Adoption Update...a few more sleeps til China

After so many months, a year and a half really, of planning and praying...it's almost here. I will be holding her next week. The suitcases are somewhat packed and it makes me smile to see a pile of clothes for Tali along with baby puffs and bibs. We're almost there, sweetness. Almost there.

We leave Friday morning. Early, early. Like 0345. I told Matt that I was going to be too excited to sleep and would have to take a sleeping pill at like 8 pm. Jack chimed in that he was going to be too excited to sleep as well. I said "Well, maybe I can give you a little Benadryl and see if that helps you sleep."

So then today he told my friend that I was going to give him a sleeping pill. Which makes me sound like I'm just randomly threatening him with sleeping pills. Not to say that I haven't been tempted at times...

Speaking of mediocre parenting, a couple days ago Jack was misbehaving at the store. I launched into the typical middle-class well-read parenting speech about bad decisions and self-control and being responsible and blah, blah, blah. Near the end of my speech, a mother and her kids walked by us with their cart. The boy, about Jack's age, was jumping around and the mom calmly stated "If you don't stop, I'm going to beat your ass."

And I thought "Perhaps I'm going about this all wrong."

Back to the adoption front, it's all sorts of chaos over here. I'm trying to finish my homework for this week and pack and clean and get our adoption paperwork together and all sorts of other things. I keep telling myself "Make a list, keep organized." But I either forget to make a list and try to keep it in my head (a dubious prospect) or I make it on a scrap piece of paper that has stickers and goldfish crumbs on it and then I lose it.

I'm not a stressful person and don't worry about things too much. But I'm having a hard time balancing things right now. Homework, homeschooling, housework, childcare. The adoption is in full speed right now (or fifth gear - what's that saying) and I feel like I'm stretched thin. We've had such an outpouring of love the last few months and weeks. Friends and family have supported our adoption and watched the kids and sent me notes of encouragement. It's keeping me from falling completely apart. Even so, I've had several ugly crying sessions. Most recently yesterday at dinner, when I was blubbering to Matt about trying to wire money to China and other stressful events of my day. My kind and sweet in-laws happened to stop by at that time and there is just no saving dignity at that point. It was an ugly, ugly cry. They were dropping off a quilt a dear friend made for Talitha. So that was a wonderfully happy brightspot. Then later I found two zits on my face and it was just misery again.

I got the paperwork together yesterday that we have to take to China; thankfully there was already a checklist from the agency to use so I didn't have to not make one. One of the items was a couple extra passport pictures for me and Matt. I have had extra pictures in a Kodak envelope for over a year. They've been in my adoption folder (which sounds nice and little but it's one of those big accordion things that I have mentally burned a million times because I'm so sick of it). They've just been in my way and I kept moving them around in the pockets. Of course, now that I'm a couple days from travel, they are no where to be found. Thankfully, I had scanned them into the computer months ago (because I had to email them, not because I thought ahead) so I ordered them to be picked up at Walmart.

I've been home for 20 minutes and just realized that I left the pictures in the cart. Somewhere in our little town tonight, an envelope with our heads is resting. Waiting. For some lucky person to pick it up.

While I'm sad that I have to order them again tonight and pick them up tomorrow, it brings me a small measure of happiness imagining the perplexed facial expression that would accompany opening up an envelope with pictures of heads in it.

It's the small things, really, that get us through the day sometimes.