Tis the Season Already?

Confession time: I saw Christmas trees in front of my local grocery store last night and got secretly giddy. This is an egregious sin in my family.

Appa is very vocal about his distaste for skipping holidays. He feels very protective of Thanksgiving and gets annoyed when the Christmas decorations come up before Thanksgiving. This year a small aisle at Target was up before Halloween, which sent him into a mini-tirade on the way home about how dumb that was. I nod my head and agree with him because I do think that Christmas is becoming more and more of a multi-month affair, which to me cheapens the thrill of the season.

However. secretly, I LOVE feeling that thrill as soon as possible. I count down the days until we can "officially" start listening to holiday music (Black Friday at our house) and get out of decorations. I've always been a purest though, and held off until Appa and I could enjoy the start of the holiday season together.

However, this year, I've been cheating. There is holiday music on the radio now, and I listen to it on the way to work. There is nothing like Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas is You" to brighten a rainy November morning. I am already decorating my house in my head and my holiday cards are printed and ready to be stuffed. I'm itching to start celebrating what in many ways is my first "emotionally real" Christmas with my son....and I love it, all of it.

So, I don't tell Appa, but when I go to Target, I spend extra time wandering the Christmas aisles, admiring the decorations and soaking up the anticipation of my favorite time of year. I literally cannot.wait. for it to begin.

Love is Blind ...

A friend of mine recently ended a very nice Little Bug-praise-filled note to me with this line, "he is such an endearing little boy - and one of the most handsome Korean babies I know - but you know, not as handsome as mine ;)."

This had me laughing out loud because it is exactly the sort of thing I would have written to her (her little guy is exceptionally handsome, so she wasn't overly boasting there). I am often telling people (and honestly thinking it) that my kid is the cutest kid in the world. That same day a blog friend wrote a post with some very beautiful shots of her little girl and the comment that seeing those pictures made her "heart sing." I so identify with that feeling, too. Pictures of Little Bug are an obsession of mine, and sometimes I will randomly stop and browse through my web albums of him just to feel that "heart singing" feeling.

I guess it just got me thinking about the saying "love is blind." I think with parenthood, it is the opposite. Why do I truly think Little Bug is the cutest, most perfect baby in the world? Why do my friends feel the same way about their kids? Let's be honest, only one baby can truly hold the official "Most Beautiful Baby in the World" title and that baby is probably eating breakfast with Brangelina right now.

I think it is because love is not blind. Not even close.

When I look at my friend's kids, I see adorable, sweet, fun, engaging children with sweet smiles and cute haircuts and facial expressions, many of whom I care about. But, when I look at Little Bug, I see the way his left cheek just has the slightest hint of a dimple when he gives his genuine "surprised pleased" smile and the way his nose has two little rolls of skin that crinkle when he does his silly smile. I see the way his eyebrows slightly and quickly quirk up when he is anticipating something fun and the way his back arches and tightens when he is about to get really excited. I see the way his face goes slack when he gets tired and hear the change in the tone of his baby babble when he is winding down for the night. When I him sitting, I see months of tummy time and bumbo chairs and pillows and exhaustion and when I see him clap after he takes a few steps, I see pride and exhilaration and excitement in his eyes, not to mention the straightness in his little hands that has taken 2 years to develop. When he sucks his thumb, I see nights upon nights of his warm little body cuddled into my mine in his dimly lit nursery as he strokes his raggie with one finger while sucking his thumb as I rock him.

That's not being blind, that is being all-seeing. Love sees everything, and those little things that only we see are the reasons we love so "blindly." We are not blind to those we love most, but rather, we are blind to all those who we don't.

That's a good thing. This way everyone has a chance to be the most perfect person in the world…if only to just a few other people.

Like my Little Bug, who is, trust me, the most perfect baby on the planet.

Sh*t

Scene: Little Bug's nursery; Little Bug is playing while Mama cleans. He is every bit the almost-2-year-old his proud mama says he is...including his penchant for mimicking....

Me: (cleaning frantically, see post below, and suddenly spilling the humidifier all over the bookcase) SH*T!

Little Bug: "shhiiiiiidddddttttaaa, shhiiiiiidddddttttaaa, shhiiiiiidddddttttaaa......"

Me: (realizing I just became that mom) Oh, Sh*t! No baby!"

Little Bug: (smiling and coming at me for praise; he was mimicking very well, after all) "shhiiiiiidddddttttaaa, shhiiiiiidddddttttaaa, shhiiiiiidddddttttaaa......"

Me: (trying to think of anything he would like to say instead of what he was saying) "Umm, ballooon, drink, food, choo choo"

Little Bug: (looks for said balloon, food, drink, or choo choo and finds none) "WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"

~End Scene~

Cleaning up my life

I have always struggled with keeping my spaces clean. I think it is a combination of bad habits and less structured cleaning and chores when I was younger (not to blame my mom in any way--this is my demon).

Anyway, I clean like I diet. Binging and purge, binge and purge. I let my spaces go until it's "go" time for something and then I really power clean the whole house spotless. I'm good at cleaning...when I do it.

So, tomorrow is our home inspection for our adoption. Just like last time, I have avoided cleaning until the last minute (tonight). I'll be up late, stressed out, and grumpy tomorrow. Great way to treat myself, yay me!

I notice a marked difference when I am in a clean space. I am happier, less anxious and stressed, and less "blue." I'm more creative and have more energy. I LOVE when my spaces are clean; it's just rare when that is the case.

Today I happened upon something called the Happiness Project. I can already tell this is a site that I would like to explore more fully, but the article about "de-cluttering" really caught my eye, in particular this quote:

Outer order contributes to inner calm.

So, so true, and something I have personally experienced on my own. I love to spout off to people about "being kind to yourself," but not allowing myself to live in a space that makes me comfortable is most decidedly not being kind to me.

So, with this as my new "homemaker" mantra, I'm going to see how long I can keep my spaces at a level of cleanliness that channels that inner calm (but doesn't totally stress out the working mom in me). This is a great time to start.

Because tonight I will be up until the wee hours of the morning cleaning like a crazy mad woman for that blank slate.

Let's Talk About Bodily Fluids, Part 2

I don't know whether to feel relieved or cheated that the random vomit floating in the bathwater is not accompanied by an illness.

Gross.

Just Like Mom

There are moments when I see little bits of my Mom in my version of Mama. That makes me giggle because everyone always say "I won't be like my mother," and then turns around and realizes they are very much just like their mother...in my case, that isn't a bad thing. Recently I started making Little Bug cinnamon toast using my mom's "recipe." Honestly, I doubt it is anything special (really, how complicated is cinnamon toast?), but there is something about her technique that really makes these special. As a child, I certainly thought they were something amazing.

However, my boys also love them, rave about them, and will ask me for them. I see a future filled with weekends of cinnamon toast broiling in the oven, which is just like my past.

Beautiful Life (Who would have thought!?!)

I have one more session to summarize, and I promise I will get to it this weekend.

However, I just wanted to throw out to the world how beautiful my life is because that is what is filling my heart today. I blog, a lot, and have for many years, but only with this blog have I ever let my guard down with my more personal feelings. Our pain of infertility and our pain of the waiting with our adoption and our pain with dealing with Little Bug's special needs, those are all things that have been real trials for us, for me, and as we walked those roads, the pain was intense, the light seemed dim, and the toll was taxing.

Yet, we shared that with very few people. Sure, our close family and best friends knew that we were dealing with these things, but they didn’t know how it was feeling to deal with them. These were roads they had not and were not traveling. They could not walk these roads with us in the most literal sense of the word, just as I cannot walk the road of Ali(ce)'s last trimester with her. Support yes, fully understand, no. In the last year I have seen how powerful and therapeutic it is to let these feelings out and share them with others who have or are walking these same long and lonely roads and let them take your hand and walk with you when it gets too hard.

I didn't have the network of support then that I do now. The moments I consider darkest are still locked away without having been verbally expressed to many people. I knew only a couple people who had ever adopted from anywhere before we went to Korea to get Little Bug, and only one person who at the time I even had any level of personal comfort with. I wrote her an e-mail during one of the lowest points in my life, just days before we traveled to get Little Bug. A portion of the text reminds me of the trials and blessings that were warring within me even then.

I was kind of in a dark place this weekend, very bitter and worried and just generally helpless. I've been sort of sick to my stomach for the last few days waiting to hear, and he is all I can think about. I'm not really sure where I am going with this, other than that I just really wanted to tell you because I know that you understand that helpless feeling of having your child be so far away from you. The idea of backing out of the adoption makes me heartsick. The one positive is that it has (in a really weird way) helped me start the bonding process with LITTLE BUG, not just the idea of him, but him as a person. I don't want another baby, I want him. That took me a couple of days and a lot of tears and prayers realize that, but I am finally at that point. Even if they come back and tell us that he has some big challenges, I can't imagine turning away from him now. And it might be that there is nothing going on after all and that he just needs a little more tummy time and a little more motivation to bridge that gap. Either way, I feel like he was meant to be with us, and I just want him home.

To have been wrapped up and lifted up by people who understood perhaps not my specific situations and emotions and fears and heartaches, but at least the nature of them in general, would have been so helpful. Someone who could have stood directly next to me on that road and pointed out the light that I might not have been able to see. As so many of my friends now face challenges on their own roads, I take comfort in the fact that most of them seem to have people they can turn to who will take their hand and squeeze it tight; people who can see the light because they have already been to the end of those roads or who might be just a step or two ahead. It won't make the road any straighter or easier or more clear, but I know how it feels to have walked my roads alone, and it didn't feel good.

For me, my roads continue to wind. Don’t all of ours? Somehow, once you get to the end of the road, another one appears. One with new turns and twists and potholes. Yet, we can face these new roads with new eyes and a stronger heart because of the roads we have already traveled. Robert Frost should have wrote about that road, the ones we DID take. How amazing is it to look back on those trials in our lives and see the blessings they have given us, the lessons we have learned? I only wish we could have a glimpse of that forthcoming joy as we were going through those dark times. It would make it so much easier, but alas, that isn't really the way it works. The heartache is part of the process.

So, why is my life so beautiful, and why have I just word vomited a small novel with literary references, e-mail quotes, and questionable analogies? Because I put this picture on my work desktop.
This picture tells the story of my life. Everything I have ever wanted, hoped for, begged for, despaired for, endured for, prayed for, cried for, cared for, and wished for is wrapped up in this little snapshot of my life. It speaks more to me than I think anyone could ever know, every little detail. It's the glimpse I wish I would have had to spur me through those trials.

That's a truly beautiful thing.