Grout some tile….It helps to pass hours………………And I am only about 1/3 of the way done. I have at least 2 more days of grouting which will help keep my mind off of how quickly the days are passing. I keep insisting that we are not fixer up people. I guess I just don’t want to be…

What a sticky business this whole having a family thing is. Now that we have our little Noah on the way, we have decided that it is time to get some “real” life insurance. Well it is a bit pricey this life insurance stuff. It will cost us a little over $100 a month. That seems a little excessive. My hubby is trying to convince me that we don’t need it. But we do, don’t we. Yes we do. I know of too many stories where something happened and the family was underinsured or not insured at all. I am not so worried about if something happens to only one of us, but what if something happens to both of us. I want our little ones to be taken care of. I don’t want one of us to have to work a second job to take care of the families needs. Yet another insurance policy that we pay a lot of money for hoping that we never have to use it. I am in the wrong business.

Tomorrow will be 4 weeks since we recieved our referral of our baby boy. He is just over 2 mos old. This wait is different than the referral wait. I am no longer obsessive about the wait. It really is calming to have a face to look at and I am really in love with him. I think about him all of the time. I hope and wonder what he is doing and what milestones he is reaching, how much weight he has gained, how he is sleeping, etc. It is hard not knowing, but not the same kind of hard as waiting for the referral was. Why? I have thought a lot about this. I think it has to do with the fact that I know it is happening. I know we have our child. I know the approximate wait time. I know that adoption is completely unpredictable but I do know that our earliest court date can be July 19th–that is our baby boy’s 3 mos mark in AAI care. Therefore, I know that not much can or will happen before then. The next thing I get to obsess about is getting into a group. I am expecting to be in not the next group but the one after that. I know that our agency will do everything it can to get our case to court before the closure. I am really not scared about missing the closure. I just don’t for one second feel that that is an option. Of course it could happen, but I am not even entertaining that possibility. …..

Digressing. Mail just came and in it is the May 2006 video from AAI. And on it, about 20 seconds of my little guy Noah HojaWaka. He looks so good. Wow…It was taken about about a month ago I think. But he looks so good and alert and little. Thanks AAI.

It is June. I cannot believe how time is flying by. I thought for sure that once we received our referral the world would stop turning and it would take weeks for days to pass. Not the case. This amazes me. I don’t know why I am surprised as our todo list is longer than we really have time for. Things are not moving as fast on our home renovations as we wanted. Partly because we worked so hard, fast and furious for 3 weeks on the kitchen that we have lost our steam. Also, hubby is having a really difficult time at work. He works with computers and really likes that, but he is not having to deal with people too–that part he doesn’t like so much. He is a people pleaser and that is why they like him to work with the end users as they all like working with him, but it adds and unecessary level of stress to his job because he can’t take a hard line with the end user to get them to do the things they don’t want to do–like test all of the applications and not stop when they hit one that doesn’t work. I feel bad for him. He would like to be the one who stays home with the baby. It is his dream. But his skill set is worth a lot more money than mine. If I could support the family I would. I wish I could. I wish I ready to move on to the next level of my career–but I need another degree to do that.

I know this phase will pass for hubby. It always does. I think that much of his stress comes from the fact that we are getting ready to have a baby at home. This is the next stage in his life. It is what he has been waiting for for nearly 5 years. He is also worried about being a parent and being a good parent. He is worried about how people are going to perceive our mixed family and how he is going to deal with people who say the wrong thing. He does not handle stress well. He was raised in a family that doesn’t talk about feelings and emotions. He was not given tools to handle stress. I can’t help him, as I deal well with stress. I work out. I work out a lot. I worry how he will handle the added stress of the baby. I hope that the baby will allow him to see the forest for the trees.

The baby…I stare at the few pictures I have of him way too much. Okay, I really don’t think that is possible, but I day dream about bringing him home. About what it will be like the first time I hold him. The first time I feed him, change his diaper, but him to bed, rock him to sleep, etc. There are so many firsts that I really can’t even list them all. I long to feel him. I long for more updated info. I really want to know how he is doing and growing. The new photo of him with his welcome bag tells me that he is really healthy and doing well, but I would really feel better having a written report from the agency or a report from someone who recently saw him. I know that is a lot to ask for. I knew that coming into this whole international adoption thing. But it is hard. I guess I should accept the difficulty and move on, as my life will forever change in a matter of months.

Mmmm…

His welcome bag arrived. Now I just need to wait to get my camera back.