Little Person Blanket

Some of my fondest memories growing up are the times spent learning how to sew from both my mom and my godmother.

My godmother was one of my soul mates in life. She was over 50 years older than me, lived through the great depression, and had such romantic stories of the loves and losses of her lifetime. We were like two peas in a pod...and I just ate up her stories and wisdom. She had a sewing room that had one wall of storage for all of her beautiful fabrics and the opposing wall her sewing machine...I loved that room. I loved that she taught me to sew because I wanted to. She learned out of necessity. She worked hard at sewing as a child because she couldn't wait to make her own clothes and style them the way she wanted versus what her mother made for her. My godmother was quite the fashionista of her time and it still amazes me how she made most of what she wore when she was my age today.

Most days I can still barely sew a straight line, but I like to take on sewing projects anyway.

This is the little-person blanket I made this week. I love this pattern and can't wait to make some matching burp clothes and also tackle the pattern again. Next time I do this pattern I want it to be bigger and hopefully in some vibrant color for the living room. I just love how it adds pattern and a bit of graphic-ness.

I'm also loving the cream and gray colors together. I do really like yellow for baby, but don't want to be limited by it either since we will likely have a surprise baby (in more than one way really..surprise gender...surprise timing...) it's nice to have options.

Home Visit

One of the things that seems to give couples great angst in their adoption journey is the home visit during the home study portion of the adoption process. We were anxious to get through this next step, but in a let's-keep-this-ball-rolling-what-do-we-do-next sort of way. We had our home visit two Friday's ago and I have to say, it was like having a friend over to talk about us and our adoption journey...and then we toured the house and checked all of the fire alarms and some other things on the checklist. Our case worker is phenomenal and I just adore her, so I'm sure that is part of the reason it was such a great experience. She completely puts us at ease. She knows what she is doing. Answers every random question we are able to muster, and is just a sweet person.

One question that our case worker had for us that ended up being my favorite, even though it really made me pause was 'Why did you choose your older sister and her husband for being your future-little-person's guardians if something happened to you?' As I bought myself some time to process a thorough enough answer that would please the case worker, I started by saying because my older sister is one of the most amazing moms in the world and I can only hope to be half as awesome as she is. She is amazing. Period. Now, I did have to suffer through years of my older sis being "Mother-Marci" to all three of us younger kids. And it drove me seriously crazy. But, maybe it helped her prepare for when she had her own little ones
(do you like how I'm able to make it about me and try to take credit for contributing to her awesomeness :o) ? ). Seriously though, she was meant to be a mother and her daughters are super awesome little people and it's pretty evident why.


I did do the obligatory cleaning prior to our home visit, but what I realized while I was doing it was that it wasn't about having the case worker come over to "evaluate" us....it became fun making room for a little person to join our household and that is what I was really doing.

With this room-making we are now preparing for a yard sale that we will have in early August...I have no idea how we have accumulated so much shituff. I guess we have lived in our house now for 6 1/2 years, but it's really no excuse!

I also got really excited about some fun fabric I have in my crafting/sewing/scrapbooking closet. I already have a little-person quilt almost complete...

Nesting?

It is possible I experienced what some refer to as nesting the other day...and even if that isn't what it is, that is what I'm going to call it. I am technically expecting, so I think it counts.

I had a long day at work that included a couple hours of leadership development bringing me home at about 10 o'clock...and then I don't know what came over me, but as I started a load of laundry I suddenly felt compelled to clean the entire laundry room. As the washing machine started I thought I'd check out how long the water tubing-connector-pipe-thingys were, and sure enough long enough to pull the washer out completely. My load of laundry was not going to slow my cleaning down. I could run the washer and clean underneath it at the same time. Sweet! So there I was in the middle of the night squished behind my washer and dryer scrubbing away at the floor and I started to think.....how do pregnant women nest/clean? I mean if I was breaking a sweat, squished in my little laundry room behind the washer and dryer, not able to stand straight up because I would hit my head on shelving, and could barely fit myself back behind the washer to start with... how would a prego ever get this done? Is there magic prego-expecting-nesting powers?

My conclusion is that there is in fact magic powers involved.

My new go-to gift for expecting friends is probably going to be house keeping services from here on out. :)

Oh My Questions

So, something to know about adoption...there is a bucket-load of questions involved. Questions come from all directions. There are the questions on the homestudy paperwork. There are questions in the classes you take. There are questions that you ask your spouse. There are questions that a case worker asks you. And last but not least, there are questions people ask you when you tell them you are adopting. The last being my personal favorite.

People's curiosity is pretty awesome and before you know it you are wondering if they realized how personal of a question they just asked. These questions really don't bug me, but I do wonder how other people feel when they get asked these sometimes awkward things. I haven't always been this way, but I'm pretty much an open book. It also helps that I work with a group of people that really have no reservations in the inappropriateness arena. They set the bar high (or low, either way you look at it). I consider this on-the-job life-training.

So, this is how it typically goes down....

(Me) We are adopting!

(Other Person) That's great. Good for you guys. Have you been trying? (Said with sympathy)

(Me) Thanks! We are pretty excited. No, no we haven't been trying...(trying to not make a face at Other Person)

(Other Person) So, why are you adopting?

The context and person I'm having the conversation with makes this change only slightly. I have a different interpretation of most of the conversations I have, but the end of the day people end up asking me two pretty personal questions. Seriously, don't get me wrong...I love getting the questions. It gives me the opportunity to talk about adoption and what it means to me. However, once I get started I could talk about it almost endlessly!

1. Does your uterus work?
To appease any curiosity of those not close to me. My uterus is fine. As far as I know. I've never tried to get pregnant so I haven't actually tested this hypothesis. I'll let you know when/if I get knocked up to prove this hypothesis. Stay tuned....but don't hold your breath....it might be a while...we're adopting at the moment...

2. Why adoption (and the unasked question following the answer to #1), why don't you just have your own kids?
The answer to this question is much bigger, more complex (yet very simple) then what I can do it justice. Adoption is Jake's and my first choice for our first child. I don't know if I can really say it is our choice alone. It was the choice meant for us; chosen for us. Adoption is by far not the traditional means to grow one's family, but it is the way we are starting ours. We hope to have bio-kids someday too, and maybe even adopt again.

The bottom line to these questions is that it really doesn't matter. Adoption if a beautiful and amazing way to grow a family! I appreciate curiosity and the questions almost always come from a genuine place, but some people I see struggle with it a little bit.

Out of curiosity:
What was your first thought when you saw/heard the news about Sandra Bullock adopting her sweet little boy? Did you assume because she isn't in her 20's or 30's that she can't conceive? Did you wonder why she adopted? Maybe curious of her motives to adopt transracially? To be honest with you, we weren't considering adoption at the time Miss Sandra adopted. I personally didn't think about it much and I really don't remember if I asked these questions myself. I probably did. Now though, I'm primarily in the mindset that it really doesn't matter...Sandra has a beautiful family. She is a beautiful mother. She has a beautiful son. I think she has some fur-babies too, and I'm sure they are beautiful, but I don't keep up with her enough to really know.  :o) Either way, it works for her and that is what matters to her....and that is what really matters....