Things our child won't do...

Things our child won't do that our "other" babies do....

1. Our child won't chew through the wall or on the curtains when he's bored
2. Our child won't take off every corner of every loose rug in the house..at least not with his teeth
   
3. Our child won't play in his water when he's thirsty...well maybe he will
4. Our child won't wake us in the middle of night to play..okay he might
5. Our child won't sleep right smack dab in the middle of us leaving absolutely no room on our King sized bed....I know he probably will
6. Our child won't poke every boney appendage into my spine while I sleep then act mad if I try to move him...right?
   
7. Our child won't give us sad puppy eyes every single time we eat something begging for a morsel....so I can see this happening
8. Our child won't whine every time we go out without him..creating serious guilt...aren't the grandparents supposed to stop this one?
9. Our child won't leave his toy right in the middle of the floor so that when I get up half asleep in the middle of night I take a serious nose dive b/c I tripped over it....now really I can prevent this one..
10. Our child won't cause serious mind boggling stress every time I hear him cough or sneeze..okay so I'm fooling myself!!!
11. Our child won't ignore me when I tell him to quiet down because Daddy's trying to sleep...please tell me he will listen!!!!
12. Our child won't eat every firey hot pepper off the pepper plant...oh wait I did that or was it my sister as a child...okay so maybe he will
13. Our child won't....really I have one.....trust me...really....Our child won't be put in a cage when we leave the house!!!!!!! :0)

So I was trying to convice myself.....didn't work!!!!
But...he won't chew through the wall when he's bored, right?

Can you say SELFISH?

So much has been put on hold as we've "tried" for a baby. And now with the adoption all of our extra resources have been put towards the cost. I'm not complaining. I know that our baby will be worth every penny that we've had to pay towards adoption costs. But lets face it things have been put on hold. I honestly don't care about that..I want a family more than I want any materiel "things" but I've noticed something lately. A lot of times when we talk, we talk about what things we're going to get once "the baby is here". We talk about a a new house, a new"er" recreational vehicle, a new T.V., carpet, home improvements, clothes, shoes, A NEW BRA!!! OMGosh....the realization hit me....

We're selfish. Not that we don't talk about all the stuff we're going to get for our baby, or all the things we're going to do with our child, but we also talk a lot about what we're going to get for ourselves, and the vacations we're going to take(with baby of course). But as I was driving home today thinking about my new TV and tivo that I'm wanting once baby gets here, I was struck by the total absurdity and selfishness of our thoughts. OMGosh are we going to be terrible parents b/c we still want all this stuff for ourselves. What horrible thoughts, I kept saying to myself. I wonder if our thoughts will change. What if they don't? What if we are horribly selfish parents? What if the baby gets here and our "we want" thoughts don't stop? I don't want to be one of those people that complains about not having stuff b/c they have a family. I'm not a materialistic person, trust me!! But why are we continually talking about "stuff" we're going to get once the baby get here?

He got his game on

Remember this post about the new basesball glove? Well he was able to finally play this weekend with the guys at work. They had a picnic, food and softball. Now we won't mention that after trying to field a ball, he fell over in the grass with the utmost of grace...sorta. But nobody really saw that. We won't mention that today, he told me that it hurt to get out of bed. I will tell you we had a great time and he slammed the ball out to left field several times and hustled faster than most of the younger guys. I will tell you that aside from the spill in right field, he did catch many balls that were slammed his way. Yes he is my baseball star!! YAY!!!

So do you think he's born yet?

**first off let me say that we refer to our baby as a he. Why? b/c our agency has told us that since we didn't specify gender on our request we will probably be referred a boy. With that in mind it's easier to say "he" verses "he/she, him/her, or it"" We don't have a preference aside from a healthy child**

Okay that being said, this question came up at work the other day. "so do you think he's born yet?".

Wow...do we think he's born yet. Well no. We think he's conceived, but not born yet. "But"...they tell me... " If when you get him home he'll be somewhere around 8-12 months old, and you expect to have him home around this time next year, then he's probably born"

So I think about this and I'm resistant to it. "no, he's not born yet"

"But Ann..."

So I think about it some more. We expect our referral sometime between December and February..March at the latest. December being 9 months on the waiting list and at the very freaking out stage of 12 months of waiting..March. Calculations going on in my head(y'all know I'm not good at math) that would mean....
"NO He's not born YET"

So now I'm at the stage of trying to figure out "if he's eight months old when we get home..then he would be born around...if he's 9 months old"

MY head hurts. I guess I just go with my gut. I don't "feel" like he's born yet. Actually I "feel" like he's just into the second trimester of development. But my gosh that question really got me thinking...

OMG I wonder if he's born yet?

It's a Birthday Party!!!

We had the badmitten net set up for the kids...

The Grill for the big kids (this was before EVERYONE showed up)



And The Cake for the BIRTHDAY GIRL!!!

Say Hello to Jon's Grandmother!!!

On Saturday, we celebrated her 80th Birthday at our house. We had a ton of people at our house,along with a ton of good food and good times. It seemed that everyone had a great time. We sang Happy Birthday to her and she got to blow out her candles....we had a big "8" and a big "0"candle...we did NOT make her blow out 80 candle...geesh. After the cake she was so happy, on the verge of tears and then she tells me that this was her VERY FIRST BIRTHDAY PARTY....EVER!!!!! Awww, almost made me cry. I am so happy that we were able to throw her

her very first birthday party. She hung out til dark and I think overall had a really good day with her family and my family all around her. Can you believe that at 80 she still works.

Go Grandma...It's your Birthday!!!

In Memory of...

Last year around this time we went on a camping trip and our fur baby Buddy unexpectantly passed away. I couldn't go without remembering him during this month. He wasn't really Jon's dog at first, but became ours when we got together and was a very important part of our lives. For anyone that personally knows us, our dogs are very important in our lives. I remember being very angry, b/c we had struggled with infertility for a long time and I felt that God was taking the only babies that we had. Buddy was a beautiful majestic pure black German Shepard. We were never afraid when he was around. He had the biggest heart. He was HUGE, but so sweet. We had also lost our dog Pandora about a year and a half earlier. Pandora was a mixed breed and full of spunk. She always looked out for me and was very protective. I had had her since I was nineteen and she weathered some really tough times with me. The unconditinal love of your dogs in inmeasureable. So after Buddy passed we were at the bottom of the bottom, no baby yet, no hopes of a baby and now both of our dogs were gone. It was a very difficult time. So I just wanted to take a moment to remember them, because they were our first babies together. And although we now have two new wonderful fur babies together and the hope of our human baby is now within our reach, we will never forget these two. They are still truly missed to this day.

Do you see the ticker...

4 months down!!! Okay just in case you didn't notice the ticker. We are now done with 4 months of waiting. This month was a little faster. And since July in pretty booked for us, I'm hoping that the next month goes even faster. Then it's on to Birthdays, Anniversaries, and Holidays. That should get us pretty close to our referral!!

It's a long distance call on my cell phone.....

So once we were on the waiting list in Taiwan, I began carrying my cell phone into the OR at work. Not really supposed to, but hey the Doctors do it. Besides, I don't want to miss that call. No on really calls my cell phone during the day, they usually just call the unit if they need me. So needless to say my cell phone just does not ring...it's just ready for the referral call. I've explained it to my managers and they know why I carry it. We just kinda overlook that right now. So I'm in the OR, doing my work and my CELL PHONE RINGS. Now I know it's waaaay toooo early, but I check the number to see who on earth would be calling my phone in the middle of the day. It's a long distance number!!!! OMG...IT'S A LONG DISTANCE NUMBER....
I don't know the area code for our agency...
BUT it's a long distance number...
My Stomach drops.....My Heart races....I feel the tears coming....my palms start sweating...
...for a split second the thought races through my head..
{I know it's early, too early in fact, but you never know...OMG...this is it}
"HELLO?"
"Hey is Robert there?"
"Robert, who's the @#$! is Robert, I'm sorry you have the wrong number!"
PURE DISAPPOINTMENT....MY stomach dropped again, but this wasn't the "good" drop it had just taken a moment before. I mean I know it's too early, but It WAS a long distance number. I just wanted to call this chick back and yell at her. Doesn't she know that my cell phone is reserved during weekday work hours for: #1 The referral call or #2 A real emergency. I wanted to explain to her that we are waiting on THE CALL. The most important call that we will ever receive. I wanted to tell her our entire life story, how we've tried for a very long time. That we are adopting and her wrong number call has just caused me much distress and disappointment. I wanted to tell her that she can't just go around dialing wrong numbers, the nerve of this girl. I wanted to ask her if she understood this. And please don't make this mistake again. Yes I know...a little on edge..but what can I say...

I know my thinking was a little over the top, but I seriously thought for just a moment that this was the call. Of course it wasn't, it was a wrong number....

But in case anyone is wondering...I'm ready...the cell phone is charged, it's in my pocket ready for that call. So the next time a long distance number comes across the caller id of my cell phone while I'm at work...my stomach will again drop, my heart will race, the tears will flow, my palms will sweat...and when I say "hello"
I'll hear...
"Ann..this is Bonnie.....from FHSA...."

Baseball anyone?

So a lot of people have been talking about retail therapy. You know going out and buying stuff, not entirely "needed", when you need a little bit of ummmm....therapy. Therapy for the waiting room that we are inevitably stuck in for many more months. So today Jon and I go to target because we need socks. Yes, this was the highlight of our weekend, but that's an entirely different story. I'm doing a little bit of scrapbook shopping so I have something to do with my time. But let me add that my retail therapy is always sizably less than Jon's. For about a month Jon has been looking at baseball gloves. I figured he was just fantasizing about when he gets his boy. Mind you we did not specify that we wanted a boy, but he figures he can either get a traditional baseball glove(if we get a boy) or the really cute purple and pink one(if we get a girl). I figured though that Jon was just fantasizing b/c in all reality he hasn't played baseball since like our first year of highschool. So I'm in the scrapbook section and here comes Jon all proud of himself with HIS new baseball glove and ball. HIS new glove, not one for a baby, but one for him. He has this goofy smile on his face and well who can say no. So we get home and he's all about this glove. He's throwing it up and basically playing ball with himself...I know..it's sad, but cute. He doesn't have anyone to play baseball with, but he has his new glove if anyones up for an impromptu game.
Then he decides that he's going to throw himself some grounders(in the house), he pounds the ball on the floor, **pop** he catches it. Throws another one, **wham**. Alright he's doing good...throws another one...***SLAM*** right into the collar bone. "Ummphff...ohhh" is all that I hear from the other room. He walks in to where I'm at with his head down...
"I'm done playing baseball for tonight....."
God I love him!!!