The Sloth Emerges

I haven't exercised...in days...no, in weeks. Why is this you ask? What is my excuse? I have had an entire 2 weeks off for Christmas vacation and now a whole week of snow days. You think that would have motivated me to get off my fat butt and move. No, I have become a sloth. A sloth living in hibernation. Today, the sloth has awoken from her midwinter's sleep and a new day has begun. My elliptical kept calling to me, "Kelly? Where are you? Come visit me. I am sooo lonely in here. It is just me and the dust bunnies and they are no longer fun to party with!"It was hard, but I pulled myself off the couch and facebook, broke out of the darkness and into the light of my bedroom, plugged in the Ipod and cruised. 35 minutes is not bad for a first time back. I tell you, it was nice to visit an old friend. I promised it I would return again soon. I felt like a caterpillar emerging from the cocoon and becoming a butterfly...ok, a sweaty butterfly, but who cares? I did it!

Good news is sometimes not as good as you think...

Today we hit 3 months on the adoption list and thought, about a week ago, that life was just merrily going along our own way...

then, we got an e-mail that Annie wanted to talk about a matching. We went nuts! Someone was actually looking at us????? How exciting!

Questions immediately sprung up:

Kelly: How far along is she? Has she been taking prenatal vitamins? Is she having a boy or a girl? Where is she from? Is the baby ok?

Gary: Should we start buying Legos????

Then, the excitement died down. We found out that others have looked at us before this time and did not choose us. Reality slapped us in the face. Hmmm...I guess I never thought that we would be shopped to potential birthmoms and not know about it. I guess I should have figured that, but it is weird to think that major decisions (I am talking life changing decisions) could be in the works, behind closed doors, and we would have no knowledge of them.

This new development has opened our eyes to the fact that it is really going to happen for us, maybe not today or tomorrow or even before the New Year, but rather in God's time. I understand why it can't be in our time, but it still does not make it easy at this time of year.

So, Gary and I ask that you keep us in your thoughts and prayers as we wait, patiently, for the right birthmom to come along and say, "These are the people who need to love my child forever." And while you are praying for us, drop God a text, e-mail, IM, or whatever happens to be your preferred mode of communication these days, to help those birthmom's out there with adoption plans to make the right choice, whatever that may be...

Ponderings along the way,

Kelly

Our Adoption Story Update...

Today marks 2 months on the waiting list. I am still very much at peace with the wait, besides, we are very early into it (average wait time is 12-18 months). My students hope we get a call this year so they can celebrate (any reason for a party is a good one to them). Since our social worker, Annie, told us to start buying things now, at least the big stuff, that is what we are looking at for Christmas ideas...hint, hint, family members who read my ramblings. A friend suggested I register at Target. To me, that seems strange, since I am not pregnant, and we have not gotten an official call... yet, but I guess it could be smart. I will have to think on that one.

For now, we just ask for your prayers. We know God has a little one out there for us, I just hope and pray that it is sooner in his plans than later. All in God's time, I have to remember.

Kelly

A poem for headache sufferers like me

Mirror, Mirror, on the wall...
I hate headaches, one and all.

Sinus, tension, migraines, too,
They all leave me feeling blue.

Weekends should be headache free,
Time for God, family, and me.

If your medicine leaves you out of luck,
Do as I do, and find a Starbucks!

That is the only thing headaches do for me, they leave me inspired to write:)

Kelly

Fudgesicle Lemonhead

Last fall, I had the chance to sit in on a workshop with one of my favorite children's poets, Rebecca Kai Dotlich, in one of my all-time favorite cities, Manhattan. Rebecca talked about how she came up with some of her poems by randomly selecting words she really likes and putting them together. I love writing poetry and often find myself writing them in my head as I make the long morning commute to school.

As I am having my students generate lists of words they really like, to use as seed collections in their journals, I thought it would be fun to share two of my favorite words in the form of a Haiku. Enjoy!

Fudgesicle Lemonhead

Sugar rush, ears red

Tongue biting, sour pucker

Opposites attract

Kelly

Buying Diapers...HELP!!!!!

So now that we are on the official Caucasian Infant Waiting List or CIWL as I will refer to it, our social worker says we should start buying baby things as we never know when we will be getting THE CALL.

Gary thinks this means buying all the toys his mom never let him play with because the pieces just might get sucked up in the dreaded vacuum. That means Lego's, tinker toys, K-Nex, etc. I think our priorities are slightly eschewed.

My question to all of you moms out there who have young ones or who have had young ones recently is this: What is a good price for diapers???? Target recently had 192 infant diapers on sale for $29.00. Is this a good buy??? I have absolutely no clue, help!

Lost in baby land,

Kelly

Darn you Ike

I am sad...

Not for myself, but for my hubby. He was really looking forward to biking tomorrow at Dogwood Canyon. The colors would be starting to come out on the trees, the weather is beautiful, and if you breathe really deeply (ok, just pretend for a moment) you can smell fall in the air.

Thanks to Hurricane Ike, Dogwood is closed! How sad to ravage one of God's truly beautiful places in the Ozarks.

Guess he will just have to bike at the lake and pretend he hears the rush of waterfalls as he zooms passed a DUCK making a splash in the water. Just ignore the Wacky Quackers, dear. Sais La Vie...