I think I know what Heaven feels like. I think it’s something like rocking your 18-month-old to sleep when she has a bit of a cough. At first she’s still coughing and then you slowly feel her relax a bit, her breathing becomes heavier and then you feel her melt into your chest. I’m fairly certain it has to feel something like that. God probably lets us feel it in times like those because it’s easier to be thinking of everything you have to do rather than focus on the task at hand. But perhaps He allows us to get a glimpse of it when we slow down and enjoy an extremely active toddler melting into her mommy’s arms. If Heaven feels even 1/10 as good as that felt last night, I’m truly excited for eternity.

I’ve mentioned before how much I love my husband because he is different than any man I’ve known. So he started reading this book by Elizabeth Gilbert (author of “Eat, Pray, Love) called “The Last American Man”. It’s basically about a dude who lives in the woods and eats what he kills, wears what he kills, etc. Well he became what one might call “obsessed” with the book. He now wants to name our son after the guy. I also just logged onto my amazon account and noticed he recently purchased 4 (read that, 4, they were small and cheap but still 4) books on the wilderness and loving nature and deadly/edible plants. The guy is crazy.

I must admit I read that order and just smiled. One of those smiles you get when you’re first dating. Like you have a secret the whole world doesn’t know but should. I guess my secret today is that I love Zachary regardless of his poor taste in literature.

I’m also smiling because I’ve had a REALLY fun day with the kids. Dailah has been saying her favorite word, Julio, and saying it over and over because she knows I can’t help but love her more when she says it. Trysten has been singing and telling good stories, making me tear up, the usual.

Oh, and I’m smiling because I just finished off another batch of cookie dough. YUMMMMM!!

Just got back from my book club. It was great. Great discussion on the book, Barbara Kingsolver’s, “The Poisonwood Bible”. Great discussion about life and great women. Oh, and great food prepared by Kristen Sigler and invented by the fabulous Paula Dean.

I’m amazed how a little time with amazing women can really wake me up. It’s like that first cup of coffee in the morning when you didn’t realize your eyes were only halfway open until they are fully alert after the steaming cup of goodness. It’s like that but way better. I’ve experienced that twice in two days and I’m starting to feel a little spoiled, I’m not going to lie.

God is a funny guy. Does anyone think it’s a coincidence that 3 of the 6 women at book club tonight were adopting (me=Ethiopia, another=Korea, another=domestic)? I don’t think so. Especially since I didn’t have a hand, unfortunately, in bringing either of them there in the first place (unfortunately because I wish I was responsible for bringing their greatness in the “club”). God, I love you. Thank you for that.

I was never really part of a club growing up. Sure, my mom made me join French Club and things but that was really only for my college resume (we don’t have to lie to ourselves anymore mom). My sister-in-law, Kait, started a few clubs with her friends before; though, the way she tells it my favorite husband used to interrupt and throw things at her and her friends, jerk. Anyhow, I never really did that. It feels good starting a club at my youthful age. Especially one that is based on hearing great thoughts on great works of literature. Can this world really handle so many intelligent, beautiful women? I’m not so sure.

So my eldest brother-in-law likes to preface things he’s going to say by saying, “Two things”. So I wanted to start this off Frankie style just cuz I love him so much.

1) Trysten is probably the best almost 5-year-old I know. I am more and more proud of him every day. I look at him and truly believe God put the best of Zach and the best of me and made him. Truly remarkable. Speaking of remarkable, his hair is amazing.

2) I love living out at camp. Sunday Zach and Trysten went on a hike through camp for a couple hours. They came back muddy, happy and toting a deer antler. Scary but pretty cool.

Biggest Loser time. Happy Tuesday!

So I’m fairly convinced my body (i.e. hormones) believes that my love for Tariku=a pregnancy. There is no other explanation how I can consume the large amounts of cookie dough that I do on a regular basis now without feeling even the slightest bit of remorse. The best part about not actually being pregnant is I get to team it up with a bit of wine. 🙂 I know, I’m amazing.

I’m wondering how it is that I love this child so much even though I haven’t met him. Sunday at church a guy from a company who does work in Liberia was there to talk about the partnership our church is doing with his company. There is an option to sponsor a child (which we did, he is 8 and his name is Emmanuel and is absolutely adorable! I had to pick him, he had the same birthday as Tariku!) Anyhow, we have a big Liberian population at our church and during this man’s talk one of them stood up to talk about the situation in Liberia/Africa. At one point he was saying, in his thick Liberian accent, “America please help Africa”, “If it continues as it does I pray that Jesus’s coming comes soon to save Africans from their present day reality”. Yikes. Those that know me, know I’m a crier. So I did fairly well when he was saying this, got the lump in the throat. Couldn’t talk, that kind of thing, but was able to stave off any actual condensation to hit the tear ducts.

Then they asked him to pray. Crap. I looked at my friend, Jody (adopting from Sierra Leone, a country bordering Liberia) and whispered, “Please don’t let the African talk!” His prayer was passionate, amazing and awesome. I cried. I blubbered. There wasn’t just tears running down, it was a full fledged snotty cry. When we were leaving I was wiping my nose on anything I could find. Jody and I ran into Zach on the way out and Jody says, “She lost it”. I did, I’m not afraid to admit it.

I’ve decided there is no reason I should be around any Africans until Tariku comes home. A person with my affinity for cookie dough and amazing capability of crying on a dime should not put my body through such things. I might have to take a sabbatical.

On a lighter and awesomer note, American Gladiator is back and I couldn’t be happier. I’m seriously considering trying out for next season (should they have a 2nd season). I just need to get three things beforehand: 1) fake boobs (yeah right, not going to happen) 2) balls (I’m scared of those women!) 3) teardrop shoulders. I figure it would take 1 year (and $15,000 should I seriously consider #1) to get those things.

Also got the official word that we (by we, I mean our contractor) can start on the house. How excited am I? Um, there are no words. Let’s just say if I was told that by an African, I would still be blubbering.

Our ET coordinator, Jan (yes, a Saturday, yes I love her), called about an hour ago..we have a court date!!!!! February 7th we will *hopefully* hear, “He’s yours!”

That is still a month away, obviously. But it gives me a date, right? Now I won’t be attaching the phone to my ear so as not to miss the call. This is a good call!

What’s next? If all goes well February 7th (I’m not entertaining the idea that it wouldn’t) we would get Tariku’s official birth certificate 1-2 weeks later (by the way, they will write his name as Tariku Zachary Edward Klipsch, which I think is hilarious) and then 3-4 weeks after that we travel!!! So obviously the earliest we travel is March 6th, but I’m counting on March 13ish. We will see. Either way, Tariku’s birthday is March 16th so we’ll probably be over there celebrating!

We have lots to get done in the next 2 months and I can’t wait to get started.

Firstly, found out tonight that Zach has to be out of town the week we’re supposed to get fingerprints done. Setback #1.

Secondly, soo excited about successful court dates for my forum buddies. There was even a forum buddy who received their referral 11/15 (we got ours 11/12) and got through court yesterday. They will be traveling in about 5 weeks. This means ours should “theoretically” be just around the corner. There is no concrete evidence, however, seeings our homestudy was stalled out there for a few weeks.

Thirdly, this is a glimpse into our night just one hour ago:

We had just finished eating dinner, Zach was cleaning up and I was doing some laundry when I hear, “Tesi, a little help!”
I go running into the kitchen to find Zach lifting Dailah up from her booster seat, she has some substance on her pants.
Zach says, “She shit her pants.”
I said, “That’s shit?”
Zach, “Well it’s either that or she got ahold of a chocolate milkshake and I didn’t realize it.”
Tesi, “My God, it smells like death, you know I’m not good at these kinds of things.” (Editors note: My blog is called “flawed mom” because I’m just that, I hate all things that “run” out of children. If it’s done when Zach isn’t around it usually results in lots of crying–me– and very little clean up. Thank heavens for hardcore husbands)
Zach, (still holding Dailah up by the armpits) “What should I do?”
Tesi, “Put her in the sink and we’ll take her clothes off there.”

So we put her in the sink, find out the poo has not only come out her pants, socks, shoes, etc, but also up her shirt. Zach says he heard the noise that usually accompanies a poo and thought nothing of it until he smelt the foulness. Anyhow, the connundrum was how do we get the shirt off without giving her a poo face? I tell him I’ll start a shower and we can just put her in there fully clothed and let it all wash nicely down the drain.

So I’m getting the water lukewarmish and he’s hanging with her. Then he says, “Help!” So I put down the showerhead (it’s old school down there, like the one my grandma has in her house that comes of the nozzle to reach in places I don’t want to think about) and run to help. He didn’t listen to my logic of undressing in the shower and has her undressed with no poo face (I’m truly impressed) but it’s time to get rid of the diaper. We decide to get a plastic bag, have her stand it in and just let gravity do it’s dirty work.

All this is done and he takes her to the shower while I dispose of the nastiness. I hear, “Tesi!” Well that showerhead I had just plunked down was unfortunately facing OUTSIDE of the shower itself and I now had a nice Nile River plunging through my bathroom.

Alls well that ends well. It was not a good day for Dailah. She fell and hit her eye, resulting in a black eye. Fell and hit her head, resulting in a bump and crapped her pants, almost resulting in a poo face.

Moral of the story: I may have enough love to mother many, many children but I don’t have near a rough enough stomach to deal with their vomit, poo or anything else disgusting.

Never been more proud to be an Iowan than I am tonight. Great turnout for the caucuses. I love the fight in even the smallest of states.

The latest things I love about being a mom:
–Dailah makes this “yum, yum” sound when she gets hungry. She puts her tongue between her lips. Could be the cutest thing.
–Trysten likes holding his sister’s hand. Whenever we go to walk somewhere, she puts out her hand towards him and he grabs it and off they go. When I’m working out, I can see them through some windows walking hand in hand to the kids gym.
–Trysten said the other day that he misses his brother. He says this a lot and is asking with more frequency how much longer it will take until he’s home.
–When Dailah is really tired she actually leaps out of your arms to her crib when we get close.
–Tonight Trysten told me in the car that he was really tired tonight and just wanted to go straight to bed instead of getting his 2 minutes hanging out upstairs. Who does that?
–Tariku has touched lives in the most extraordinary ways. We haven’t even met him yet!

Latest thing I love about being a wife:
–I’m married to the most ridiculously good-looking, smart, hilarious man.

Latest things I’m sad about:
–My sister-in-law, Kait, left today to go to Chile for 7 months. There are no words for how happy I am for her and there are no words for how selfishly sad I am that she’s gone.
–Still no word on travel for Tariku.

Overall, my happy column far outweighs doesn’t it? I am one lucky lady.

Dear House,
I’m sure you’re thinking this is a Dear John letter, if you are, you are right. I have something to say, house, and it seems you no longer hear me when I tell it to your face. So I hope this letter finds you more understanding and willing to negotiate.

House, I used to kind of think you were charming. When we first met, I laughed that you had urinals in one of your bathrooms. I smirked when doing laundry as it is necessary for me to turn it to “cold” if I’d like “hot” water and vice versa. I chuckled when I went to my sacred shower and instead of pure, clean water to wash my long locks with, you gave me chlorinated pool water (without the urine, thanks very much).

I looked on admirably as you let every rodent, crawly thing and disgusting smell come through your doors. No matter how many I killed, you continued to be a place of refuge for the smallest of God’s creatures. I even forgave you for the most unsightly florescent lights I’ve seen since elementary school.

But I’m done with you, house. It’s hard to even write that as I’ve always considered myself to be a person who loves people and things for who they are, irregardless of the “flaws” they might contain. But that is no longer true for you. I no longer think you’re charming and I’m not sure the last time I smiled at anything dealing with you. (Keep in mind I am only referring to your “top half”, I have no bones to pick with your “bottom half”.) Tonight, Trysten found both a dead mouse (inside you) and a cat (outside next to you). Why do you do these things to me?

Today Zach had a meeting to talk with the professionals about what to do with you. He is pulling to get you fixed up right. It seems everyone else is pulling to keep you just as you are but Zach and I make quite the persuasive team. This will not be a long fight for you, house, and you will not win.

Alas, even though you house all things creepy and crawly you also house the 3 other people who are most important to me in this world. You keep us warm and sheltered from this Iowa winter and I am thankful for that. I can’t hate you with a hot, hot, hatred because of that fact alone. But I am Dear Johning you and I hope you realize how serious I am about things.

With no love,
Tesi