wake up and wear them all day long - around the house, at the store, and everywhere but 'cept the shower.

I think this picture is me at 28 weeks pregnant. We forgot to take one this week, but maybe we don't need to every single week. Here's the baby boy or girl that will double the size of our family in just one year. Yowzah.

Too big, eh?

Testing

Working on photo orientation.

"My Grandma" by Baby S.

My grandma had foot surgery today. When I found out I told my mommy, "Let's make a photo diary so Grandma can see what I do all day." My mommy said OK, so here it is. This post is very picture heavy, so if you don't think I'm cute, or you think I'm too cute, you might not want to look. Love, Baby

















1. I like to play in the hall, dangerously near outlets that my mom stuck little plastic things in.



2. I brush my teeth.



3. Next I terrorize my kitties.



4. I pull Punky’s tail. He doesn’t like it.



5. Subluxations are bad. My chiropractor gets me straightened out.



6. Time for a nap.



7. Yay, naptime is over.



8. Another nap? I don’t think so, mommy. (She put me right back down and I gave in.)



9. I can climb up on lots of things.



10. I liked my fresh peach the best.



11. Daddy comes home!!!



12. Big blue has a flat head.



13. I tickle the ivories after almost every meal.



14. Bath time. I like sushi.



15. Night-night bottle. (I’m embarrassed. You saw me in my underwear.)


Ain’t life grand? I love my grandma. Get well soon!

My first tag - awww......

The Rules: 1. I have to post these rules before I give you the facts. 2. Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves. 3. People who are tagged need to write their own blog (about their eight things) and post these rules. (**if you’re a non-blogger, you can email them!) 4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names. 5. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

1. I can't decide whether I couldn't do without chocolate or french fries.

2. I've lived in 3 countries and 6 states (U.S., England, Scotland, California, Iowa, South Carolina, Colorado, Kansas, and Texas.)

3. I bought new shoes this morning - Birkenstocks. They are so comfortable I can barely contain my excitement.

4. Every time I go to Thelma's blog I want an apple.

5. I need to shower and wash my hair right now. It's 1:40 p.m.

6. I've had the same pair of Ray Ban sunglasses since 1999.

7. I took ballet lessons for 8 years and was a flower in the Nutcracker for 5 years.

8. When I was little I got a snowcone machine, a bicycle, and a puppy all for quitting sucking my thumb three different times. I finally quit when I was about 12.

I'm going to tag my HP aunties Thelma, Allison, Wendi, Judi, Melody, Niki, and Sarah, plus one more that I'll have to edit this post to add!

Hi, I'm new here.

Taking a break from my hea-vy posts to introduce to you my new computer. I shall call her Fran. Maybe not, but that's the first name that came to my mind.

I've graduated from the iBook G4, which I bought in my first year of graduate school at UT, to the MacBook. It's rather nifty. It has Garage Band which I've always wanted, and iDVD which will be very nice, indeed. I'd love to learn how to do more video editing. Remember "One Kirk Stuck?" I'll have to do another movie some day.

Photo Booth - what's that? How do I use iChat? These are things I must know. One of my first orders of business is to download and send some pictures to my mother who can be quite pesky about that.

(As an aside, we are watching a Star Wars episode right now, and I wonder - was there ever a character as annoying as JarJarBinks? I think not.)

Fran says "bye" - she wants to play.

Childbirth education part II - **pg talk**

I started feeling better right before lunch. There is nothing like a feeling of physical health after I've felt sick. I chalked my body's behavior up to nerves and an excess of fiber and set out to face the rest of the day.

I can't remember now what we talked about right before lunch - oh, yes, relaxation techniques and pain management. "Hee hee hee hoo" and stuff like that, including a nice hand massage. "Wait," I thought, "What about my feet?" (Somewhere in my head I hear my husband saying, "Rub your own stinky, puffy feet," but he would never say that. Think it, maybe.)

There were 20 happy couples in our class, and there might have been one woman there by herself. This started me to thinking about K and how she might have felt in the hospital. Without going into too many details that are her story, because it's hers, she did have support at the hospital, hospital staff treated her like the mother, which she was, and she was the first and only to hold the baby in the first 24 hours.

But there her exclusive rights began to fade. What must she have been thinking as she watched the other moms with their babies? What must she have gone through every time she saw me standing there smiling at her and her baby? It was challenging for us at the hospital not knowing whether this would really be our baby, but I would have much rather been in our position.

Yesterday I used the word "relieved" to describe how it would feel in the hospital knowing that New Baby will be our forever baby. I don't think that was the right choice of words. I think a better word would be blessed. Perhaps we won't even compare the two situations at all, because they really don't compare. But the fact that a childbirth education class brought up all of these unexpected feelings indicates to me that they will come up again at the hospital.

Speaking of word choices, "guilt" wasn't the right word to describe how I feel about having a baby after infertility. So scratch that, but I'll have to come back to that topic tomorrow. It was a big day Saturday and I'm still processing.

Musings of a pregnant adoptive parent.

***Lots of pg talk, as evidenced by my title.***

We went to our childbirth education class yesterday, and it brought up all sorts of ideas and feelings. I was excited about it all week, but then I got nervous. Would I look stupid doing my "hee-hee-hee-hoo" breathing? Was I going to have to lie on the floor with my knees east and west? Were my pillow cases clean?

For the morning session, anatomy and physiology and the process of childbirth, I felt physically ill and had to leave the room several times. It could have been the fiber fiesta I held a night or two before, it could have been something I ate that morning, but it had never occurred to me that I would be squeamish about this. I've seen it, right? I didn't pass out in the delivery room or feel physically ill when Thing 1 was born.

At some point during the morning, as I was sort of reliving the birth of our son, I realized that unlike that time, we know that this baby will be ours from the moment of his/her birth. With Big Guy we spent the first few days of his life wondering if we would really be his parents. I don't begrudge the necessity of that, but it certainly was different than this experience. It will be a relief to be able to really bond with New Baby from minute 1 - before minute 1, actually. (Relief really might not be the right word, here. let me work this out and I'll edit.)

I have much more to say about this, but I need to try to get some extra sleep tonight. Tomorrow night is Girl's Night!

Stay tuned for the next installment about my emotions surrounding what K must have experienced as she gave birth to her first precious baby - our sweet son. Also, the guilt I feel as a parent preparing for #2 when so many precious women are still waiting for one dear child to love. I hated it when I thought about how my friends might feel badly about being pregnant or being parents when DH and I were struggling with infertility, but the cold, hard, slap-you-in-the-face truth is that I do feel that way. It's not pity guys, really, just understanding and compassion, I think. I love you.

More latah.

What not to say.

Let's revisit what to say and what not to say when talking about children with someone who doesn't have them (yet).

DO NOT say:
Adopt and you will get pregnant. (It's hardly ever true, although it might seem like it is. Only 3-10% of the time is it true.)

Stick with me - I get pregnant just standing next to my husband. (That one is never, ever true. Has that person never taken biology? Nor is it in the water. Sperm can't live that long, they don't travel through the water system, and they don't get to an egg by swimming down through your digestive system.)

You can have mine. (I don't want your children, I want my own children. By "my own," that means by adoption, too.)

At least you don't have to get up in the middle of the night a dozen times. (Never, ever start any sentence with the words "At least," or "Why don't you just...")

You need to relax.

DO say:
That must be difficult.

I'm sorry.

Can I buy you some very tasty chocolates or your dream home while you wait?

^^^^^^^^^^^^^
So, I can tell you it's very hurtful for people to say that you need to relax. That makes it your fault that you cannot get pregnant. After we adopted and did actually conceive and it seems like will carry to term, people said, "See, you finally relaxed and then you got pregnant." One person actually did say this directly to me, and several made the comment to friends as I was walking away from a conversation.

First, do they really think that having a newborn baby is relaxing? That's all I have to say about that. Second, doesn't that imply that each and every time my sweet husband and I "got romantic," as one of our nurse practitioners said (love her), in 4 years, we were never relaxed? I'm not going to go into these details for ya', but that's seriously dumb.

Message truncated - going to the airport to pick up K!

Guitars and keyboards

Baby is playing guitar with Daddy right now. We're thinking we might have a little musician on our hands! Both of us are musicians, and his birthparents are, too. It's neat to see this love of music coming out in this boy. When we finish lunch or dinner and walk by the piano, Baby cranes his neck and reaches out to the instrument to play. He loves the drums and tambourine, too.

The other thing this kiddo is interested in right now is the computer. His dad and his birthdad are both computer nuts, too. I'm currently typing with one shift key, because I let Baby play with it and he ripped the other one off. One time he even started a new browser window. He's so cool!

Beckhams

Who cares??????

Saturday laughs

Soul Train, baby! It is hilarious - the outfits, the music, the hair, the dancing - hilarious. It's funny to me because although I was too young to go out dancing in the 1970s, I was certainly old enough to go roller skating and remember dressing in a leotard under tight jeans with one side of my hair pulled back.

There's this one lady who I can only assume tried to dress like Judy Jetson in a red leotard with a space-age collar over black tights, with a sparkly headband and Crystal Gayle hair down past her buttocks. She keeps moving in and out of view, sidling across the stage waving her arms in a very disco-esque movement. Of course there are also the jumpsuits, tubetops, and matching his and hers outfits.

For a good laugh check out an old Soul Train one Saturday afternoon. This is what happens when you and your husband are too cheap to pay for cable TV past the basic package.

Dumb-dumb.

Why am I still up? I'm tired. We started watching "Lost" last week on DVD and it makes me feel very thirsty. I'm tired and thirsty. That's my July 12th update.

Happy Anniversary tomorrow, D & F!

Remember these guys?