A Good Holiday Weekend

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. Mister and I had so much fun. For the first time this year, Mister and I had Christmas at home. By ourselves. Usually we alternate holidays and years with our families, so if we spend Thanksgiving with my family, we'll spend Christmas with his family and then the following year we'll do the opposite - Thanksgiving with his family and Christmas with mine. It works, sort of. That way we spread out the holidays with different sides of the family and end up having time with everybody.

However, what I've always wanted is to have Christmas at home, in my house. Of course, I've always sort of fantasized that we'd have kids in this scenario, but whatever. One thing at a time I guess. This year, Mister found out that he will be doing some traveling to work over New Year's. He'll be working in PA, about 30 minutes from where his parents live. So once he knew we'd have to be there for New Year's, he didn't want to spend 8 or 9 days at his parent's house. His parents are great; we all get along, but let's face it - 9 days is a long time to spend together. So we'll go down later this week and stay for the long weekend.

This Christmas was exactly what I wanted. We were together, it was quiet and fun at home. Connecticut got slammed with a blizzard on Sunday, so we were snowed in for a while. But we cooked, we ate, we watched movies, played games, drank wine, shoveled the snow, ate some more, drank some more wine. I'm telling you, it was exactly what I wanted from a holiday. (Mister did, by the way, get me the necklace I wanted in this post. It's not this exact one, mine is smaller, but it's similar. I'm so excited. I keep touching it and thinking about the baby who will someday join our family.)

This Christmas was so strange for me. I've turned an emotional corner on holidays, and I can't quite understand why. Christmas in 2006-2008 were so hard for me. I was so sad for the babies that we didn't have, for the family that I really wanted. I just felt like our family had a big hole in it, so between my mom not being with us anymore and no babies either, there are just people missing. My mom's not coming back though, so it's a different kind of hole in our family from the babies who have not yet arrived. But this year, I just wasn't as sad. In other years, I haven't wanted to decorate, to send cards, to travel, to bake cookies, any of those things that people do. This year, I felt like a cloud was lifted off me. I wanted to do all of those things. (Except traveling, which we didn't do... yet. And because we already had our Christmas together, I won't mind traveling a bit.)

We had not ever celebrated a holiday together with just the 2 of us before. If we had had a baby early in our marriage, we probably would have wanted to stay home together for holidays before this. Since we haven't had any babies, we had never talked about just staying home. It was like it didn't exist as an option. I really never considered it. I loved it though. I wonder if we can figure out a way to do it again next year!

2010 was really a great year for us - we moved to our new house, which we love, Mister finished grad school, we finally finished our home study and are now on a path to become parents. In one year, that's really a lot to accomplish. Because those are all really happy things, I was able to feel fairly content this year. For the first time, I've been able to look back and some really wonderful things that happened to us this year and feel proud and happy for all that we've been able to do, and not only feel sad for the people who are not here with us.

So I'm in a good and peaceful place after the holidays. A good place in our marriage, with our families, with the adoption, with everything. I hope that everyone feels this calm, peaceful and happy in 2011.

And of course, I also hope that we're matched quickly and that I'll spend most of 2011 being someone's mom. That's my Christmas/New Year's/Every Single Day until we're matched Wish.

This is one of my favorite ornaments. And you know, you're supposed to wish on a star, so I'm making my Christmas/New Year's/Every Single Day until we're matched Wish on a star!

Venting

I'm just going to take a moment to point out something that bugs the crap out of me.

I *HATE* this commercial.

"It's 2 AM.... Christmas morning... our first Christmas as a family."

After feeling angry that Kay Jewelers obviously thinks that Mister and I are not a family, I feel sad for these 2 jackasses that their lives had no meaning until apparently 2 months ago when they made a baby.

Now, in order to present the most balanced approach, I will say that it's possible that they were not a family last Christmas. My parents were married in January and my brother was born in December of the same year. So Christmas 1973 really was my parents' first Christmas as a family. And they had a new baby. So while it's possible that these people were married in early January and got pregnant immediately thereafter, I really don't think that's the Kay implication on that one.

So yuck on that commercial. Because Mister and I are a family. A small family, but a family nonetheless. Whether we ever have a baby or not, Mister is my family.

Because I don't want to leave on a sour note, I will sign off with my absolute favorite Christmas commercial in the history of Christmas commercials.

I love that little red kiss with the solo at the end. And then he's so worn out he has to wipe his brow. As if a Hershey Kiss has a brow! It's so cute.

What commercials do you love (or hate) lately?

Busy busy!

Does decorating for Christmas turn anyone else into a cleaning machine?

This weekend was crazy. It was the kind of weekend that made me glad for Monday so I could finally get some quiet! On Friday night, Mister and I went out for sushi (yum, sushi) and scheduled our whole weekend plans.

We woke up early on Saturday, planning to clean the house, buy our Christmas tree, decorate the house, decorate the tree and run various other errands. I started with cleaning because I couldn't stand the thought of bringing a tree into a messy house.

The worst part of cleaning and decorating for me is that it becomes a never-ending spiral. We decided to put the tree in the living room, which required moving some of the furniture. No one on here knows me in real life, so I can admit this in relative anonymity. I hadn't moved the furniture for a few months. There was a lot of gross stuff behind those couches! Of course, I can't vacuum behind and underneath one piece of furniture and not the others, so we moved pretty much everything out of the living room so I could clean it. Phew. That was long. Then I realized that I couldn't clean the living room without cleaning the kitchen and dining room either. So my quick cleaning before I move the tree in actually became a long cleaning and it took several more hours than I thought. Then we went out, did some errands, and bought a Christmas tree. By then it was after dark! We hung up some of the outside lights, had some hot chocolate and called it a night.

Yesterday we did some more cleaning and organizing, more errands, grocery shopping, decorated the tree and I baked some brownies.

I have to say, since I stopped working, I rarely have weekends with that much activity. Our weekends used to be that busy, but lately I spread out our errands across the days.

Today, Mister went to work and he's going out with a friend after work tonight. I hope he doesn't wake me up when he comes in, but he will be home very late. It's about 25 degrees and he and his friend have gone to the Jets game up in MA. I have to say, I'm not jealous of him at all. I don't like football and I can't stand being cold. I'm glad his friend invited him so that he gets to go out and do these kinds of things. I have no interest at all, but I hate to see him wanting to do things that I won't do. So I'm glad he has a chance to go with a friend. But man, I am not jealous of that experience!

Tomorrow night is the local adoption meeting, Wednesday I'm interviewing a pediatrician for our baby (hee hee, our baby! I love it) for whenever we're matched, so hopefully on Thursday I'll be able to submit our final bit of paperwork to the agency and we'll be really waiting.

Thanks for all the feedback on my last post. I still haven't decided what I'm going to do about the drug test. If I ever get around to doing it, they'll probably think I took so long while I waited for all the illegal drugs to leave my system. Ah, the irony. Really, my issue with it is the abuse of power. I just bristle at the thought of quietly submitting to an abuse of power. And the fact that the process to become a substitute teacher in this town is more stringent than to become an adoptive parent, that just seems so strange. If CT required drug tests for everything, fine, whatever. It's still an abuse of power, but if it's state-wide, then I wouldn't be able to avoid it. However, none of the other towns around here requires a drug test, so if I want, maybe I'll just sub in one of the non-power-abusing towns. We shall see.

And now for something completely random... We have those candles in our windows for Christmas, so the shades are only down about 2/3 of the way. As I've been sitting here typing this, I'm looking out the window. My neighbors across the street have come home since I've been watching. This house has a mom and a teenage daughter. Both of them are home. It's completely dark outside now, but the house across the street has no lights on. Maybe it's an early bed night at their house too...

And how bad is it that Mister goes out for a night and my most exciting plan is that it's an early bed night?

Back!

It's been a crazy few weeks around here. Mister took a class over Thanksgiving, so he went away. It was a pretty cool opportunity - to take a week-long "study abroad" class. However, it meant he was away from me on Thanksgiving, which was kind of sad.

So I piled my stuff in the car, took the dog and we drove north to MA to spend the week with my family. It was good, my dad and my brothers were all there.

But weird, because my dad invited my mom's family. It's so strange to me that my dad is getting close with my mom's family at this point in our lives. My mom was never close to her family, so they were this side of the family that I never saw that much growing up. Consequently, I'm not really close to them, and actually I'm kind of suspicious of them. My mom was always pretty honest with me about her relationship with her siblings and it was not a good relationship. Sure, people change and all of that. So it's possible that my aunts and uncles have all grown up and changed and become normal. Sure, it's possible. But I'm not holding out any hope or anything like that. Anyway, Thanksgiving was fine. Everyone was social and appropriate and it wasn't too bad.

Mister came home on Sunday from his trip, and then he had to go back to work on Monday. Now this week I've been sick, so I think I've mostly slept this week. It's been kind of boring. I might be ready to shed the sick and laying around boredom for some excitement.

And in adoption news, we're *STILL* not officially waiting yet. "Wha!??!" you say? Yeah, me too. Our social worker found some more paperwork for us to do before we can be officially submitted. Sigh. We have to find a pediatrician, and while I'm tempted to just write down a name, it's probably better to take the few days and do the research.

But in good news, I wrote an e-mail to someone that I've seen on an adoption forum. Her signature says that she is from the town next to me, and that she works for a local agency. So I asked her for any recommendations on a pediatrician who is experienced working with adoptive families. She wrote back to say that she has many friends who live in my town who have adopted and that she'll call them for me and see who they use for doctors. Then she said she's a facilitator at a local adoption group and that they're having a meeting next week and that I ought to come! So I think I will. And then I can ask people what doctors they use! Or even just meet other people who are adopting and local. That's pretty awesome.

Now Mister and I are meeting for lunch. We have a favorite restaurant that's opening a new location nearby, and we've been waiting a long long time to go to the new place. It's finally open, so we decided to meet up for lunch. This is what I love about having my days free! I can go on a Thursday afternoon and meet my husband for lunch. Ah, sweet unemployment...

Waiting

Last week, I was on an adoption related forum, and a bunch of the posters were talking about adoption Christmas ornaments. I have to say, I've seen many, and I've never seen any that were my taste at all. (If you're reading this and thinking, "I love adoption ornaments and I have 35 of them on my tree!" I'm sorry and I don't mean to insult you or your tree. I'm sure your tree is lovely, but adoption ornaments have just never been my thing.)

Anyway, on this forum, one lady posted a picture of an ornament that she got while she was waiting to adopt her daughter. It said, "We will hold you in our hearts until we can hold you in our arms." For whatever reason, that struck me as one of the most lovely sentiments I'd ever read. And it was phrased nicely. It just hit all the right notes for me.

I told Mister about it, and he rolled his eyes. He doesn't get this whole "waiting" thing. His perspective on having an ornament to acknowledge "waiting" is that it's mournful, and hanging a reminder on the Christmas tree of what we don't have. So the idea of holding someone in our hearts while we wait only serves to make us sad about who's not here instead of celebrating and enjoying the people who are here with us now.

I kind of get it. Kind of. I didn't really have a response to him about it either. But here's why it's different for me. Being sad about who's not here (which I totally am) doesn't fall into the "adoption waiting" department. When I'm sad and mad about who's not here, when I get annoyed at the fact that EVERY SINGLE LAST ONE of my friends has kid(s) and that they get to send picture Christmas cards and buy Baby's First Christmas 2010 ornaments and write jackass messages on Facebook about how many diapers they've changed or when was the last time they slept (last Tuesday) or whatever, I don't blame adoption for that. Oh no, those complaints go straight to the source - infertility.

In my mind, infertility = bad, terrible, angry, sad, all those feelings that make me mournful for who's not in our house for this Christmas, last Christmas, any Christmas. I can be angry with our infertility. I am furious with our infertility. It has robbed us for the last 6 Christmases of the holidays we dreamed of. That's the infertility department. That's where all the hateful feelings go.

But adoption = hope. We Wait in Joyful Hope, remember. I am angry, furious, even hate infertility. But infertility is not the same as adoption. Sure, we're adopting because of infertility, but I come to adoption with an absolutely pure and hopeful heart. When I think of adoption, I don't think of that feeling of having been robbed for the 6 Christmases in the past. I think of the future, and all the Christmases we will have together. Someday.

You know how people can read the same thing and get a different meaning? "We will hold you in our hearts until we can hold you in our arms" doesn't emphasize empty arms to me. It emphasizes hope for the time when I will hold our baby in my arms. It's not empty arms, it's full heart. To me, that ornament says, "Hang on, Baby. We're coming. Someday we'll all be together."

On the other hand, I don't need an ornament to tell me that I have a heart that's full of hope for the future. "Hang on, Baby. We're coming. Someday we'll all be together." Well, that's what I say to myself every day, every breath. Every fiber of my being is waiting. This baby does not leave my thoughts. Hanging an ornament wouldn't change that.

Honestly, I probably wouldn't have gotten a "waiting family" adoption ornament anyway. As I said, it wasn't really ever my style. But I absolutely will be holding this baby in my heart until I'm holding him/her in my arms, no matter what I hang on my Christmas tree. And some Christmas, my arms will be as full as my heart.