On Tuesday we sent out the paperwork and a giant check to Citizenship and Immigration Services. Actually, we were told to make the check out to Department of Homeland Security. It chapped my ass. Erik said perhaps we should make it out to Haliburton directly. But it is afterall for a good cause. And it gets us one step closer to our next child. You know what is so weird? Everytime I need to say or type baby/child, it feels wrong not to say the plural. Or at least "child(ren)". How strange and exciting to not know what is coming our way.

Every paper we sign, every phone call, email, notarization gets us closer. But what I can not deny or shake is that whatever is happening now in our future child's life (or children's lives) is tragic. Right now they are struggling. Right now, wherever they are, whoever is caring for them--- they are hungry. And they don't have enough clean water. The people who love them, the people whom they love, don't have the medication they need. It is hard to watch the crust of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich go down the disposal when my Ethiopian children are hungry. It is hard to water plants without thinking of them. If I let it all in, it could immobilize me. So the only thing to do is let it remind me of how blessed I am and how thankful I am that eventually they will be here with us.

What's She Doing????

Ava has learned to wink.

Or perhaps I should say, "wink". Usually one eye is a little more open than the other. But her mouth always does what it is doing in the picture. The first time she did it, Erik was putting her to bed and it was kind of dark and he thought she was having some kind of seizure. What I can't understand is why she somehow has never looked more like me in her life than in this picture...

Boxcar Children

How I LOVE this picture...

Ava's Crossing Over Ceremony at school

Ava's school had a Crossing Over
ceremony for all the children that will be leaving Starbright to enter kindergarten. When we entered, I saw parents with Kleenex and I thought, "How stupid". Yeah, well... by the time it was over I felt like I needed to crawl into a hole and cry for about ten years. It was so sweet and lovely. Each child wore a crown and one teacher lit their candle, then they walked over a bridge, then blew the candle out. A version of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" was playing. They were all given necklaces to wear. And afterwards, they gave them tooth pillows since they would all be loosing their first tooth soon. Inside each pillow was a small, handpainted note. Each children's note said something special about who they are. One little girl's said, "I am a golden star." Ava's said, "I am a tender bud soon to open." I seriously feel like I need the hole just writing about it now. She was so beautiful and grown that day.

And proud.

Early Morning Ice Cream

I'm not going to go into the details of what went down before I decided to give my children ice cream cones at 8:02 AM last week. It may seem like a poor choice, but I'm pretty sure it saved my ass.

Today I went to Costco for the first time in three weeks. I'm not going to tell you how much I spent because I think it might make your stomach hurt. After two Costco employees managed to get all my groceries into my cart using some awesome Tetris-like packing I had to carry Safa and pull the loaded cart behind me. This is nothing new, but it was much heavier than I'm used to. And as I was doing it I quite seriously thought, "This would be a thousand times easier if I had some kind of donkey-like harness to strap to myself and then to the cart." I told Erik I might have to market it. He suggested I call it, "Big Family Donkey Harness". I think the name needs work. But I swear I would buy one.

Picking Blackberries in Lexington, Texas

This was great fun. Safa was VERY in to it...By the time we'd finished she was so covered in blackberrry juice she looked like she'd been in some sort of gang fight.

The San Antonio Zoo

It was exhausting, hot, and loads of fun...

The Komodo dragon was a hit because it looks like a dinosaur don'tcha know.

This is what Ava looked
like when we finally stopped to eat lunch. Sad, but hilarious...

JUST DON'T TELL ERIK'S MOM

It was only for about 6 feet and they LOVED it. Safa remained stationary lest you feel the need to question our judgement. (Although I suppose you might be doing that anyway)

Every once in awhile, when I'm feeling particularly generous and ready to handle cranky children in the afternoon, I let Eden skip her nap and have rest time with Ava. Yesterday after I got them, Ava told me that they got tired during rest time and so she turned off the light and they got into her bed together to try to sleep. Then she said, "But we couldn't go to sleep, I think, because we loved each other so much." My knees buckled at the sweetness. Of course an hour later there was a dispute over a few inches of space on the couch and who claimed said inches first, who touched who first and who used a ruder voice while doing the touching...

I HAVE NO IDEA

Yesterday as I was cleaning up from dinner I heard a cry that I knew came from pain but I couldn't tell who it was coming from. (They are all starting to sound the same). So I walked into the living room to see Ava wrapped in a blanket crying. Hard. I asked her what happened but she was crying too hard for me to understand. I asked her to tell me again and I figured out that she hit her nose on the doorknob. Yes, that was my first thought as well. So I said, " What happened????" And now as you read her response to me I want you to hear it in a loud, drama-filled crying voice, "I was walking with my eyes closed because I was pretending to be an England gnome and I bumped into it!!" So I pulled her close so she wouldn't see me laugh.

GAG ME WITH A TOILET-WATER KETCHUP PACKET

Being a parent is sometimes gross. All parents, anyone who takes care of children for that matter, knows this. Poop and vomit stories abound. I won't bore you with those. In the past month the following things have happened:

I discovered a jet black long-dead banana behind the cannon. It was bleeding some sort of nasty banana-funk ooze.

I had to fish a ketchup packet out of the toilet that Safa managed to shove between my legs while I was peeing.

I discovered Ava's lunch box in the car after about a week and a half. Her uneaten sandwich--I kid you not--had turned into toxic soup. I swear I can still smell it.

I saw Safa feed Miles from her fork, then put in back into her mouth.