Night Out

Ted and I had a night out together sans babe, thanks to our friends Jim and Jill. We saw Burn After Reading (seriously: George Clooney is hilarious) and ate Italian food, which I could taste only because I'd get up every 20 minutes or so to blow my nose. Jill has posted some pictures of their evening with Abe on their blog, which you can see here. For some reason, he looks so big to me in their photos, more a boy than a babe. Sigh.

Sick sicker sickest

I have been sick, sick, sick, which explains the lack of thoughtful posts. I thought the first two colds were on their way out when the evil third one struck Wednesday night. Now I'm wondering: sinus infection? I used to get those so bad when I was in college that my mom's friend, an ENT doctor, would suck out all the mucus for me with a special machine at his clinic.

Oh, how I wish for one of those suckers now.

So, in place of a post with any sort of "point," a few things of interest from our sick days:

Hot toddies are wonderful things, until you run out of whiskey.

Check out the amazing squirrel on my other blog.

This Little Bear clip is what I use when I need Abe to be still enough for me to clip his nails. I love it. Thanks, Autumn. This other one is wonderful as well. Sweet, magical stuff.

Our son is the sweetest, gentlest guy I know. We've been having issues with a slightly older boy we see regularly pushing, hitting, poking, grabbing hair, and rubbing Abe's face in concrete (yeah, that last one pissed me off--was ready to karate-chop a small toddler). When we ran into this same toddler at a park a few days ago, Abe walks right up to him saying "hi" and hands him the rake he'd been playing with while saying "Thank you!" (which sounds like thu-da). Tonight, Abe kept asking for M&M's, which he would promptly hand right back to me, also saying thu-da, wanting me to eat it. He's a giver, that one.

I know this post is very linky, but this news story cracks me up. I laugh and laugh every time I see it.

And because I know it's all about kids in funny costumes, our Halloween pictures:Yes, he's a chicken.

It's fun when dramatic high school students in the neighborhood open the door to hand out candy.

My New Favorite Thing

My new favorite thing about Abe is not his gentleness--he's a giver, favorite thing to do in the park is gather leaves to hand to other kids, and he ends most of his days by giving me whatever he'd made his treasure for those hours, today a disgusting gray q-tip. My new favorite thing isn't his sweetness either--the way at bedtime he hums along with me as I hold him bedside his crib to sing to him. It's not his general cuteness, like the way he consistently uses the sign for "more" to tell me that he's finished, or the way he calls our cat Buddy, "Bubba." It's not even Abe's wonder--the way he follows the older kids on our street around with a wide-open face, just expecting them to do amazing, big-kid things for him.

No, all these things pale in comparison to my current favorite thing about Abe. Our son has mastered air-guitar, always when The Talking Heads are playing:

Things Learned in the Last Week

Things learned in the last week, in no particular order:

1. Spider-bites can cause horrifically large and disgusting bruises that last a couple of weeks. The picture I got of the one on my arm doesn't do it justice. I'm afraid people will think Ted's a wife-beater.

2. I'm tired of people "shooting emails" all over the place. Can't we just send them to each other?

3. Cooking a whole chicken in a slow-cooker is the best way to go. Save the broth and make gingery chicken noodle soup for when you've been sick for two weeks.

4. To keep a toddler who likes to scream quiet in the grocery store, dress him in cargo pants and fill the pockets with stuff he can pull out along the way. When he runs out of treasures, refilling the pockets with kleenex or your shopping list should buy you a few more minutes of peace.

5. Putting 3-minute-miracle conditioner on Abe's hair every time I bathe him (but not shampooing) helps to keep it really soft.

6. Bee costumes are cute, especially if they have a little stinger on the butt.7. George Straight writes good songs. I had to look up exactly what a 'troubadour' is, and I'm still not totally clear on the meaning, but damn if George Straight isn't pretty hot for an old man. Yes, I sometimes listen to country music.

8. Do not buy the product Mucinex. Their ads are disgusting, plus the "active ingredient" is the exact same stuff that's in plane-jane robitussin cough syrup, which you can buy super-cheap generic. I would like to thank my RN mother for this knowledge.

9. My son likes dancing to extremely inappropriate songs from the musical Hair. One of Ted's brothers sent us the song "Abie, Baby," and our Abe looooves it. Soon enough, we'll have to start editing it.

10. Nights out are very important, especially if you get to go hang out with someone who shares your love of big buttons.
11. I've got to start wearing my new glasses (they give me a head-ache though). These old ones are a bit too Palin-ish for my taste.

12. Every little boy needs his daily dig in the dirt.

13. I feel happy when I get carded.

14. This is my new favorite smile:

Must-see video

What is said in this interview seems to echo a lot of what I've read in In Their Own Voices, a must-read for those adopting transracially. Thanks for posting this, Filoli.


And over here, a well-written perspective from a Christian social worker and mom on an important issue.

Perfect Fit

A few months after we got married, Ted and I were visiting his brother and family in Klamath Falls, Oregon for Christmas. My sister-in-law is an expert thrift-shore shopper who finds the best deals of anyone I know, so I was excited to go with her to dig through the bins at Goodwill (she's the one who sent us that beautiful sweater Abe's wearing in the "Calling Your Name" post--a garage sale find). On this shopping trip, Ted added to our pile of stuff a little pair of size four baby boots. I was touched that he picked something out for a child that we hoped to have one day. The boots hung in my shoe rack in Los Angeles through the first couple of years of our marriage, and after a painful loss and many dashed hopes, I had to move them out of sight. These boots were a reminder to me that I wasn't the only one longing to be a parent. Someone else had picked them out, someone who would be an excellent father and seeing these little boots made me feel like a failure, that I was somehow letting down the most important person in my life...and that's a difficult pill to swallow.

When we moved to Oregon, Ted put the boots in his office, and I'd see them occasionally on the shelf to the left of his desk, amidst the boxes and disheveled papers (and bow-ties, tennis balls, fake teeth and paperclips: Ted's particular brand of off-beat clutter). I just kept them there, relieved to know that someone else was the keeper of the baby boots.

After many long months of waiting for a child to fill those boots and then for that child with tiny feet to grow enough to fit into them, I pulled out the boots on Saturday and put Abe's feet into them. He wasn't sure what to think of them at first, as he'd never worn hard-soled shoes before. He stood up slowly and thoughtfully rocked back and forth a few times from heel to toe. And then he took off. They're a perfect fit.

One of my dearest friends I've made through this world of adoption had for her facebook profile picture during a difficult waiting time a photo of a small pair of tennis shoes resting on a chair. And this afternoon, I talked on the phone with another very sweet friend who is feeling impatient with the wait, despite her best efforts of being realistic about the length. I know the feeling. And I guess I'm writing this now for all the people out there who are longing to fill those shoes. As diligently as you prepare yourself mentally and spiritually for the long wait, bad days are going to come. You're going to feel impatient at times, and that's alright. Feel it and give it up to God.

Just hold on. Sooner or later, you're gonna see that shoe, filled with sweet and surprisingly stinky feet, dangling casually off the side of the stroller, like that's where it's meant to be. With you always. A perfect fit.

A Must Read

Please go read this post by Julie, one of our beautiful friends in Los Angeles. And please take the time to watch the videos she's linked as well. This is something that matters.

Click here for the post.