My Mama always told me....

...there's a lid for every pot.
What a perfect pair.
The lighter on cue at minute 1:29 = the BEST.



Happy Friday everyone!
Another week bites the dust. Sigh.

I Just Want To

I just want to.... listen to this song all day.
Happy Friday!

The light...

Sorry I dropped off the planet. But my mother always told me, "If you don't have anything nice to say, say nothing at all." Sigh. Seriously...the waiting...the waiting to go back to Ethiopia and bring our beautiful boy home, well, there are no words to describe the torture.

It's complicated, but we were given original dates to travel. We booked tickets. (Hello $500 in change fees) We let our jobs know. We got our babysitter another job for my maternity leave since my leave from work will not be paid. Yes, you read that correctly and I will save it for another post, or not...please re-read my Mother's words of wisdom above. And then everything stopped. The skinny is this: we are missing one piece of paper that in 5 weeks has not been able to manifest itself. I could give you the blow by blow but honestly it's hard for ME to wrap my head around and by the time I got it all out...you'd be asleep.

Every day for four weeks we've thought this is THE day. Only to be crushed when it was not. It is similar to that feeling when we were waiting for our referral and about 5pm without the phone ringing we would both let out a sigh that hurt. It is exactly like that if only that feeling could be multiplied by a million plus.

Yesterday after hearing bad news yet again I made a decision. It just is what it is. When our paperwork is complete we will go and bring our beautiful boy home. No more looking at our timeline and being sad that we have fallen into almost every pitfall that could cause a delay. That is all in the past. There is nothing that can be done about that now. Just as there is not really anything that we can do about this piece of paper that is the missing link.

So I've stopped waiting. It will come when it comes. Today when we got our daily "Nope, nothing." I just said ok and got back to work. No tears, no sigh, nothing. Maybe I'm just numb?

Tonight I looked at this picture and I thought THIS is the light. He is the the beautiful light at the end of the tunnel.



My sweet boy. Bekalu John. We are coming for you soon. And until we do, we're getting ready for you here. Your room that you will share with your sister is almost complete. She said tonight she wants to cover the wall by your crib with drawings just for you. She is very concerned that you do not have "your song" yet, so we worked on that while getting ready for school this morning. Sorry to say Mr. Bek, but your song will likely include your sister's name and probably something sparkly or pink or both. But them are the breaks when you have a big sister. There is more love growing than can be contained within these walls and I'm certain you've felt it covering you.

I'm only focusing on the things that are positive and the things I can control. Everything else is in the dark for now. And the light, the light is YOU and the love and joy I feel when I imagine you in your family's arms forever.

p.s. I reserve the right to change my mind about being positive if __ more weeks pass without said piece of paper. And yes, the number of weeks I can promise being positive without some movement is TBD. ;)

Information on travel.

Here's a quick list of things I wished I had known before we traveled or things that I think may be helpful to remember...

1. Dubai has a beach. And resorts with water parks made for kids, or adults who act like kids. Being that we have not EVER had a family vacation that was pure vacation we would have loved to stayed a day or two and played. Bonus: to get ourselves acclimated to the new time zone.

2. On Emirates there is a place at your seat to charge your laptop, phone and ipad. No need to buy that fancy spendy airplane charger.

3. When you land in ET you must get your visa before going through customs. Yes, I know it says that in the arrival packet sent by Gladney...but try remembering what your name is after traveling for two days much less a tip about visas! The sign is small minute un-see-able with the naked eye. There is a little room to the left of the customs line with windows, you go inside of it to purchase your visa. It looks like a door you should not go through, and you might feel as if you're walking into someone's private office, but this is where you need to be.

4. I was worried about the pollution and diesel fumes with our 4yr old who has asthma. She had no probs. I guess the high altitude and dry air offset the fumes. We came prepared for a constant asthma attack and yay! did NOT need a drop of any of it.

5. While we're talking dry. Bring some lotion and some lip balm. For realz.

6. You probably will not need a medical pack for each person traveling stocked with enough pepto, immodium, gatorade, bandaids, headache pills, etc. We got lucky and no one had "issues" and now I realize the likelyhood of every person having them is small. So enough meds for one or two people is probably fine.

7. Pack more travel tissues than you think you would possible need. Granted we had two sick grandmothers in the beginning, but even the healthy ones of us needed tissues. That pollution gets your nose working overtime.

8. Little bottles of hand sanitizer are great, but the packets that are sanitizing wipes we used most often. To clean your hands and sanitize in one action was very convenient. (see Mantra 2 below)

Two mantras to start working on now:

Mantra 1
Do not put your toothbrush under the tap. Do not put your toothbrush under the tap. Do not put your toothbrush under the tap. Do not put your toothbrush under the tap.
(You will probably still do this, and it will probably be OK. But you will wonder. You might even lose a bit a sleep the first time. But you WILL survive.)

Mantra 2
Do not put the tissue in the potty. Do not put the tissue in the potty. Do not put the tissue in the potty. I repeat, Do NOT put the tissue in the potty. Doh! You did it! You put the tissue in the potty. Now WHAT!?! Are YOU going to be the reason the plumbing backs up in the guest house? Hmmmmm, will anyone know it was ME? No, but then you will also NOT have a potty, will it matter if anyone knows it was YOU if you don't have a potty? Pause. Sigh. ewwwwwwwwwwwww. Wash hands. Sanitize hands. Repeat at least once. Wipe the ewwwwwwwwww look off your face and return to your group.
(I promise you will do this more than once. Maybe even three or four times. You or your 4 year old might even do it while saying this mantra out loud to keep yourself from doing it. ewwwww.)

Beautiful.

My head just might explode.

We leave for Ethiopia in less than 24 hours.
Lots left to do, but the exhaustion is being kept at bay from the sheer excitement.
Kind of surreal that this is REALLY happening.
Two years of paperwork, talking, planning, more paperwork...and we are almost on the other side.

My amazing sister will be updating everyone on December 22 with the good news of us passing court. Come back to meet our beautiful boy. Baby B!

See, look at me, HOPEFUL and all that jazz.

It's all good in the hood my peeps.
Catch ya on the flip.

xH

p.s. if you could throw some good health vibes our way that would be awesome! Both moms and Davis are not feeling 100% and Rolyn and I would love to stay well!

For those of you waiting who need a moment of levity...

I present to you:
Double Dream Hands



I so needed this today. Thank you to this hilarious mama for the tip.