Just.Shoot.Me

Monday marked the three year anniversary of our adoption paperwork being placed on file in China to be matched with a child.  This does not count the 6+ months we spent putting it all together before that.

When we submitted our paperwork, the wait was only about 12 months.  This mid-April, our adoption agency stated they estimate another 13 months of waiting for us.  THIRTEEN more months.  This pretty much has had me knocked down and unable to get up since then.

Now today, there is a rumor that the CCAA (Chinese Center for Adoption Affairs - who control the whole process) has suspended referring children for 20-30 days while this whole swine flu thing is being monitored.  Remember SARS during our wait for Rose?  

I don't feel like I have a right to complain, as we have always had the opportunity to choose a child with a special need and end the whole waiting game.  It just didn't work out for us that way though.

But the reality is that I DO feel sad, frustrated, angry and depressed and I can't just ignore it.  I've tried that.  It's not working.  Why is it so difficult to give a child a home when they are so wanted?  Why do the children have to keep waiting too?    

And then every 18 months we have to resubmit certain documents along with fees that have only kept increasing each time, when NOTHING has changed.  My fingerprints are still the same.  I've committed no federal crimes.  I haven't miraculously adopted a child another way in the meantime.  Maybe it's just to make sure we are still alive and sane after waiting all this time.

This all seems so senseless and honestly rather heartless right now.  I am hurting.

Peaches 1 - Mouse 0

Yep, she caught herself a lively mouse the other night.  There was a commotion one evening in the kitchen around 11:30 and I went to check on her to see what she had gotten into.  She was standing in the hallway and I thought she just had a wild hair.  

But when she flung my way what I thought was her toy mouse and it skittered across my bare feet, I knew it was the real deal.  She cornered it behind the shredder in the dining room, and when it made a run for it she was able to snare it again even though she doesn't have front claws.  

By this time I was standing on a dining room chair yelling for Doug to come up from downstairs.  The mouse was in her mouth and squeaking, and when she dropped it Doug put an empty ice cream bucket over it and slid the lid under it.

Hmmm...what do you do with a live mouse?  He let it go outside (yes, we know it will probably come back in).  Boy, was Peaches po'd that we took away her great find - I swear she was scowling at us.

Peaches doesn't normally sleep on our bed, but the next morning she was there.  Doug said she was there all night, and that he figures she thinks she has earned her spot on the bed.  I just don't want her bringing any mousie presents to our bed in the middle of the night, that would be really a bad scene.

Poem for Earth Day

Earth by Jessie Goddard Broman

I am one with the earth that I love

And from her

Came to be;

From the dust of the desert am I

And the salt

Of the sea.

Where the mountains are high in their pride

I am lifted

And swung;

All my soul by their pinnacle held,

To their side

I have clung.

From the streets of the town I must go

To the soil

And the stone;

There is need that I touch and renew

All my strength

From their own.

When the dust of my body shall join

With the dust

Of the earth,

I shall then know the cycle complete

Which began

At my birth.

What we did over spring break

Rose and I had the week (6th - 10th) off since we are on the same school break schedule.  Rose got to go to Passage to China at MOA Saturday.  Sunday I started to prep the bathroom for painting, and finished it Monday.  Rose went to Underwater Adventure, American Girl and rode a few rides at the MOA on Monday with her Auntie M while I painted.  

Here are bathroom pictures - the first was taken in 2000 when we bought our house, the second was December 2005 when I stripped the wallpaper off (with Rose's help), and the third is the finished bathroom with new paint on ceiling and walls, and a new window shade.  It only too 3.5 years from start to finish, but those who know me well know I can procrastinate with the best of them!  I suppose it will take me another 3 years to decorate it...

Tuesday we had neighbor boyz over for a visit while their mom ran errands.  Otherwise just hung out at home that day.  Wednesday we caught a bus downtown and had lunch with dad, and then Rose had dance class.  Thursday we went to the bank and turned in $60 of coins we had saved up.  Went for lunch at the Malt Shop in S Mpls,  and shared a burger and shake - yum!   Went to Paint Your Plate in Edina.  Met dad at the library for Chinese storytime, and then went to dinner at Big Bowl.  Friday we got to attend playgroup for the first time in a long time, it was good to see friends.  And then went and visited Grandma Alice that evening.  And of course Sunday was Easter.   We weren't one of the lucky families to go on vacation somewhere warm, but we still had a pretty good time doing fun things.

Here are photo's of our finished ceramics - Rose painted a duck by herself, and the two of us painted a food dish for Peaches the cat.

From Dirty to Dainty in 24 hours

Happy Easter!

Rose adding paint and glitter to eggs that she and daddy dyed earlier.Rose and Griffin doggie watching a TV show.  We are dog sitting.  Peaches the cat is hiding in the basement, although this doggie probably wouldn't hurt a flea.  

Rose hunting Easter eggs.  She was up wayyyyy too early this morning.  I made it halfway through the front page of the comics before promptly falling asleep in the big blue chair.

In her basket the Easter bunny brought a bunny Webkinz, a Webkinz kangaroo clip on, and a Webkinz bookmark.  As well as some fancy schmancy hair accessories, chocolates and of course a solid milk chocolate bunny, which she has been waving in front of my face saying "Mom, do you want a closer look at my yummy chocolate?"  Then giggling and running away.  All because I asked her to show me a littler one she was eating and I tried to snatch it from her.  Sheesh, you'd think she'd share.  But she knows mom pretty well - I'll eat it when I think she won't notice and then there will be tears (Rose's, although I could shed a few).

Chef Doug is at this moment making Lemon Pudding Cake from scratch.  And he is baking a ham and au gratin potatoes.  He also baked a lamb cake yesterday.  Don't tell my WW leader though.  I'll try to take pictures and post them later (of the food, not of bloated me).

The lamb cake is done in a heavy aluminum 2 piece mold from way back when.  My mom let me borrow it a few years ago.  So brothers and sisters if you are reading, feel free to borrow it anytime, I have it.   Doug has a from scratch recipe for it too.  Just don't ask me to mail it cuz it is really heavy (the cake mold, not the recipe)!

Urgent message from Peaches the cat

I think she's finally had enough being porta-kitty.

Dora-Porta-Kitty-Mobile

Looks like an innocent little girl with her Dora clothes hamper, right?

Wrong!  So wrong! That's not clothes in there, that's Peaches the cat.  Good natured Peaches is along for a ride I guess, taking a trip around the house in the new Dora-Porta-Peaches-Mobile!

This is her sad get-me-outta here look.  You can almost hear her sigh.

And when pulling the cat around the house gets old, you can always try kitty-fishing.  Good way for kitty to work off some of that Porta-Kitty pity.  No wonder she escaped out the front door today...she didn't know better though and came back in :)

Another grandma poem

I'm really becoming fascinated with my grandmother's poetry.  Trying to read between the lines and understand her meaning.  The book I am reading from was published in 1947, it's called "Design for Words" by Jessie Goddard Broman.  She was born in the 1800's (not sure of the exact date, need to look it up) in a sod house in the Dakotas.  She travelled alot.  Was a huge Twin's baseball fan, had season seats along the dugout.  Had an Airstream travel trailer.  I think she was a professor of English at the U of M, but I might be wrong.  Need to do some investigating I guess!

Chant for an April Day

Sing a little April,

Hanging on the bough,

Misty-green music,

Sounding now!

Summer will be swaggering,

Vigorous and tall - 

A little tune is friendlier,

Faltering and small.

Whistle April courage,

Bravely sought and found;

Little lonesome fluting,

Rounding into sound.

Let it come steadily,

Fashioned out of air;

Let it be the swan-song

Of despair.