If You Buy a Woman a Dress...

I bought this dress.......

so that I feel totally hot at the holiday parties.

Of course a great dress requires great shoes.....

These seem perfect...and walkable/danceable.

Then, of course since I will be dressed so beautifically I just had to make an appointment to get party hair....

Which will be followed by a search for the perfect makeup....

Then we have to get my handsome beau a new set of duds so that he can show me off properly...

I am worse than the mouse that was given a cookie!!!





Still Crazy Busy...or Perhaps Just Crazy!

Honestly it could go either way depending on the day. The good news is that work is going great, I have 2 classes of wonderful students who bring me great joy. Belly dance ended tonight not to resume until March. Zumba carries on....ah Zumba how I love thee....the greatest stress reducer EVER!

Unfortunately still just waiting waiting and more waiting on the baby front.

On the other hand, it HAS taken us the entire time since referral to finally settle on a name for Little Bear. We have waffled on this so much it drove me crazy(er). For a while the poor guy had 6 names plus our last name. We have narrowed it down to three plus the last name. Much more manageable. We will unveil when we know we are traveling-give you something to look forward to. I think the difficulty was that we are afraid Little Bear might be our only child (we would love a houseful but not sure we can go through this emotional upheaval again) and so each had names to include that were important to us. Thank goodness that is settled!

We haven't had an update since September, and call me crazy but I am guessing that from 7/8 mos to 11mos old there are some big changes happening in a babies life....I'd like to know if he is crawling yet, have they started him on any foods besides formula, does he sleep well, oh I could go on and on about the questions that keep me up at night. 

Still, I am comforted knowing that he is well cared for at the TH. I just wish I felt like I knew more of what he was going through. For example, in the Sept. pic we noticed a scar on his leg that was not there before. How he got it we will never know...I don't want the pile of "stuff we will never know" to keep growing.

I pray daily for a Christmas miracle for our family, not necessarily that we will go get him over the holidays, but that we could at least know that he passed his medical and the paperwork has been sent on.  That would definitely be the best gift I could ever receive.

A Little Retail Therapy for MOI

Ok, so its not chocolate and wine but these ARE pretty awesome!

I have been working out so much (zumba 4 times a week) that my old shoes just wore right out. These new Zigs are  amazing to wear and so far I love them! But I had to buy a men's shoe as I refuse to wear the saccharine girly colours. Surprisingly these are narrow enough for a woman to wear comfortably.

For my down time my little nerdy self was ecstatic to find the latest book from the Wheel of Time series on sale-woot woot!!

See, I CAN find things to enjoy in my life today. Right now. I think I had a whole hour where I wasn't worried about adoption. It felt great.

Hurry Up and wait ...again

So we are likely not getting that Christmas baby present like we hoped. Currently looking more like a February baby???????? I was so furious, I am much calmer now-I know there is nothing that I can do about any of it-which makes me more frustrated-I HATE not being in control!!!

Here's the scoop:due to Little Bear's cold/ear infection the immigration Dr. woudn't sign off on the medical form for immigration. Ok, so no big deal, the Dr. says that if the chest x-ray comes back clear the medical will be signed and approved without seeing my babe again (same case for another adoptive family whose son shares the TH with our son). So, the x-rays come back a week later, totally clear-no problems at ALL....the Dr. signs off on the other little boy but does not sign off on Little Bear's medical- WTH???? Then, keep in mind my son has at this point presented as completely healthy...they put him in the hospital for 1 or 2 days (details unclear) shove a tube up his nose and down into his stomach to do a stomach secretions test......that will TAKE 8 WEEKS to get the results back. This is just to get the medical done...doesn't even count however many weeks immigration will need to sign off their approval afterwards.

I understand that Dr.'s are under a lot of pressure to ensure that all immigrants are clear of TB, what bothers me is the seemingly random nature of just picking Little Bear to be the medical version of an audit...yep, he's a TB audit. This just stinks and I am trying really hard to keep a cool face to my colleagues and local folks but the truth is that I am livid over this. How DARE they treat my perfectly healthy baby that way. I could understand doing the tests if there was something in the x-ray that was bothersome...but there was NOTHING wrong!!! Like my son needed that kind of trauma? At this rate we are going to miss his first birthday, seeing him crawl, there is just so much that we are missing it breaks my heart.


I need a hug...and chocolate...and wine....

Another step forward....kinda

Yea! The Visa folks have issued the request for a medical, 'course that was last week...Little Bear had a cold/ear infection so nope...Dr. wouldn't sign off. Sooooo a week of antibiotics, if he is better by Friday MAYBE the Dr. will sign off? Who knows. I hope it works and that we go get him soon the boss is already trying to give away my job...I mean find a mat. leave replacement for me. :) To my American friends- I am extremely grateful that I get a whole 6 months of maternity leave-how awesome is that!?!?! To my Canadian friends-WTF kind of prejudice is this- I only get 1/2 the time that a birth mother gets? no wonder I am so mixed up-I don't know whether to be elated or pissed off and "gipped" feeling.

I am still holding out for the best Christmas present EVER!!!

I want to kiss these lips people!!!!! How cute are they!?!?!?

Back to the Distraction List!

I am driving myself nuts with stress and worry so back to the distraction list.

Technique Number One:  Keep VERY busy
        My Current Schedule looks something like this:
  1. Full Time Teacher-40 hours minimum per week-find time to mark and plan in evenings and weekends.
  2. Teach Belly Dancing Monday nights for an hour (super excited to get this going tomorrow!)
  3. Teach Zumba Monday (after Belly Dance), Wednesday, and Friday evenings
  4. Add in teaching Zumba on Thursday nights starting in October.
  5. Find time to practice presentations for Math program (presenting to other teachers 3 times over next two months), create posters, refine power point, make and take games etc.(of course my division does NOT give me time to do this-all the prep is on my own time), then facilitate monthly meetings thereafter
  6. Present on second math technology program once in Oct. (must remember to prep for this sometime)
  7. Start Dance Club to be held 1-2 times per week after school (I refuse to coach a sport so this is my compromise)
  8. This week alone I have 2 "must attend" school functions

Technique Number Two: When not doing one of the above listed items-cook!
  I am no Julia Child but lately my nesting habits have been in overdrive. This weekend alone I have made "Dump Cake", meatballs in 2 different sauces (one for parties one for spaghetti), 2 casseroles, and Parmesan potatoes (currently in oven). I also have ready to go in my freezer homemade stew, hamburger soup, buffalo chicken wing soup, and a lentil bake. No I am not crazy! Cooking this way ensures healthy meals for my wee family that merely need to defrost and heat. We have enough now that I shouldn't need to really cook for about 2 weeks. If I don't do this type of cooking every night becomes "I'm too tired to cook" and we spend way too much money on pizza and other eating out. Which we cannot afford to do given the extended adoption wait times and US$ each month that we are shelling out for Little Bear's care. I am not in the slightest upset about providing for my son- he is ours and WE WILL CARE/PROVIDE FOR HIM....however ask me how happy I am about the extended wait times, constantly changing process, lack of information, and general VISA wait issues and my left eye starts to twitch....ahem  back on topic :)

Technique Number Three: When in doubt drink!

  Currently I am a big fan of these wines: http://www.grandprewines.ns.ca/winery/wines/  their Pomme d'Or is amazing, also love http://www.blomidonwine.com/  the Baco Noir with any BBQ food is fabulous!  We brought back several cases of wine with us from Nova Scotia and these two vineyards were our favourites.   But hey -anything will do for distraction. I personally love to sip wine while gazing out at our currently spectacular view of the lake in its Fall foliage.

Stay tuned for more distraction techniques!  I hope your life is blissful enough not to need them!

Too Confused to Blog?

I don't know how else to explain my brain these days. All I hear in my head is "when, when, when will that visa arrive?", all I feel in my heart is "sad sad sad" my arms seem to echo "empty empty empty", much like the crib that sits in the room that I can't bare to walk into anymore.

With the latest "hey let's s*%$w with the adoptions of families by asking for new and different VISA documents-just because we can and with no explanation" I think I have finally reached my limit for "must maintain a positive outlook" quota. I am officially done with being patient, optimistic, and silver lining-ish. Congratulations VISA people-you've beaten it out of me!  The woman who was previously known as "sunshine" by most of her friends-is on hiatus. Now there is just a whole lot of stormy, pissed off, mother bear.