So today is the day. I emailed our magnificent ET coordinator this morning, “When can we expect to hear anything?”
“The next couple of days, hang in there!”

She must not know me very well. I’ve never been accused of being able to “hang in there”, especially in matters of the well being of my children. But “hang in there” I must.

With that said, I’ve cleaned the house. Saved all of the pictures we have of Tariku in a format where I should be able to post on the blog and on the forum. Gave the kids baths and am expecting to take mine in a matter of minutes. Any other suggestions for productively passing time? I will be meeting with my sister and Jody for a little bonding time, PUMPing. What else you got? Anything good?

What they don’t tell you before being a parent is that some days when it snows a ridiculous amount and 4 people are crammed into small spaces, you’ll count down the minutes until the kids go to bed. You’ll crack open a longneck at 5 and you’ll take the car to the mailbox going REALLY slowly for some full breaths. They don’t tell you this but I assure you dear blog readers, it is true.

What they also don’t tell you is that even in those moments, you’ll have an instant of clarity and wonder how the 5th member of the family is doing and somehow, you still wish he was here. Crammed into the madness, driving you crazy but with you nonetheless. It’s something like 3 AM in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Tariku is sleeping and the courts will be opening in a few short hours to hear of one little boy and one family halfway across the world praying for each other.

So today they’re predicting at least 10 inches of snow here in the QC. It’s really quite pretty out. Poor Zach has been plowing our road for the last hour. Last night the semi-truck carrying the drywall for the house went in the ditch on the way to camp. It was kind of crazy.

I’ve gotten a lot of emails, phone calls, messages wishing us luck tomorrow. I must say it’s a bit like Christmas in February. I don’t know what to expect. I’m excited, I’m nervous, I want it to come quickly but don’t want to wish a day away. It’s kind of crazy I guess. It probably won’t help that we’ll be stuck inside the house most of the day with very little room. The way we’ve posted pictures of Tariku around here I will be reminded of it all quite a bit.

Thanks to everyone thinking of us! Off to do some laundry.

In order to appreciate these pictures, you need to check your envy at the blog door. I appreciate you avid flawedmama readers who have been on the edge of your world wide web “seats” to see pics of where I call home. I’ve been promising to show you where we were squeezed while the rest of the house gets renovated. Alas, wait no further.

Pictures are: First two pictures are Dailah’s room that is housing our bedroom, living room and my closet.
Third picture: A hilarious light switch cover my mom had bought and didn’t notice that the frog is cupping his “manhood”.
Fourth and fifth: Trysten and Tariku’s room that is now housing Dailah’s crib and Zach’s closet as well as all of both T’s stuff.

I finally made my order for Ethiopian spices. Berbere and Shiro should be arriving at my door in a few short days. Then I shall embark on mastering my child’s favorite Ethiopian foods before he comes home. I’m excited, ready to roll up the sleeves and get the party started. I was going to order some authentic Injera until I saw it was $7 and $10 shipping, I think I’ll just drive to Iowa City and order a bunch to freeze before he gets here.

Yay, one more check mark done…next reads, “Court date”.

Much love to Chandra, (Watching Them Grow) who heard disappointing news today. My thoughts are with you, love!

So court is now THIS Thursday. I’ve known we were going to court since New Years Day. This has meant many days/weeks of having to say, “February 7th”. Most of the time it felt so far away I would just say, “in a couple of months” or something like that. But yesterday a woman at church asked us when our court date was and I got to say, “This Thursday.” Wow.

This week, 4 days (probably 5 until we hear whether we were successful or not). It’s coming, it’s REALLY coming. For those of my forum friends with court dates this week (there are so many of us!) best of luck. I hope we are all celebrating this time next week!

P.S. For those non forum friends, you should be getting excited too. The second I hear of us getting through court you get to “meet” this little Tariku I’ve been talking about and I tell you one thing, you will fall in love the second you see his picture!

Last Saturday Trysten and I had our mommy/son date night. We don’t get to do this nearly as often as I would like but it’s fun whenever we do. We were going to go to a movie and found here in the good ole’ QC they don’t put kid movies anytime after noon. What’s up with that? So we internet searched fun and Michael’s Fun World came up. When it we got there, it was really quite scary and gross but this mom stuck it out when I saw the light in my eldest’s eyes. We tried lazer tag but it turns out it was scary for him after 2 minutes (I didn’t mention the fact that it was the best $15 I ever spent on 2 minutes?.) We also went to Borders and I read books to him for about an hour and half. It was awesome, he was proud of me for not even looking at books for me.

One of the reasons I love spending one on one time with Trysten is because I love hearing what he has to say. He’s a really good, really smart kid and he’s at that age where he tells really awesome stories; some true, some not, some in between. I asked him on our way to Michael’s what he loved doing with each of us. With daddy? “Wrestling with him and reading with him.” With mommy? “Snugglebugging and loving you”. With Dailah? “Making her laugh.” I was going to stop asking then and he said, “Mom you forgot one other person, Tariku.” I ask him what he likes to do with Tairku. “Look at his picture.” Touche my love.

I know it’ll just get increasingly more difficult to get time with Trysten as he’s headed off to Kindergarten this fall and Tariku will be coming, etc. But I am so absolutely amazed how hanging out with him is one of my favorite things to do in all this world. I have a feeling anyone who knows him would say the same. Just look at these pictures and try to disagree.

Things I’ve learned today:

–Little 1 1/2-yr-old girls love getting their fingernails painted.
–When little 1 1/2-yr-old girls get their nails painted, 4-yr-old brothers want theirs done too.
–After you get done painting a little girl’s nails and big brother is waiting impatiently for his turn, screw the lid on tightly.
–Windex gets red nail polish out of beige carpeting after 25 minutes of scrubbing and lots of praying (there were team huddles in there too with the aforementioned girl and boy, which I’m sure was key to our success).

Somewhere, in Altoona and Webster City my mom and aunt respectively are laughing their flippin heads off. Oh Karma you are a fickle little thing.

I’m better today. Not great, but better.

Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but…My husband is the most amazing guy in the world. He took the bull by the horns and started calling every congress, senate, state representative, judge, parking nazi, ANYONE who could help us get our I-600A through. He is too good to be true and I’m quite convinced I’ve done nothing in this life to deserve him. He seems to be making headway but I refuse to get my hopes up until it’s in writing.

Tonight at dinner Trysten said, “Mommy, on Sunday we need to bring money to church.” After some discussion it was discovered he thought we needed to bring money to give to someone else. Who does that when they’re 4?

Also today it was popcorn day at the Y. In the car Dailah was eating popcorn (which she usually doesn’t) and Trysten said, “Mom, you know why Dailah didn’t like popcorn before?” I said, “No, why”? “Because God was still working on her.” Though perhaps a bit misconstrued, the fact that he thinks of God continuously working on us (and making us into lovers of buttery, salty treats) is absolutely awesome.

I love my life. Once we get Tariku home and I’m in the throes of motherhood I will have *hopefully* forgotten what this feeling is like. It is honestly made a bit easier with these 3 humans I get to call my husband, son and daughter.

Dailah says two new words: 1) Kitty (sounds more like titty, so I apologize in advance if she offends anyone) and 2) Markie (my brother’s name)

Some things I have found comfort in the last few days.
Jill Scott playing in the car, me singing REALLY loudly
A good cry
Zach
The kids
Nestle Tollhouse cookie dough
wine
a good cry
food
a good cry
The reminder that tomorrow is my day to sleep in
good friends
Ellen
a good cry
Aristotle (the dog)
Amazon.com
a good cry

Any other good ideas for comfort?