And They're Off!

Well, Thing 1 and Thing 2 successfully made it to school (it started Monday) and here's a few pics from the 1st day:That's the big 3rd grader! We take a picture in front of the sign every year-it is a way of seeing how much they have grown each year. And, as previously mentioned, I'm a sucker for traditions!

Here's our sweet little 1st grader-she loves school!

And here is my favorite assignment Thing 3 brought home this week:

It was an info sheet about things they like/dislike, etc called "The Back to School Times" and in this section it asked for 5 things they are most proud of. Thing 1 listed: God, my parents (whee! at least until the teenage years-I'll take it while I can!!), my sisters (awwwww-funny, it doesn't always show so much....), my "etiopian" (oh. my. goodness.- yes, I cried), and my classes & teachers. It totally made my week!

(We will not talk about the section where she listed her favorite foods as "gum, cotton candy and KFC gravy"-I was so proud. KFC gravy? what?! I think she's had that 2 times in her almost 9 years. And I did inform her that neither gum nor cotton candy are technically food. Now I feel like I really need to go out of my way to pack wholesome, all healthy, 200% organic, 75 million grain lunches so as not to be deemed a pathetic parent. Sayonara, fruit roll ups...)

Oh Boy. School Needs to Start.

"Mommy" giggled Thing 2, "come downstairs and see Thing 1-she looks so funny!"



"What is she wearing?" I asked, naively assuming they were talking about some new and exciting dress-up adventure as usual.



"I am not telling you-I want it to be a surprise!" Thing 2 said, through mischievous laughter, and pranced off downstairs.



I finished putting my laundry away and headed down to see my funny little princess, or maybe a cowgirl, or even a little wee tiny bride.


This is what met me downstairs:
(note the proud big sister looking on)






It has been a long summer.

Go Tirunesh!

Tirunesh Dibaba of Ethiopia won the gold medal for Ethiopia in the 10,000 meter run -yes, TEN THOUSAND-oh. my. goodness. ouch. You go girl!!

That made me tired just to watch it.

I'm going to bed.

PS-the U.S. runner won the bronze after having food poisoning a few days ago-I am officially a horribly out of shape lazy person with no excuse. The Olympics are demoralizing for couch potatoes.

100!

Woo hoo! my 100th post! I never thought I'd get to this point and I have nothing even interesting to write about. Here are 100 things about me:

1. I hate writing lists like this.

Times 100.

The end.

(Here's some better lists if you need a list fix-which, you know, makes you kind of weird-just saying...)

Anyway, I have a funny "coincidence" to share with you all that happened this week. I have been searching for an ergo baby carrier that I could actually afford because I have had terrible back pains with other baby carriers and know a stroller is not really an option in Ethiopia and I like to wear my babies a lot, too. So, the price tag of the Ergo was keeping me from buying a new one but even on eBay they are pricey. Anyway, I saw an ad on craigslist where someone posted that they were looking to buy an Ergo so I emailed to person and said if they got more than one response, could they let me know b/c I was looking, too. Well, that turned out to be a person from my church that I know! So we laughed and then talked about the priceyness of the ergos and I thought that was it. Then, a few days ago she emailed me to tell me she had a person locally who had a used Ergo to sell and she didn't need it b/c she had gone ahead and bought a new one but did I want the person's contact info. I said sure and then emailed the person, explaining, for no other reason than the fact that I tend to bleed words sometimes, that I needed to but the Ergo for my baby I was adopting from Ethiopia especially for when we go there b/c we cannot take a stroller. For some reason I just felt like I needed to tell her that. She wrote back immediately to tell me that the reason she bought the ergos (she had 2) was to GO PICK UP HER 2 ADOPTED CHILDREN FROM ETHIOPIA LAST SPRING!!! What?! And she lives in the next town over, 10 minutes from me! (I will take a moment here to add that I live in a pretty small town area-although one that was slammed into the spotlight on April 16th, 2007, unfortunately-and while Blacksburg itself does have great diversity b/c of Virginia Tech, the outlying area in general is not necessarily a booming multi-cultural metropolis.) Crazy! Not only that, I went digging through some old Bible study notes I had where someone I know had given me the name of someone they knew who they thought had adopted from Ethiopia (get all that? they saw Ferris pass out at 31 flavors last nite....if you do not memorize random 90s movie lines, ignore that last part) and it turned out it was THE SAME PERSON!! I had never gotten around to calling her and yet here we were emailing back and forth and kicking around the idea of having a get together of families in the area with Ethiopian children b/c we each knew of one other family. Too funny! And so now, the same ergo is going to cross the ocean again to Ethiopia and back. That thing is a world traveler! Anyway, I just got such a kick out of the craziness of it all. It seems like God drops these moments in my lap just on the days when I get caught up in a swirl of fear and "what the heck are we doing?!" moments. He's good like that. I like Him.

Numbers

Well, we got our updated waitlist numbers yesterday and they are pretty much the same numbers we had before-#20 on the boys list, #25 on the girls list (we moved up one on that list somehow). I was startled to realized how disappointed I was that we hadn't moved further-I thought I was overwhelmed at how quickly things were happening and was looking forward to some time to exhale a bit and maybe even enjoy a bit of a wait so I thought I didn't have high expectations, but then my heart sank when I read our "new" numbers that really weren't new and my eyes were filled with tears for a moment. Sometimes in all of the hustle and bustle of paperwork and chaos and research of preparing for the adoption, it is easy to lose sight of what brought us here (the intense desire for another baby) and just get bogged down in details. Then, when you least expect it, that fierce desire to have that baby RIGHT. NOW. sneaks up and smacks you upside the head and heart and you feel like you are so far away from that happening, especially when you have not budged an inch on the wait list. Today was better and I was much more okay with things and I know that God has His timeline in place, but it is still hard to just want to know MORE MORE MORE about how things are going and when we might know something, anything, etc. Adoption is not for the faint of heart, that is for sure!

In other family adventures, Thing 1 had her first real sleepover with friends last night (she is 8 1/2) and my summation of sleepovers? Over. Rated. Ugh. The moaning, weeping, wailing and crabiness that ensued, AFTER her 2 hour nap from exhaustion when she got home, made for a very long day and quite possibly a Sleepover Embargo of undetermined length here at Chez Things. She did have a lot of fun, so I will give her that. (Who wouldn't have fun when you get to eat chocolate chip pancakes with chocolate syrup and ice cream for breakfast?! hello?!) And the fun mom of the friend at whose house this event took place is a Mary Kay rep so she did makeovers on all the girls, which they LOVED! So, Thing 1's assessment of the sleepover=good times.

Off to comfort poor Thing 3 who may just be perishing in her crib by the sound of her wailing "Mama!"-it is nice to mean the world to someone small :)