It's Been a While

In the almost-two years since I started my blog, this is surely the longest I've gone without posting to it.  It's been a while.

It's been crazy around here.  Let me fill you in, in broad strokes:

• I'm working on a whole lot of projects around the house right now, getting ready for two more beautiful kiddos to enter our family.  Rooms have been cleaned out (and I mean down to nothing) and painted; shelving has been constructed for bedroom closets; bed frames have been purchased and assembled; light fixtures have been hung; doll cribs have been painted; wool mattresses have been ordered and will be delivered next weeks; wool duvets have been ordered for arrival next week; duvet covers and bed linens have been purchased; baseboards have been hung; rooms have been measured in anticipation of purchasing books shelving and baskets and area rugs next week; pantries have been organized and appropriately stocked; clothing rods have been hung and clothes are being washed and prepared for the new arrivals; toys have been sorted and organized; etc etc etc.  There is much more that I'm not including here, but you get the idea.  My house looks like a hurricane spent some time in here, but in the coming week, order will finally begin to tip the scales in the right direction.

• Just over a week ago, I sent family and friends (friends who are not in the adoption community) an email, asking if they would be interested in contributing a little bit of money towards the purchases we plan to make in Ethiopia, for the transition house and for the orphanage where our children were first relinquished...in the poorest region of Ethiopia.  The response has been incredible, and we've raised over $800 towards this purpose!!  I'm so excited about this because money goes quite a ways there, and we'll be able to meet some real needs there, while supporting the local economy.  I'm so very grateful to all of the people who've been able to do something towards this effort!!  I've also dropped a letter off to the owner of our local Shoppers Drug Mart, asking him if he would consider making a donation of diapers (which are oddly so expensive to buy there, in comparison to here); depending on his response, I'll be delivering a letter to other local retailers in our area to see if we can generate some specific diaper donations.

• In amongst everything, normal life has continued, and h/school has been continued...we're on the verge of completing grade 1 - yay!!

• Matthew, poor munchkin, had to have four big vaccinations/needles a week ago.  He was up-to-date on everything that's required for Canada, but these ones were specific to our upcoming travels.  He was a brave little soldier, let me tell you.  I told him that it was totally normal/ok to be scared and to cry, but he braved all four needles with nary a tear and, when I asked him later if he wanted to cry, he said "Mom, they hurt a lot, and I was anxious, but I decided that I'd be ok because I'm doing it for my brother and sister."  Even when he got mildly (buy annoyingly) sick for a few days, in reaction to the needles, he didn't complain once.  Wow.

• I've continued taking the Neufeld parenting classes that I started last fall, and I'm still loving them.  A week ago, I also took an intensive Friday-evening and Saturday Neufeld course entitled "Understanding Aggression," which was utterly interesting to me and very helpful.  I wish every parent took these courses, to be honest.  I'd love to be posting more about these parenting classes because they've been so transformative in some of my thinking.  I promise to try to get to them.

• There's been stuff happening on the visa front, too, I'm very happy to report!  Our adoption file has been in Nairobi for three weeks now, and we have reason to believe that our kids' visas are going to be issued pretty soon.  It's funny how, for the past three weeks, despite knowing that visas typically take 7-10 weeks for Nairobi to issue, I've had this pervasive feeling that ours is going to happen faster than that.  I tried to convince myself that I was being silly, and that it was going to be mid June before we hear word, but the feeling hasn't gone away.  Then, on Monday of this week, families whose files arrived in Nairobi the same week as ours started hearing that their visas had been issued!  In addition, due to some stuff going on with our file, we had reason to hear directly from the High Commission in Nairobi, and we now have even more reason to think that our visas will come sooner than mid June.  I can hardly wait!!!  And at the same time that I say that, I'm totally panicking because of all that needs to happen around here first.  But it's all good in the end.  Somehow, we'll be ready when the time comes.

There's so much more that I could write, and that I want to write, and that I will write.  But for now, I have a big stack of little-girl clothing that's ready to come out of the drier and be folded.  Her dresser and closet are ready now, and waiting.  While the novelty of folding little girl clothing will surely wear off in a hurry once the kids arrive home, this is the first time ever that I will perform such a task...and to be honest, I can hardly wait!!