Sunday, February 10, 2008

Thoughts at 1 month officially waiting...

We have been on our agency's official waiting list for one month.

I thought I'd check in at monthly intervals and discuss some things I've learned, and how they make me feel. (Did you think I started this blog solely to embarrass Steven?)
  1. I am emotionally calmer than I have been in years. It is so much easier thinking about when you will have children, as opposed to if you will have children.
  2. I am extremely upset by a new development with our agency. Basically they have discontinued meetings between adoptive families, and the remaining members of the adopted children's birth families. This opportunity to experience some openness in an international adoption is one of the main reasons we chose CHSFS. I am hopeful that they will change their minds and that we will still be able to do this. I feel that is very important.
  3. I suffer from PPP. Premature, pre-scho0l, panic. Yep, I am obsessed with schooling. Los Angeles is a big place, and I want to make sure we choose the right education program for our kids. Of course this is impossible to plan right now, but every school has deadlines and lotteries and waiting lists etc. Do I want them to go to Montessori? Waldorf? Home schooled? Unschooled? Charter? Magnet? Immersion? Good Grief. I don't even know how old they are. They may not be healthy enough to go to school for a long time when they get here. Do they need more structure? More freedom? Who are they? What do they need? (See what I mean? Steven is about ready to kill me.)
  4. I have "met" some remarkable people while blogging. Please check out my links on the right. I am particularly impressed with the sixteen year old "Big Sis Suzy Q " who started a pajama drive for Ethiopian orphans. Did I mention that she was sixteen?
  5. I have a drawer of stuff. It looks this this:
  6. I have nursery art.
  7. #5 and #6 make me feel a little uneasy. After waiting for children since 1999, I am not convinced that I will ever need these things.
  8. I am going to need someone to tell me what these things are for, and if I need them...
  9. Guilt overwhelms me at times. How can I eat/wear/consume/ enjoy so much when so many have so little.
  10. Last night, Steven and I realized that our kids have never been in a movie theater. (Trivial compared to their other needs I know, but it somehow struck us both.) Steven said we should make sure that their first movie is a good one. He said his first memory of a movie was Fantasia. What was yours?

4 comments:

  1. Hahaha! My first movie? Bambi; i was 6 years old, and I cried my tiny a*^ off! So my parents weren't going to let go to the movies until I grew older.
    At 9 years old, my whole class went together, to see Lassie. Again I cried my steadily growning a*^ off, and my parents decided to supervise my movies closer. At 11, my father took me to a documentary, "The Living Desert"; and when the wasp paralyzes the spider - you guessed it - I cried.
    Never one to give up, my father took me to "The Ascent of Nanga Parbat". This was about a climb in the Himalayas, and I just about cried again, with boredom.
    After that, I nver cried again; but I stay away from animal movies.

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  2. I remember my first R-rated movie...."One Flew Over a Cuckoo's Nest". I was pretty young and it was pretty heavy. I don't remember my very first movie though.

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  3. Only two come to mind:

    My first movie by myself without adult supervision was 'Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.' Totally.

    I also remember seeing 'Pretty Woman' with the fam in Hawaii in 6th grade. Um, I know I was far younger than my siblings which may have made all-family outings tough, but 6th grade is WAY TOO YOUNG to see 'Pretty Woman.' I blame this on some major adult issues. Not really. It may explain my affinity for tall, sexy boots.

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  4. WHERE did you get that nursery art? I love it. It is georgous. I want it real bad. I refuse to buy anything yet or even finish the future kids' room because I will feel too sad looking at it empty. I don't know how I've gone this long in the ethiopian adoption blogosphere and not truly discovered your blog. I am reading and reading and I can't stop and I love it so much.

    The first movie I can remember seeing was "for your eyes only" James Bond at a drive-in with some clearly irresponsible parent of a friend. I was like 7.

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