Wealthy Woman

Tuesday Morning:
So, I'm tired and a good bit frustrated.  Looks like, due to money and timing and various other circumstances but mostly money and timing, I will be headed to China by myself.  I am both disappointed and relieved by this turn of events.  I am disappointed because I wanted this to be a family experience, I  really wanted my husband and then my kids to come along and be a part of it. I am relieved because I'm not going to have to deal with a 6yo and 4yo (+ a  grieving 2 yo) on a trip of this magnitude.   (It was my very good friend, "the Keeks," -also known as Best Barn Friend- who suggested this two weekends ago, "What if the kids don't go?"  Isn't it nice to have someone who knows you well enough to be able to pinpoint exactly what you can't see about yourself ... and then loves you enough to say it out loud?)

At this point, I don't want to sight-see, I don't want to immerse myself culturally, I don't want to have this huge learning experience for my kids. I want to go get my daughter, do what is best for her, and come home. Period.

I wish my hubby could come along, I really do, but we have no one to leave the little kids with and we have to do what's best for them, too. Best for them is to spend two weeks in a place and with people that they feel safe and secure with and right now, that's their dad.

I've been pregnant with this adoption, I will be the one who goes to labor and delivery.  I just never planned on it being an "alone" labor and delivery.


Tuesday Evening:
And voila! Life changes.  My very good friend God-given family, Bea, has graciously volunteered to come here and take care of our kids so that K-Man and I can go together to pick up Lyric.

Read: come to my house, sleep in a bed that's not hers, live out of a suitcase, be away from her family, navigate in a city that she's unfamiliar with and take care of my 6yo and 4yo ACTIVE kids for about 2 1/2 weeks.

I feel awful, she was supposed to go with us to China, so now I have promised her China and delivered, instead,  Alabama.  Really, not quite the same.  Or maybe, quite the same without the "exotic" ... plus the accent.  :)
 
But I also feel very loved that she would do this, that she would so willingly give of herself to make a way so that K-Man and I can go 1/2 way across the world to be where we need to be. She's been there often, when I've needed her - after my divorce, during the awful days and nights of my therapy for childhood abuse (I answered the phone at least once, when she'd called to check on me, sobbing and yelling out "whys,") and she was the friend that I met in Sedona, Arizona so many years ago when I took my LIFE BREAK.

She's one of those friends that you can't believe love you back and you wonder how other people get through life without someone just like her.


And, I'm repaying her love and kindness by leaving her with my kids for a little over 2 weeks, alone.  :)

 So, if you're in north Alabama in mid-July and just happen to see Bea out chasing my kids somewhere, stop and give her a hug.  She's a "good one" ... and she probably needs it. ;p

(Wait, did I just say that I'd be leaving my 6yo and my 4yo for two WEEKS?  <gulp>)

Also, check out what one of my oldest and dearest friends, LL, sent Lyric all the way from Chicago.  (She also sent Matchbox cars for the boys and a plaque for me- thoughtful!)  I've wanted a bracelet for Lyric for quite a while now, it's important to me to have it to put on her little wrist on Gotcha Day. I don't know why (it's probably something along the lines of  "Today, I became someone's princess. See? I have the jewels to prove it." :) )  The one that I'd found was "no longer available" but I love this one, more. How'd LL know? She knew because she's my friend.

Then, there are the people who have never ceased to do "happy dances" and, alternately groaned with me, during this adoption. The ones who check up on me and ask to see pictures that I know that they've already seen. The ones who meet me for lunch and listen over and over again to my updates. And, yes, even the Facebook friends :) - I can't wait to share any new good news on Facebook because I  know that I can count on them to "show up" en masse to cheer me on. Whoever said that Fb friends aren't "real"  just doesn't  get it, huh? (Fb is a tool, it is what each user makes of it.)

I am a woman rich in friends- and that really is about quality, not quantity.

PS  I am reminded that, although we have tons of adoption books, the only adoption book that Middle Child has really let me read to him on a consistent basis is A Sister for Matthew in which Matthew stays with his grandparents while the parents go to China and then he meets his new sister in the airport.  I kept trying to get him to let me read Waiting for May because in that one the little boy goes to China with his parents and therefore the story was more applicable for our situation. No, he wanted A Sister for Matthew.  I think that all along he was trying to tell me in his sweet, quiet, little Middle Child way, that he was MUCH more comfortable with staying home.  Ain't it great when life works out like it's supposed to, in spite of your best intentions?  :)