To lighten the mood

I've been deficient about blogging again lately. While it's true that my new obsession with digital scrapbooking is taking its toll on my blogging time, the real reason why I haven't posted anything here is that I honestly haven't felt much like writing. I'm happy to play with pictures of Sam for now... Writing makes me think of the other little boy in Korea that I can't get out of my head. Being denied the opportunity to look at his file has really been bothering me. I was trying to get in a better frame of mind about it when I talked to another adoptive mom this weekend who is a) collecting items for kids who are never adopted and age out of orphanages and b) has adopted two boys who are just six weeks apart. I got all fired up again that this little boy is sitting in a home...

On the bright side, I will say that I am in a holiday mood this year like never before. Our little family of three just feels so much more settled this year. We had an awesome Thanksgiving weekend. Lots of time with family, which is always the best way to spend a holiday, and plenty of time to get the house decorated to make it really feel like Christmas is coming.

Sam definitely KNOWS that the house has to be all lit up for Santa to find it. When he sees a plane in the sky, not only does he say "Hi, Big Jake," as usual, he wonders aloud if Santa and Rudolph are up there, too!

Tonight, we finished the lighting of the outside of the house. I said I was going to lighten the mood, and my thought was to share this one-liner from my husband that I'm certain will become legendary in our house: I hate when he climbs ladders. Especially the big ones. I just don't feel like my little hands holding the bottom is any help at all when it comes to the possiblity of him falling from two stories up.

When I asked him why he felt it necessary to always find a reason to be up near or on he roof, he replied quite matter-of-factly, "Big ladders make me feel like a man."

He is SOOOOO going to wish he hadn't uttered those words!

105-30 and B70

When we first "found" Sam, it was via a small picture in a blue frame labeled B70 on our agency's web site. We read the brief bit of information that was available to the general public and eventually ended up requesting his file and being matched with him. There are obviously more details to that story, but the moral is that we were meant to be together. There's no explanation short of a miracle that a child whose face we stared at on the Internet for months, who was born in another country and living with another family, is now the gleeful toddler that runs our lives.

Because we were so blessed with that experience, we have felt called to pursue our next adoption through the waiting child process. Given the circumstances of our family, we think a slightly older infant or toddler -- that perhaps would not be readily matched with the pool of prospective parents seeking as young a baby as possible -- is a good fit for us.

To that end, and because Sam has adjusted so nicely, we've slowly started to dip our toes back into the proverbial adoption pool. As with anyone's decision to deliberately add to their family, it's not a decision to be taken lightly. That's why we're going slowly. We know what lies ahead, and that amount of paperwork and the loooooong wait, is not for the faint of heart.

Now that we're braced for the years ahead (which is how long this will take!) we finally made the decision this weekend to request the file of a sweet faced little boy that we have "watched" online for nearly a year. This little guy, perhaps because he actually looks like he could be Sam's brother, tugged at our hearts from the first time we saw him. We know now not to ignore that pull, since that's how we we lucky enough to be matched with Sam.

Little 105-30 has been a single photograph and a case number to us for a long time, but when we talk about "that little boy online," we both know who we're referring to. He hasn't needed a name for us to keep him in our prayers, but this weekend, we learned his name.

It seemed like the final nudge we needed that someone on our agency's message board brought his name up in a discussion thread. My attention obviously perked up. To make a long story short, we ended up getting some additional details about him from someone who had seen his file but had to decline his case. She was incredibly encouraging to us, and he sounded like he was doing very well.

I steeled myself Monday morning and made the call to the U.S. agency handling his case. I waited all day for the social worker to call me back, not quite sure what that conversation would mean.

As much as I trust the advice of professionals, I was a bit taken aback to learn that we are not even eligible to review his file. I understand intellectually that a qualified adoption expert says two children just seven weeks apart in age are not necessarily an ideal fit. Particularly since one has slight delays in his development and one does not.

I won't belabor the details, but I ended my day yesterday saying that at least we had closure. I trust that God has a hand in making sure that adorable child will find his true family like we found Sam. It prompted us to decide what our next steps will be.

BUT.

So much for being at peace.

I went to drop Sam off this morning and saw that the box of items we are collecting for other orphans who will "age out" and have to find their way in the world on their own, never having had a family, was still fairly empty. I got in my car after noticing this to hear Steven Curtis Chapman's "All I Want for Christmas (Is a Family)" at random on my iPod.

That's when the next stage of grief -- the anger -- hit me. I know in the end that I have to trust the way this has worked out, but I can't help but feel mad and sad that some other human has the power to say that having no family at all is better for this boy than being with us would be.

I will keep praying for him in the very same way that I know more than 80 families prayed for Sam after picking up the phone to ask about him over two years ago. Some of them surely felt the same dismay at the outcome that I do in this case.

It's back to Plan A for us now. We'll put in our initial application for a sibling for Sam after the first of the year. I know that we'll eventually have our second perfect-for-us child home with us. I will hope in the meantime that this boy somehow feels that families like ours keep him in our thoughts and prayers.

I've been cheating on my blog.

With Photoshop.

I started this blog saying that I needed to somehow do something to keep up with memory keeping for Sam. I specifically noted that I was incapable of the crafty things that better moms than I do in order to catalog the lives of their children.

Well, it's a whole new day. For the sake of my family, I'm not sure it's a good thing, but I have conquered Photoshop Elements.

Maybe conquer is too strong a word. We've become acquainted. And I have spent any free moment I have since this weekend playing around with various layouts. (Look at me throwing lingo around already.)

I'm having such a good time doing it, but I should really try to keep up the blogging thing, too. This is actually faster and not nearly as costly. Maybe I'll finally be able to do away with the blogger template and make a pretty blog of my very own!

I have some catching up to do...

First, Halloween was last week. Sam HATED the thought of being a monkey, but literally followed the rule of monkey-see-monkey-do at daycare. Once everyone else was in their holiday get-ups, he followed suit and went out for the parade.

He didn't like it:


All was well when he got to go trick-or-treating and realized that we were serious when we told him people give you candy if you dress like a monkey. We were waiting for him to realize that you get candy no matter what costume you wear, but that never happened. Thank goodness, because he kept telling anyone who would listen that he was going to be Woody. He'd follow it up with "Reach for the sky!'

In other news, I'm a deficient blogger because I've been neck-deep in getting the word out that my adventures in Santa Claus, otherwise known as the taping of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, are about to hit the airwaves. We shall see if I became an offical WNA (will not air, in hip TV lingo, as I learned.)

It seems cool that this is airing the same week that my dear husband hits the fabulous, wonderful, marvelous 10-years-cancer-free milestone. He turns a year older this week, too, but in this case, that is a very good thing.