Ugly AND Venomous = Dragons and Long Waits

As of tomorrow, we'll have been waiting on LOA (China says, "yes!") for 70 days. This is actually below average but the averages vary and change and do rollercoaster loop-de-loos while we all try desperatly to figure out how long something's going to take that depends on people and circuamstances WAAAAAY out of our control. In fact, we are behind. China needed some stuff notorarized and it took me about two weeks to get everything back to them so we're really about two weeks behind. We think. Nobody really seems to know. It's a "best guess" nightmare.

I LOVE this picture. So sweet.

I'm losing my mind waiting.

I actually dreamed that my whole family went to China...and came home with two tiny black and white kittens (pandas?) In the dream I was exhausted from the trip and panicked...I looked at the "kitties", looked at my husband, and begged, "They are cute and all...but we ARE going back for Lyric. Right? RIGHT???"


It seems like every song on the radio makes my heart beat harder, from Van Morrison's, "Brown-Eyed Girl" to John Mellencamp's, "China Girl,"  even Cyndi Lauper's, "Hole in My Heart (All the Way to China)."

And none of them are even REMOTELY about Chinese adoption.


<sigh>



Things I've heard, recently:

<to a lady in the hallway at school> "I'm gonna have a Chinese sister!" -Middle Child

<to me>"I want to play with my sister, where is she? It's taking too long! She's so cute!" -Middle Child

"Me too! I want to play with my sister. (Q-Boo) is taking too long!" - Wild Child (he can't say "Lyric," it comes out, "Wyrwic" :) )



Even the boys have about had it.

This isn't something that I push, "Your sister is coming!" Because, let's face it, it's a LONG wait time for an adult, it's just about ridiculous for a small child. So, it's not constantly in their faces, like it is in mine. But even they are begining to feel it.

You know how, in a pregnancy, there's a due date? A time that "this will be over," give or take a few weeks? It's not like that in international adoption. <shakes head> When we first accepted her referral we were told that we'd probably be traveling to go get her "in March," that seemed like FOREVER from July. 8 months. FOREVER. (That's 8 months from the date of the referral, we've been doing this whole thing for over a year, now.)  C'mon! She has a face and a name, I'm in love! She should be here already and every day that she's not is a day that I miss of her life and a day that we don't get to bond. ARGH!!!

Well, it's late March (finally!) and I haven't bought airplane tickets to China, yet. In fact, last I heard, the adoption has been pushed off to June. I'm doing the math and wondering if it won't be July or August. (I've told myself repeatedly that "she'll celebrate her second birthday WITH US! Yippee!"  Now, that may not happen.)

<sigh, again sigh>

At this point, I could have given birth to ( I was going to say " to an elephant" but according to ask.com, an elephant's gestation is 22 months. Egads.) a Komodo Dragon  (oh, the things that you can discover on the internet!)  I don't want a Komodo Dragon, I want a tiny, gorgeous, brown-eyed, girl who needs her mommy! And, her mommy needs her!  One of my children is across the world and I can't get to her. I can't reach her. I can't give her little kisses on her sweet nose. I can't tell her goodnight. 

(Well, I do, every night I tell her pictures "goodnight." My husband once asked me if we were going to try to learn some Chinese to help with her transition. I'd laughed and replied, "We're southern. We murder OUR language. If she spoke standard English, we'd have to learn that to communicate with her."

I was only 1/2 joking. 

We ARE trying, so every night I kiss my fingers, place them on her little face in the pictures, add a southern twist to my REALLY bad Chinese, and say, "晚安 親愛的"  which is supposed to sound like "why-un  chee-nigh-da"  and is supposed to mean "Goodnight, sweetheart." Then, I top it off with "我爱你" or "why-I-nee," meaning "I love you."
  

Theoretically.

I'm probably, in reality, comparing a skinny ugly cow to someone's grandmother. I know this, so I will be very slow to speak any Chinese in China.  I told my hubby that the only thing I really need to learn in Chinese is, "Quick, somebody find my interpreter!" )

Since, I can't DO anything, I shop. I'm not a shopper. Not really. But, "pink!" calls me across stores like two dogs in heat (yeah, that's the southern in me, slippin' out - we say that, "two dogs in heat," yeesh. :) ) I can even hear it in my vehicle while I'm driving down the highway and suddenly, without even thinking about it, I've pulled into the parking lot. I try to keep it down to a dull roar, I shop sales (do boutique sales count as sales?) and consignment stores and "cheap"places  (ha! I've spent more on her than all three boys combined!)  but her closet is PACKED. I have 12 months, 18 months, 24 months, even a few 3T. When I get to missing her, I go into her room and play dress up. I pair little tights with dresses and hats and bows. Those little bitty baby shoes are my absolute weakness. I don't even know what size her feet are, I can guess, but she won't be the same size when we finally get to her. Ai Yi Yi! 

Is there a ten step program for adoptive moms? Maybe, I'll start one.


I've been following an adoption blog called,  "Five of My Own,"  (well, soon it'll be Six) and, after many months of  listening to that adoptive mom's whining about how it was NEVER gonna happen, they are now in China. So, it does happen. 


It just doesn't happen NEARLY fast enough.