Packing and Moving

Let me just say this: I HATE MOVING. I don't kind of dislike it. I don't think it kind of stinks. I hate it. It's a rung in hell in Dante's Inferno; I'm sure the translators just missed it.

We are close the end, and the proverbial light at the end of that blasted tunnel is starting to show itself. We'll be out of our house by tonight, and then, we'll have glorious bliss for 15 days until we close on the new house May 13, in which the whole cleaning, painting, moving cycle will begin again, but add to it the mounted pressure of putting in new floors, new bathrooms, a new kitchen, and dealing with what feels like miles of awful wood paneling (not a pessimist... just a realist).

Only to compound issues is the fact that the kids are sick and are expected to hang out in an empty house and watch me clean and pack for what amounts to hours a day. No furniture. No TV. Too rainy to go outside. Today I caught them playing--in an empty closet--with hangers and different parts of the vacuum. A kid has got to do what a kid has got to do.

Here are a few recent pics...

Coloring Easter Eggs

Swim lessons


Grace dressed for Easter Sunday. Grant and I stayed home to tend to Grant's fever.

Breakfast when you've packed all the bowls.

Baby #3: The Q&A edition

These are some of the questions we have received via the blog, email or calling.

Q: What nationality will the baby be?
A: I don't think most mothers of bio kids have to answer this one, but when you have an AA son and a Chinese daughter, this question makes a whole lot of sense. Well, the birthmom is biracial: a mix of black, hispanic and white. The birthdad (I think??) is full AA, so we should have one little miss cute stuff on our hands!

Q: Are you sticking with G names?
A: It was never our intention. We always knew Grace's name would be Grace, and when we adopted Grant, we had a short list of names we liked, and when we saw him, we were pretty convinced Grant was his name. Plus, it was the name his birthmom liked best (of the options we told her), so there it was. So, with baby #3, the doors are open, but we tend to lean now toward really traditional names. I can guarantee there will be no yuppie in our choice. Do you have any names you think we should consider?

Q: Is there an issue with the baby being born in Massachusetts versus Indiana?
A: We might be under MA law; we might not. In talking with our lawyer, it will really come down to if she has claimed to be a resident of MA or not. It'd be helpful to be under IN law, as we wouldn't have to worry about the hoop-work involved in inter-state adoptions, but when you've adopted from a foreign country, a little inter-state paperwork does not seem that bad! So, in the end, we'll have to wait for our lawyer to come up with those answers.

Q: Are you ready to deal with a little black girl's hair?
A: Oh, the drama associated with black hair! If you haven't rented Chris Rock's Good Hair, you should check it out. Thankfully, we have lots of people to help us navigate the road when the time comes, especially the baby's birthmom. Until then, I'm going with bell hooks.

Q: Will you be in the new house by then?
A: Let's hope so! We take possession May 13, and we hope to have the kids' rooms painted and floors cleaned up within the week, so it's looking good that baby girl will get to come home to her very own nursery.

Q: Aren't you freaked out to bring a newborn, just a few days old, home with you on an airplane?
A: This might freak out most moms. But, a few hours on a plane with a kid does not scare mothers who have adopted internationally. Seventeen hours home with Grace... I think I can take a few hours.

Okay, are there more?

Baby #3

In the world of adoption, very little is certain. A birthmom could change her mind. A birthfather could enter the picture. But, the one thing that is absolutely certain is how excited we are to have another baby.

So, it's with equal measure hope and caution that we enter into adoption #3. Last night, we received a call from the agency saying that we had been selected by a birthmom. There were tears (of joy), head scratching (at the timing!!--we are in the middle of a move, after all), and lots of talk from the kids about what we should name the new baby.

It has been about a month since we were "active," about the same time it took in Grant's adoption. The baby is due June 2, and if all works out, we will be traveling to Massachusetts to bring the baby home (the birthmom lives in Fort Wayne, Indiana, but she's going to have the baby out east--long story). I got the opportunity to talk to the birthmom's mom (grandma to baby) last night, and we talked for hours. The conversation came so easily, was so full of love and laughter and hope. It simply couldn't have gone better.

We have yet to talk to the birthmom, and the first time we meet her will be in the hospital, most likely after birth. That's not the easiest of transitions for her, I'm sure, but we are confidant that God's hand is orchestrating these events, and therefore, can attend to her heart even now.

So, yeah, it's pretty exciting. Grant and Grace are very excited, talking INCESSANTLY about feeding and changing and being big siblings. It's very cute. It's hard to imagine that come summer we might very well be a family of five!

Oh, and it's a girl. Small detail.

Potential Baby #3 News...

Stay tuned...

Moving

Renters found. Movers come in a week.

YIKES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Such nice people come to visit...

Last night, Erin leaned over and said "You know, I sure hope neither of us gets dementia or Alzheimer's as we get older."

All obvious reasoning aside, I asked "Why?"

And she replied, "Because we're going to be so confused about the black guy and the Chinese lady that keep coming around."

So true...so true...

Swim Lessons

Last year at this time, we started Grant in swim lessons. The one session we signed him up for lasted eight days. He cried for seven of the eight days (in his defense, the water was freezing!).

Then, in the fall, we did another eight day session. He cried the first day.

So, with the gradual commencement of spring, we opted to sign both kids up for swim lessons, but seeing how the two week sessions didn't provide much gain in Grant's swimming skill, we decided to sign them up for six consecutive weeks of lessons (oh, Mommy... what were you thinkin'?).

Grace loves the water, and so I was excited to see how she would do, and I was not surprised. She was moved up to Grant's class, and it's so cute to see her floating on her back and diving for pennies (but she's in a four-year-old class, so her feet don't even touch the water when she sits on the edge and is told to kick!). On the first day of class, I was reminded how far our little girl has come. She walked up to the person checking them in, and said, "My name is Grace, and this is my brother." She walked away from me without even looking back...

And then, in the water, she waves at me and loves being near Grant (they really are the best of friends; I am so thankful they are so close in age), but she's so confidant, so completely comfortable and secure. She still likes to be independent, but she never freaks out anymore when I tell her "no" or or when she doesn't get to do something on her 0wn. She's so sweet, so funny, so smart.

The attachment road was harder than I had expected, but almost two years into having Grace home, and it is all a distant, distant memory.

As I watched them clutching the wall the other day, neither crying, I was amazed. My two beautiful kids are growing up so quickly, and I'm so thankful that I get to watch every single step.

No Buttons

I finally caved.

After becoming the last holdout that I know (with the exception of my wife), I finally broke down and bought a "smart phone." It's only $25/month, so I convinced myself that I would be OK spending that for the convenience of staying in touch with work while traveling.

So I called "Bob" (who sounded vaguely like his name should have an "oo" appended to the end of it) to get the phone authorized the other night, and he told me that I needed to "dial ##8822#" to get activated. I looked down at the flat lump of plastic in my hand and calmly replied, "How do I do that? There are no buttons. Or numbers."

The rep acted a little stunned and walked me through how to get to a keypad on my new touchscreen phone. I have never felt so out of touch. I suddenly flashed back to images of my grandfather, madly mashing the buttons on his TV remote as though pressing them harder would make the TV work more to his liking.

In the end, I'm OK with it though. I don't mind that I'm a little bit out of sync. I never want my kids to remember staring at the top of my head while I played with my phone, so if that means that I'm always a couple of generations behind in gadget world, so be it.

Goodbye Naps

I can hardly believe that this day is here: Grant has dropped his afternoon nap! I thought he would make it all the way until he walked into elementary school, but alas, it's not to be. I still make him lie down for an hour (listening to music, books on cd, etc), which seems to refuel his tanks, and I am loving the extra one-on-one time we get in the afternoon while Grace sleeps. He dropped his nap all at once; there's nothing "gradual" about Grant! He's going to sleep earlier now, and he often sleeps to about 8:30, so he's still getting plenty of sleep.

It's just another indicator that I've got a full fledged little boy on my hands, one who is rocketing toward full kid-dom without looking back. Queue: tears.

Fish in an Igloo

A few weeks ago, I made an aborted trip to Jackson, Mississippi. It snowed. A lot. In Mississippi. Prior to that trip, I asked our good friend Georgette for some restaurant recommendations, knowing that she was a Jackson native. She passed along a few ideas...a Japanese steakhouse here, some barbeque there, and an igloo that serves fish.

A few weeks after that, I actually made a trip to Jackson, but I wasn't in town for my nightly feeding. So when I had to come back down here this week, I decided to revisit Georgette's list, focusing mainly on the fish igloo.

I punched in the location on the GPS, drove 20 minutes, and then lo and behold, I was staring at an igloo on the side of the road, announcing itself as Jerry's Catfish House. What the?

I figured the igloo had to have a hook of some kind. Was the catfish "ice breaded?" Was the iced tea "cold as an igloo?" Nope. Jerry just decided to build his restaurant so that it looked like one of those DPW salt/sand storage facilities you see along the highway.

I went inside and got seated. The menu had a plethora of options that mostly looked like "catfish and sides." I ordered the all you can eat catfish, and within 90 seconds, I was eating.

The waitress brought me about 2 pounds of fish, 20 hushpuppies, a bowl of coleslaw, and a basket of greasy french fries. It was heavenly. The breading on the catfish was nice and light, leaving plenty of internal storage for the pound of hushpuppies.

About 10 minutes later, the waitress asked if I needed more fish. I laughed out loud and said, "Uh...no." in much the same way that I suspect Jonah did while toweling off on the beach. She smiled, gave me my bill, and I was on my way.

So Georgette, your fish-gloo was a hit. Next time I'm down here, I'll be sure to checkout another of your Mississippi fine dining establishments.

Renting our House

It looks like we might try to take the plunge into landlordville. We know it is plagued with all kinds of pitfalls, but we are hopeful that we can find great tenants.

If you know anyone who would like to rent a 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath house in Brownsburg, send them our way. If they turn out to work, we'll reward you with a referral of $300.

Hey, it's worth a try.

Glorious Spring

So, life's pretty busy right now. We're up to our ears in lenders, home inspections, and such. We spend every available minute trying to figure out what to do with the new house (oh, the work that needs to be done!), the new land (did we mention it is 3.5 acres with woods and a creek?), and the soon to be old house (sell or rent?). So, thankfully, the weather has been nice enough to get out, which means that our house isn't destroyed, Grant and Grace are generally over their winter grumps, and we can put them in bed completely spent at the end of the day.

Thank goodness we finished all the adoption paperwork before we started all the house paperwork!!

Major Decisions Come in Pairs, Right?

Adoption #3 underway? Check.

So what else can we do to make sure that my stomach stays as unsettled as possible?

Yeah, I think we just bought a house. More to come.

I swear, we're still here...

We took off on a little vacation last week. Actually, Bret was on business, and the kids and I just followed along with him. It sounded fun when we were in the planning stages, but we moved four different times, which just amounted to tired kids and a tired mommy. We did get the see family, and Grant adores his cousins, so that was swell. And, we got to visit with dear friends, and Grant is already swooping in on one of them as a potential mate, so he was in heaven. But, the road to recovery, combined with daylight savings time, has us a wee bit tired.

Plus, we've been a little busy with something else lately. We can't quite let you in on the secret yet (it does not involve baby #3), but we will shortly. Needless to say, when that post comes, it'll explain why this blog has set dormant.

Until then, here are a few pics of the kids (swimming, Huntsville science museum, and such). I don't have pictures of Grant and Grace with their cousins or friends (read: the most important part of the trip), mainly because they were running around too much to even snap a pic and also because our camera broke (Madeline, do you have a pic or two?). Such is life.

We'll keep you updated... life is a changin'.

Stress Reduction Theory

Since I took my new job in fall, I've been looking for ways to reduce stress. (While appreciative of being employed, this new gig is wearing...me...out.) I discovered that the quickest path to stress reduction for me was to cancel my gym membership.

I can't get up at 5am to go to the gym. It just makes me feel like I'm going to vomit to work out in a sleep deprived stupor. I don't want to go after work, since that's my 15 minutes a day that I get to spend with the kids. And I don't want to go on weekends because, well, what's the point if you're only going to go on weekends?

So what do I do? I stress over the $50/month I'm giving away to the gym. Therefore I canceled my gym membership and allocated an additional $50/month to our "eating out" budget. Stress reduction on two levels!

Now what to do with "the chub..."

Going to do Better

Between being sick and being sick and tired of the weather (not to mention all the adoption paperwork--yeah, we are officially done and active!), we haven't been around this blog much. I took about two pictures in February (lame).

So, even though I am feeling pretty lousy today (a fever and a headache will do that to you), I'm going to get some pictures up (even if it's the kids in pjs), and I'm resolved to do better in the weeks and months to come.

Now, for the cute kids in their cute hats.

Princess... kind of

Grace's concoction from the dress up bin: John Deere Princess. It's a lazy Saturday morning for us girls.

The Sandwich With the Ground Beef and Stuff

While grocery shopping Sunday afternoon, Erin asked me to retrieve a can of Manwich. Only she didn't want Manwich, she wanted whatever Meijer calls their generic version -- something along the lines of Meijer Sloppy Joe Sauce. I gladly fulfilled her request, and then the trouble started.

On the way home, I mentioned that I really wasn't a huge Manwich fan. She immediately became annoyed with me, asking why I would eat something I didn't like for the past eight years. (And no, I didn't manage to fall into this obvious trap.) I told her that it wasn't that I HATED Sloppy Joe mix, but that I was used to my mom's version which tastes significantly differently from canned Sloppy Joe mix.

Now I realize that traditionally saying "But this isn't how my mom made this!?" will get you kicked in the Sloppy Joes, but I was careful to differentiate the two products. In fact, they are not even called the same thing. The "ground beef in some sort of tomato-based sauce served on a bun" that my mom served was always referred to as a "Spanish Hamburger," a term no doubt found offensive in some corner of the planet.

I have no idea the origin of the name "Spanish Hamburger." It sort of reeks of "Hey Billy Joe, this here Mex-ee-can restaurant will put that meat they stuff in the burrito on a bun for you instead, if you ask 'em real nice." And in much the same way that they don't speak Mexican south of the border, the Spanish Hamburger was born.

The biggest difference for me is that my mom's recipe included cheese, which covers a multitude of sins. In our family, it made up for the fact that the ground meat being used was probably 99.99999999% fat free and scorched instantly upon hitting a frying pan.

Next time we see my mom, I plan to discreetly ask her for her recipe. And then perhaps I'll cook up some Spanish Hamburgers on my own. Perhaps me doing the cooking will offset the anger generated by fixing a meal because "I like my mom's better"...)

Southern Swing

This week for work, I'm visiting school districts in Mobile, Alabama, Jackson Mississippi, and Jonesboro, Georgia. With such an intenerary, I decided that one requirement was that I would get some good southern cooking at some point during the trip.

I realize that this probably doesn't shock those of you who know me, but I frequently plan driving trips around where I'll be eating. I make a quick pass through tripadvisor.com and chowhound.com, and I make a little list of GPS'able locations for restaurants. I am perfectly content to drive ten extra miles and pass 25 Chili's to get to a locally owned restaurant. It's what I love about traveling.

So last night I took off in my Toyota Yaris rental car from Mobile (it was either the Yaris or a 15 passenger van, and while there was something appealing in a "Magical Myster Tour" kind of way about the blog that might result from me randomly picking up 14 other people to join me in the van, I chose the Yaris in an effort to avoid being killed by a random grifter and left for dead in a Mississippi swamp) and headed toward Jackson.

My dinner location for the evening was a BBQ joint just outside of Hattiesburg, Mississippi. How can you drive through Hattiesburg and not want BBQ? I hopped off the freeway at the designated spot, drove a few miles, and the GPS told me I was there. The only problem was that I was on a four lane road surrounded by strip malls, and none of them showed any sign of being Leatha's BBQ Inn.

After I went past the designated spot, I made a U-turn and drove past it two more times, still not finding the restaurant. So despite its #1 rating on Tripadvisor, I decided that the place must have burned down or closed, and I dejectedly pulled off the road to begin searching for a new restaurant, preferably something like a Zaxby's, so that at least it would be someplace we don't have in "the north."

As I turned around, I noticed a little driveway behind the stripmall. I made my way down the path, and at the end was a barn with a few cars in front of it. There was no external lighting and no sign, but there were lights on inside. As I pulled closer, I noticed a hand made wooden sign hanging on the porch announcing Leatha's. I got giddy.

Inside the barn was a big open room filled with tables covered in random plastic tablecloths and white washcloths for napkins. There were maybe eight people inside, plus the staff. A kind-faced woman approached me and told me to sit anywhere.

"What can I getcha to drink?"
"Do you have sweet tea?"
"As muches youcan drink, honey."

Ah, I've found my people. The walls were a pictorial history of Leatha's from the past 50 years, and there were a steady stream of walk-in customers lining up at the counter for carryout.

After a few minutes, a heaping plate of pulled pork and potatoes hit the table in front of me, and the long drive to Jackson and pouring rain were quickly forgotten as I devoured some of the best BBQ I've had in a long time.

$12, a gallon of sweet tea, and 10 minutes later, and I was back on the road to Jackson. I called Erin and told her how cool the place was and that I felt like I'd just eaten on the set of "Fried Green Tomatoes." The evening took an ugly turn when it snowed on me as I pulled into the parking lot of my hotel in Jackson (snow in MS?), but nothing could have dampened my happiness at getting to eat dinner in a place like Leatha's. Two thumbs (and five newfound pounds) up.

I found a few pictures via Yelp.com of Leatha's. If you decide on a visit, just make sure to go where your GPS tells you and then pull behind the strip mall a ways to find them. It's worth the hunt.

No Interventions, Please

Grant: "Daddy, what's your superpower?"
Daddy: "I don't know...what's yours?"
Grant: "Karate!"
Daddy: "Indeed. What do YOU think daddy's superpower is?"
Grant: "Drinking."