Dresses for Our Daughter

When my parents visited in September, they brought out two dresses for our little girl that I wore as a child. This weekend I washed and pressed them and it felt so strange! Maybe it's because we haven't purchased much stuff for her... not having an age, height, or weight does put a damper on shopping. I mean, we've bought stuff for the trip and furniture for her room, but somehow washing clothes that she'll actually wear felt strangely intimate, oddly real. I'm sure that makes absolutely no sense, but it's just how I feel!

The white dress is just shy of one hundred years old and originally belonged to my great aunt. It's almost overwhelming to think that our little girl will be the fourth generation to wear it. This is all starting to feel more real, yet still painfully distant. I'm telling you, adoption is a long, strange trip!

Here's my current memory verse, Jude verse 2, from The Message translation:

Relax, everything's going to be all right; rest, everything's coming together; open your hearts, love is on the way!

It's so good on so many levels. It's especially good for an impatient Mommy's heart.

We won't have any real adoption news until the end of this month, at the earliest. It "normally" takes around two months to get through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, so "normal" timing would have us emerging from the MFA in late October. We'll be sure to keep you posted on any late breaking news. It seems like things are going a little more slowly than "normal" right now in adoptions from Kazakhstan, so we're learning patience and praying that our little girl comes both soon and exactly at the right time. Don't worry, God is smart enough to figure out how to bring her soon and in perfect timing :)

A Combined Goodnight

We've been talking about it for a long time and today we actually did it - the boys are sharing a room! I was a little concerned that there might be drama, since this is basically the fruition of all of Ben's hopes and dreams (he's the social one, in case you haven't noticed) and I expected Sam to be not nearly as enthusiastic, but everybody's handling the transition in stride. Sam took the top bunk, so that deal-sweetener definitely didn't hurt.

It was important to us for the boys to combine spaces well before we leave to meet Sestra. Mostly this is because we anticipate that there will be a "transition period" (and for brothers, I believe that this is always code for "violent period") as they learn to share space, and we wanted to have as many of the kinks worked out as possible before we add the additional complication of learning to be a party of five! Plus, now we can take our time getting Sestra's room ready without having to worry about disturbing Sam's sleeping quarters.

We still have a little clean up to do (rearrange the closet, add a reading light for Sam, modify the ceiling fan so that it won't decapitate him), but the beds are set up and clothes are moved, so the bulk of the work is done. This is definitely all because of Steve - I am only marginally more useful today than a pat of butter (don't ask me why, but that was the first image that came to mind). The boys were sick towards the end of the week and I think that I'm battling whatever they had because I woke up at 10, took another nap during Meet the Robinsons (I love that movie!), and spent most of the rest of the day standing around with the vague notion that I was supposed to be doing something but couldn't quite line up the synapses to remember what that thing was.

I did, however, find a new bedtime story today. I had $5 in Borders Bucks and a 20% off coupon burning a hole in my pocket, so I went over to our local Borders (spending most of the time standing around with the vague notion that I was supposed to be doing something - do you detect a theme?) and found this gem - an illustrated version of Forever Young. The lyrics to one of my favorite songs of all time, compiled in a children's book, illustrated with pictures depicting Bobby's life and legacy. Yeah, it's one that should grace every child's bookshelf.

Sam the Entrepreneur

Thanks to an increased allowance, Sam has discovered that it's really fun to have your own money and spend it how you want - we have created a monster! He is now selling paper airplanes to anybody with a spare dime - it's hard to read the sign in this picture, but it says "paper airplanes 10¢ over 100 50 15 difrent models." Here he's showing off the "supersonic," one of his favorites.

I have to say, it's been great giving the boys enough money that they can actually save it up and buy stuff that is important to them. For example, they combined savings to buy Lego Batman for the Xbox 360 last week, and Ben used his own money to buy several books from his class's book order form. They pay for their own field trips and treats, like Slurpees or donuts. It's stuff that we probably would have purchased anyway, so we're not spending any more than we normally would have, and it's been great watching them learn that there are trade offs for every purchase.

And if anybody needs a paper airplane, you know who to call.