So if things come in 3s am I done yet?

Is it bad that I have become used to the feeling of having either the rug pulled out from under me or being punched in the gut? (just let me wallow for a bit)
Today I got a phone call from my boss (P), who I've never met in person. I was getting A~ ready for Pre-school and the phone rang, I saw it was from the main office (I'm an office manager at a satellite office) but I couldn't get to the phone. My boss left a message to call her back. I knew it had to be bad because in the little over a year I've worked there I have talked to her 5 times, and never from home. Plus, there has been that cloud of doom and gloom hanging over the office for I'd say a good month or more. Anyway, after finally getting a hold of her P told me that they are closing the office location I work at and that my position has been eliminated, effective immediately. I job share, and the woman I share with has been there for 35 years! 35 years! And she just learned today, like I did, that her position is eliminated and that her last day is today. And yes my last day was Tuesday, thanks for the heads up. Nice to know we meant something. I am very happy to say that they're not getting rid of everyone at the office, just the 2 of us, because that'd be seriously depressing.
I am still reeling a bit. This really has been one of the nicest jobs I've ever had. Yes it could be boring, and I really felt useless at times, but the people were very nice, the location was great, and the days were just what we needed at the time (when K~ had his job). If I didn't like it I would've quit right after K~ lost his job and gone and waited tables somewhere and earned the same amount in 1/2 the hours. I kind of sensed that this was going to happen at some point, I was just really hoping it'd be sometime after we sold the house. I guess that the only positive thing is that I do get a severance, a little less than one months salary.
So what's next? Hopefully I'm done with the bad luck portion of the year, K~ lost his job, the adoption is sidelined and I lost my job too. That's 3! And attention universe I thinks that's about all I can handle right now, got that?

So I need a little bit of what makes me happy today:
Sunny day
Seeds that A~ and K~ planted are sprouting
My Mom/A~'s Nana
That there's little doubt that things will get better
and Winnie napping in her spot on our bed
(I think I'll join her)

Do sore throats and comet mix?

Probably not.
I've been MIA because we're officially putting the house up on weds, well actually thursday. We have been cleaning and cleaning and organizing. It's exhausting. Hopefully it'll be well worth it. I have to admit I am both scared sh*tless and excited about what comes next. I haven't even let my self think much about it, we'll be moving again, this time out of MN. WOW. You know I wish we could just pick this house up and move it wherever we go, I like our house, it was finally just becoming ours. Now it's clean and shiny for someone else. :-( This was going to be our forever house, the one our kids would grow up in and we'd grow old. I had plans for a huge garden, adding a patio to the deck in the backyard, updating the kitchen, the list goes on. I hope what we gain from this move is more than weather or better finances, I hope that we get breathing room and perspective. I also just hope we get through this move in tact! K~ hates change and fights it, and even though selling the house is largely his idea, it doesn't seem to help. Yes K~ has always had mild to moderate OCD, and it rears it's head whenever change is involved. His entire family is like that in some form. It's been a battle, or maybe more like the third person in our marriage. Sometimes I think we've conquered it and other times I feel defeated by it. I'm thinking that moving will help. I hope. Hell to really break his habit we should move every year! Totally kidding! We'd both end up curled up in opposite corners rocking back and forth muttering to ourselves, A~ would have serious parent issues. ;-)


On the adoption front, I've been disturbed by the rumors in VN again. I just keep praying that that's all it is. I wish that the state department or the uscis would be more forthcoming about concerns they might have if any, or they'd update their page with more current information instead of sticking to the legalese. Oh and I was trying to look for info on the VN embassy site and on the VN government sites, good luck! Nothing. Just a couple forms in PDF, nothing about statistics, or even anything about how Vietnamese people can adopt from their own country. That's not too promising. I mean I know that they're not going to advertise to the world that they've got thousands of children in orphanages, but man you'd think there'd be something! Another thing that concerns me, and this is purely personal, is the flooding of the VN adoption program by those from china in particular. It's almost comical in away that nearly 2/3 of the recent new member intros on a few of the Groups have this sentence, "DH and I have been DTC for x months and with all of the issues in China we've done some soul searching and find that Vietnam is really in our hearts.". Now maybe some of them have done real soul searching, but really? Or is it the same exact thing as the PAPs that say "we've looked for an agency that was a perfect fit for our family and we chose (blank) agency" and lo and behold the perfect fit was also the fastest most controversial agency with immediate referrals. Seems a lot alike to me. VN isn't in your "heart", it's within your time frame (ie. instant gratification). Hey I'm right there with ya, faster is great. But be honest, it's insulting to all of the APs who have children from VN already and are hoping to bring home a sibling after such a long shut down, and it's insulting to those families who have VN heritage (and those whose very first and only choice for whatever reason is VN). Yeah, I'm irritated that China's having such an impact on the VN program, as I'm sure people who's hearts are truly in China are that they have to wait even longer, but I'm mad when people insult my intelligence. Ya jumped ship because the wait was long, duh. (p.s. if you jump ship and don't have a child or have a daughter already please be open to either! VN is not China! And boys are amazing! I am surrounded by them.)

The big reality check is going to hit many of these families, things change rapidly in this new program and there's a storm brewing, either the rumors are true or the rumors will create problems. When we started this last year our wait went from 4 months to 18 months in the span of 3 months. The agency's wait for new families went to 24 months. So don't even count on being done faster than China. And in all honesty, I wouldn't choose VN right now if I already had LID in China. I have even thought of other options, like Taiwan or Korea, or even thinking about domestic. But for us, until VN is shut down, VN is where we hope to bring a child home from.

Just for fun

Thought I'd post a few pictures:

A~ got a camera from Grandpoo and Nanpoo for his 5th b-day, he took this picture of daddy(with mickey and rosa his valentine hamster)

One of my favorite pics of A~ at the state fair last year

My super cute little(big) Brother, who I am so totally proud of, who makes me feel really old, is such a total 16 year old boy, and I love! (hey look at that face, who wouldn't?) Oh, he also uses my computer to store all of his pictures for his myspace page when he supposed to be doing homework. Brothers...

I wish I had some good pics of K~ and I together but we both close our eyes in pictures or make goofy faces. I'll have to make use of photoshop someday. But here's one from the photobooth

When I'm bored I research

And research and research. Today's theme was adoption blogs, then Yahoo! groups, and now it's whether to use pay-pal or amazon to receive donations and sell my wall votives to save for the adoption. It seems as though both charge the same amount, amazon seems as though it might be easier to use. I wonder if I could use both, and then if one's less popular switch to the other one?
I had been holding off on starting the actual fund raising process until we got re-started, but after reading others' blogs I see it's not uncommon to begin before the actual process. Insert huge sigh of relief here. And it's not as though we won't adopt, we will, even if I get discouraged I am still determined and hopeful. Here that K~? Determined(he,he). K~ is on board with the adoption he's supportive, interested, and involved, he's just not actively involved in the research the ethics topics the questions of what agency is a better fit for us. I may want him to be active in this, but I may have to resign myself to simply having his okay. That makes it sound awful doesn't it? Like I'm demanding and he's a door mat. Well, I'm not demanding and he's not a door mat. This just happens to be one of those areas where he's completely clueless and at a loss and I have definite opinions. I do wish that his views or more like his determination on this more mirrored my own. But I didn't marry male-me. He's much cuter.
K~ and I have had many ups and downs, we've been together for 13 years! We've made it through the 7 year itch and are going to celebrate 8 years of marriage in September! Just in the past few years we've come to terms with our odd-ness and the relief of not having to live up to ideas of a perfect family has made things so much easier. Who knew? And most importantly I love him. And he cleans. ;-)
So back to the topic, pay pal, amazon or both?
I'll have to pay closer attention to whats being used.

OMG, I still have one hour left at work! Save me!

Ahhh, who am I kidding? I'm gonna leave early, it's too nice out!

Things that make me happy today:
Spring
A happy talkative little boy
only one hour left of work

title what title?

I can't title this entry because I have no idea where this is going.
I have always been terrible at naming things, or titling posts as the case may be. I'm even awful at putting subject headings on emails. I feel so much pressure!

I've been at work reading blogs all morning, exciting right? Oh and then I decided to come back here and blog a little. Busy day at work. I have the worlds most annoying fax machine right next to me and every time a fax comes in it emits this LOUD buzz/whine which usually ends up startling me. Nothing like 20 little heart attacks a day to keep you awake.
Since the adoption is still a dream at this point I should concentrate more on the family portion of the blog. That would lighten things up a bit, anything to do with living with my 2 guys would lighten things up!

The latest being, huge (no pun intended) poop issues in our household. A~ often has issues with constipation, sort of common for boys I guess. Well up until last night at 8pm he hadn't pooped in a week! Save 2 tiny little rabbit ones, which he was trying to get full credit for. Our family always has bad timing, so usually any one of us will get sick at the least opportune time and most often on weekends when there's no doctor readily available. This time the timing was off because I was at work which left K~ to deal with lack of sleep and a screaming boy on a toilet. Finally Tuesday after a long night where A~ got up on his own 2 or 3 times to go sit on the potty, you know it's bad when he gets up on his own to sit on the toilet, I decided to take 1/2 a day off work and help (and get a nap in). I was no help and went to work with A~ still trying. It's so frustrating sitting in a bathroom all day trying any tactic we could think of, being supportive "come on honey you can do it, just push!", to trying to relax him and read a book, to simply walking away, giving him space, trying to regain sanity and sitting in another room trying to watch tv with closed captioning on, and trying incentives, threats, like "if you don't poop honey we can't let you go to pre-school". So off to the internet to look for some thing we over looked. Nope. Ugh, this means we need to get out the serious stuff....baby suppositories, shudder. And trust me when I say that he was traumatized, but more traumatized by the idea of it than the actual thing, he didn't even know it was in! But the drama and the negotiating before hand was very intense. I think the actual process of getting it in was more traumatic for K~ and I, though I made K~ do the dirty work, ha! (I have had that job before so it was his turn!) Well, the suppository did not provide immediate relief. I went to work and came home to both boys passed out on their own couches, I had some nice mommy alone time, it's rare that our house is quiet. We did finally have success but it took 2 doses of milk of magnesia and 8 hours! After the initial success we let A~ stay up thinking there HAD to be more just waiting, his tummy was "talking" and A~ was "translating", but he said there was no more. And finally at 10pm he went to bed. I rushed to work after trying hard to wake a very sleepy K~ up, when I got to work I called to make sure he was up and K~ told me that A~ had pooped 2 times in his sleep!!! UGH! They weren't messy, which surprised me after all of the 'help' we'd given him, but A~ woke up in a great mood and had no issues, K~ clearly had issues and was not as happy. Thanks K~ for not waking me up!! Hopefully the kid will finally learn to go when he has to go and not hold it!!! AAAAAAAGGGGHHHH!!!

It's these little things that your think to yourself, had I known my life would be tied to an other's bodily functions would I actively choose parenting? Parenting is definitely rewarding, and it's a good thing that the rewards far outweigh the pitfalls or I'd bet there would be a lot more "let me get back to you"s in reply to that.

Is it just me or does everyone seem to be pregnant? A bit of useless trivia: I have this strange way of knowing when some women are pregnant, maybe it's a 'those who can't do, teach' kind of thing? Anyway, the first time was my mom, she called me downstairs to talk to me when I was 16 and I'll never forget it, I turned the corner and saw her standing at the bottom of the stairs and simply blurted out "you're pregnant". She was surprised to say the least. The next time was a friend of a friend (Amy) who I'd only met on a few occasions, I had a dream about Amy that she was giving birth outside our apartment building to twin boys, it was so weird I told my friend about it and many months later learned Amy had a baby boy. The next time I saw Amy she had 2 boys less than one year apart. After trying to conceive A~ for so long it seemed as though my intuition ramped up, I saw Madonna on a TRL appearance and said to myself she's pregnant, a while later she announced it. Then there was the wife of someone at work, and the one time I remember being wrong was a guy and his girlfriend at work(but that was a dream and they seem less accurate), then there was Amy, lo and behold she was pregnant again! Recently, there was a woman I work with here, the dancing with the stars woman(way before she announced it), Elizabeth from the view(since March), and our local tv weather lady. I'm now trying to figure out what it is that I see subconsciously when I see these women, I can't figure it out. And none of them had any noticeable belly bumps at the time. With most of the ones I know, or know the birthdays of I figure that I spotted the pregnancies at about 2 months along, so may be it's that the women know and they give off signals? Anyway it's weird and seems to happen sporadically.