and then there were three...or four...

What are you speaking of, do you ask? Do you have a hunch? Our family is growing! We are adopting again, this time around through DSS (Department of Social Services). We don't care if the child is red or yellow, black or white. We are looking to adopt a child (or two, yes, you heard me right, we are open to a sibling group) who is three years old or younger.  I'm not exactly sure how to track our progress as this is our first time adopting through DSS (Z and Hb were private adoptions) and they are fairly vague in giving out time expectancies. Right now we are in the process of getting our homestudy completed. A homestudy is basically when a licensed social worker comes to your home to interview you and make sure you are capable of adopting children. Cross your fingers! Just kidding. We had our first of two meetings yesterday and the second is on Thursday morning. We are excited! I'm thinking our homestudy MIGHT be completed in as little as three weeks and after that the waiting begins. By "waiting", I mean waiting for a placement...waiting for our child to come home!
Writing about it helps it feel real. I felt this same way with Z and Hb's adoptions, that sometimes it doesn't feel like something big is really getting ready to happen. Let me preface these next statements. I don't know what it feels like to carry a child in my womb, but it seems we mommies might can find some common ground on this subject. With a pregnancy I would imagine there is an unknown expectancy, but your tummy is growing showing you a physical manifestation that something is indeed growing inside you. With adoption, there also is this "is this really going to happen?" feeling until the day you see your child face to face. It's a surreal experience. We both share the expectancy that someone is being handcrafted for our family, whether that someone is inside or outside of us. Our children are both hand knit for us in a mother's womb. They are both uniquely designed for family, they just come home in different ways.
It's so much bigger than me and boggles my mind. Father is hand-stitching more pieces into our family quilt. He has patched us together and has made us into a beautiful covering. He is at it again and I am filled with anticipation to see what these next additions will look like, what will they add, how will they challenge us? Anticipation. That is the word we are living right now. It's a word I think all mommies can relate with, no matter how your babies came home...through the tummy or through the heart.

Not flesh of my flesh
Nor bone of my bone
Yet still miraculously my own
Never forget for a single minute
You didn't grow under my heart
But in it.
 -anonymous

that darn brick

Four year old's say funny things...i.e. "Loomer has it". Here's one that just happened:

Mom, small girl holding mom, and boy excitedly clutching Walmart bag with Wolverine and Iron Man exit store. Excited boy gets too close to the brick edged flower bed and scratches his leg. "Oww, oooh, eeee!" says boy. Mom notes the boy isn't bleeding, all should be well. Kids and mom get into car but boy comments, "Oh no. That brick took some of my brown off! Mama, could you go back over there to the brick and see if it taked my brown?" Mom was caught off guard and laughed heartily.

I love the funny things they say!

Yikes!

I have mentioned before that we use satin sleep hats around this house on our Lady Belle. If you've never read this or haven't heard me say much about it, you're in luck. We use them to protect Hb's fragile hair from the fabric of her sheets AND to protect her hairstyles. They cut down on frizzies. They keep the moisture we've worked hard adding to her hair to stay IN her hair instead of on her pillowcase. If you're going to have friction with fragile hair and another material, lets let it be smooth satin, not 400 thread count sheets, or worse, the stufffing of say, Minnie Mouse. Here is what may happen when you don't respect the sleep hat...

Oh lawd. Good thing we have some good product around this house! 

To learn more about sleep caps, check this out.

Madagascar and Adele

This is funny. We're driving down the road, windows down, listening to Adele singing "Rumor has it". You know, "Rumour has it (Roooo-mer has it) Rumour has it (Rooo-mer has it)", you know the one. Well, Zeke's in the back bobbing his head and afterwards says, "She was singing about a loomer." I ask and wonder what he is thinking, "What's a loomer?"

 Zeke responds, "You know, King Julian." Oh my, he means a LEMUR. Ha!! So funny. 

That one definitely beats out him thinking "Love Shack" (B-52's) is about a Love Shark.

 Man, kids are funny.