A lazy frog-catching berry-picking Sunday

Meet Mr. Momma Frog - as my children have named him. We were not sure if it was a male or female frog and since we believe that gender is a bit of an ambiguous thing (especially in frogs) Mr. Momma sounds like a good enough name for this handsome and plump fellow.

Rob and I decided to stay in town this weekend (our new town) rather than travel back into the old place. We just wanted to enjoy our new place and have a relaxing weekend - so far things are going according to plan.

We have a pond in our yard which Finn has really been enjoying. When I catch him throwing stuff in (his favorite activity) he finally settles for just catching tadpoles (now teeny tiny frogs - see the one below on Rob's finger pad). At night when we sleep with the window open we can hear a chorus of frogs singing but up until this weekend we only noticed small ones in our pond. The minute the kids spotted Mr.Momma they called to Rob to use his cat-like reflexes to pull the frog out of the pond and plop it into our kids pool (which I regrettably call our above ground pond).



Below is Clover having her "down time" or I should call it "Edward time" - what is with the Twilight books? *shaking my head in disbelief* I would not be surprised if this has been the fifth time she has read the series.




Robert. In the kitchen. What else is new?

The kids were getting underfoot and so we gave them empty buckets and set them to work in the fields picking berries. I love how they marked their faces up with whiskers & stripes when they were playing "baby tigers" earlier.



Rose takes everything quite seriously. As you can see from Finn's bucket he takes after his Mom. There are more fun things to do like soak the dirt in front of the house to make a mud pit and who cares anyways when you can eat the berries your sister picked.

Well I am off to make a smoothie! Hope you had a fabulous lazy weekend too!

Well guess who is back!

Now that I am quite certain that no-one, and I mean no-one has checked into this space for quite some time! but I am still - like some bad '80s band - going to try for a come back. Maybe I need a fancy new hair do or some other sort of reinvention of self. A big thanks to my computer whiz brother Nate and my Opa for reviving my hard drive and transplanting it into a new tower. Wow! My "brand new" computer cost me a whole $7 - I needed a keyboard and mouse and got $3 off at the local thrift store on account of being a "pretty lady" - alrighty then hehe.

I missed reading my regular blogs, I missed finding out who is home, or who is on the verge of coming home and I feel quite out-of-the-loop adoption wise. Although a two and a half month break (was it only that long? it felt much much longer!) from the computer was probably exactly what I needed. Those of you who are from the adoption realm of things already understand what I am talking about - I think if they kept a title for most times email was checked in one day I probably would have won...then. I know things are different now. I feel alarmingly disconnected from our adoption, but in some ways perhaps this is a good thing too. I feel like right before our computer broke down I was working myself up into a miserable state of mind about the whole thing. I was extremely sensitive as to have people brought it up, or did not bring it up with me. That sort of indicates to me that it is time to perhaps sit back and have some reflective time, to lower the intensity and change the method of coping. So I have found my place of peace. Whew. Trust me. You 1 or 2 that stuck it out will appreciate my old sense of perspective - mellow Mandy.

Lets see what happened while I was away:

1. We moved. Amazing place - yes. Missing friends - yes. However I have had company pretty much steady through the past few weeks with friends and family paying visits and so I feel much, much more settled than I did in the first week when I suddenly questioned "what the hell were we thinking moving an hour out of town??!!". Very different in the country but I am slowly getting used to it but more on that another time.

2. My Opa and Oma just left. They stayed with me for 10 days. I am close to my Grandparents, very close and so when I said good-bye to them today it was hard. Especially when I noticed my Oma's health was on a steep decline from the last time I saw her only a year ago.


3. Birthdays galore - June is officially birthday month in our family. Clover turned 13! (yikes) Lovely turned 9! (another yikes) Rose turned 6! (that just makes me want to cry) and other than that Rob's Mom, Sister and Father all have their Birthday in June, plus his folks anniversary - and not to leave out our anniversary as well! Plus Father's day. Yeesh.


More updates later...

see ya! (for now)

Well the old computer finally broke down. 5 years we have had that old desktop beast and she has brought us through a few moves, some home schooling, and she nearly carried us through an entire adoption process (which should speak to her strength, really). She was also the cheapest computer I could buy. We never were big "computer" people - Rob and I.

Of course now in the midst of adopting I am a addicted maniac and so I wonder how I am going to cope with out the internet. Think of all those repressed feelings I am going to have from not blogging! Also, the thing that disturbs me the most is not knowing the exact millisecond my kids files move out of IBESR!! Everyone and their dog is going to know before me.

A couple of things:

Kate - From what you said in your email I think the area I have mentioned (mind you I am a little bias) is the absolute perfect area for you and your values. I am also a anti-consumerism, organic food chewing, local buying, recycling, open-minded, tree hugging, lefty, out-of-the-mainstream thinker. I am not even remotely considered radical in my community. I feel like I am not nearly up to the status quo around here because I don't have a bike and I don't jog. I am so happy to have just been getting to know you.

JENNY - LESS THAN 5 WEEKS!!! I am half-terrified (packing) mostly excited (neighbors with one of the coolest jumbo-sized families I know). YIKES!!!!!

Ginger - here is to hoping that the principals of Murphy's Law will apply and the day my computer dies is also the day we all get news of movement!

EVERYONE ELSE: I will be checking in about once a week or so and if I have time I will try and post. You can bet your booty I will be running up to my school to post if I hear any news!!

New photos

Harvard Implicit Test - try it!!

I was out on a friend~date a few weeks back and she told me about this test - the Harvard Project Implicit.

The Harvard Implicit test found that most people prefer white faces over black faces. I posted a related news article a while back on my blog titled "You may be more racist than you think".

I wanted to try the test out and I did take the demo. The result was you show no preference (17% of people are in this category). I had my 12 year old take it without telling her what it was about. She just zoomed through the test with zero mistakes and the result was that she showed a slight preference for black over white (5% of all people).

It is funny because we talk a lot about race in our house, or perceptions and constructions of race both positive and negative stereotyping. A LOT. I think it is so important to do so even when it feels uncomfortable and when it feels uncomfortable than it is all the more critical to bring it up.

Try out the test yourself or have your older children try it out. See what conversations can come of it and let me know (if you want).

checking, checking, checking.....no news still. damn.

So ever since I heard 50 files were given Presidential disposition I have been popping into three places multiple times a day. I am quite sure that Vera has had more hits on her blog in the past week than all of last year thanks to my obsessive-compulsive need to look "just in case".

Vera's Blog
"The List"
The Yahoo Groups

Trying to sniff out news. None yet. But I am going crazy waiting.


You guys knew that already though - right?

Weirdos

When you are putting in your time (aka the adoption process) there are a few things that can help you survive the wait. There are online communities for those who are adopting. Some can be really general, some can be specific to the Country, while others can just be specifically for your Orphanage. I have been staying out of the rooms lately. Mainly because there has not been a lot of good news lately - at all. The mood is a bit low to say the least (understandably so) and I have nothing cheery to add to the atmosphere.

One thing that keep the groups entertaining however is the occasional weirdo that pops into the group who has no intention of ever adopting but for some reason or another likes to join random groups just to play pretend. All I can say to them is don't f*** with a bunch of over-stressed, burnt-out, anxious adopting Mothers - really now!!

I always get to wondering who they are:

Some lonesome Sally who always feels on the outskirts of all the fun

or maybe (s)he is just really crazy

They go out and do a little grocery shopping, come home and crack open a bag of cheezies and decide today I am going to join a adoption chat room and tell everyone...
(most who have been waiting longer than I have, some who worry they will never bring their children home)

"Guess what guys I am totally in Haiti right now picking up my little girl who I just met and I am by passing all the wait times/process/expensive costs by just getting a kid given to me by the parents and am just picking up her Visa any day now and bringing her back to the USA!!!!!!"

Me (wanting to say): OOOOOOH - your meaning CHILD TRAFFICKING??? Yeah I guess that would be the CHEAPER, less HEARTBREAKING, and EASIER way to go but it is also ILLEGAL!! not to mention so WRONG ETHICALLY!! Crazy hag. (to be clear I am 99.9% sure this person is not in Haiti and not bring home a child - thank goodness for that)

Who are these people??

Crazy shut-ins?

Bratty teenagers....

....who think they are SO funny? (like OMG!!)

Maybe just sad people trying to hold their "perfect lives" together?

Whoever they are I would like to thank them for the distraction. On one hand I think they are terrible for causing anxiety and disruption on adoption groups. One crazy girl put one of the waiting children on "hold" for her until we all discovered she was a teenager living in the UK. So some acctually can cause some harm. Then there are the ones that spread mis-information about adoption and get all the "just starting out" people all fired up.....hey maybe there is a better way to do this? Nope. Sorry get in line like the rest of us. Everyone has to put in their time.

Mostly they provide a bit of amusement. Through all the stories of heartbreak and gloom, anxiety and frustration UP pops CRAZY (always obvious as hell) and it gives a perfect chance to have a target to put those carefully pointed fingertips to work and relieve a bit of that tension that was building up in the shoulders.

It also makes me incredibly grateful that the adoption process is a LONG, EXPENSIVE and RIGOROUS process with some serious screening. You might GO crazy with the waiting but at least you had to be reasonably sane from the start. Whoever these weirdos are I am so glad that they can only "make believe" adopt.

That is all I have to say today.