now I’m excited.

I’ve gotten over my hesitations (for now) and am just excited.

12 days to go and I’m finding my excitement coming in waves.

I taught my last Friday Bodypump this morning (next Friday we have a travel call during class) before we leave and I thought I was going to jump out of my skin.

Let’s do this.

My very good friend Beth is in Ethiopia picking up their baby Lucia and may or may not have found my boys…jumping on her husband’s lap.

12 days and we’ll be on our way to the day when they’ll jump on my husband’s lap.

This is good stuff.

Oh, and I packed most of the boys’ stuff, if for no other reason than to save my poor husband from seeing tampons all the time (he sure gets squeamish when it comes to those types of things).

That chain is getting quite small indeed.

and all I have packed is 2 tampons…

I don’t know why I’m surprised to find out that each adoption can be different since each of my pregnancies was different. It certainly makes sense that every time you decide to build your family it will feel different.

With Tariku I was so focused on the adoption. By that I mean the paperwork, the waiting, the paperwork, the waiting and the dreaming. It wasn’t until hindsight showed me just how inadequate the time I spent focusing on parenting another child was. I think that’s why it took a few days/weeks for it to hit me “Holy junk, we have another child, when did that happen?”

And then I entered what I lovingly refer to as the “Did we just f-up our lives?” stage. To be fair, I had it with Dailah, Tariku and now I’m already there with the boys.

I think this is honestly a good place to be. This adoption went so smoothly and quickly I didn’t have a chance to worry about the adoption part for too long. The whole time I’ve been preparing myself for two more boys instead of preparing myself for more paperwork, etc.

Yesterday I cleaned the house and for the couple hours it took to finish the task, the kids played outside the whole time. There was no fighting, no tattling, nothing. And that’s when I remembered I’m going to go shake up this sunny world I’ve got going for me.

Please understand, I’m beyond excited to see the boys. If our agency called me today and said, “Psych-you get to leave tomorrow”, I’d say “Peace out Quad Cities, I’m pickin up my boys!” I’m that excited about them and about our new family dynamics once they get there.

But I’m super realistic this time around. I know it will be hard at first. Hard for us, hard for them, hard for our other 3. For an undetermined amount of time I might be swimming in this “what did we just do” stage.

And that’s ok.

Because I know in an also undetermined amount of time we’ll be in the “This is better than I could’ve dreamed” stage.

So, like I’ve told a few people, I’m just ready to go. To get it started already. My anxiety is killing me with all of this time to imagine every worst (and some best) case scenarios.

2 weeks from tomorrow ladies and gents and I haven’t packed a thing. But I have made lists. Lots and lots of lists (I do believe we’re up to 10) so that’s something.

Tomorrow my goal is to condense them down to 6 or 8. Doable?

On Thursday I called Zach to tell him I just saw a sign that announced Chuck Norris was coming to town to stump for a political candidate. Didn’t really care about the candidate, only cared that Chuck Norris was going to be within reach and that we had the chance to thank him for his work in such notable films as Way of the Dragon.

I also thought someone needed to thank him for his moooostache (as you’ll see in this video, Norris’ facial hair deserves special recognition).

And all the camp counselors had just came into town.

So this is what happens when my husband decides to make something happen. Watch the video, Zach is the lead guy screaming, in the tan hat front and center. I’m not sure I could love him more after watching this. (I mean, please, he almost round house kicks Chuck Norris!)

As a side note, no one at Camp Abe Lincoln/YMCA is associated or endorsing Bob Vander Plaats, just wanted to reiterate that.

And this picture* will be old news.

*More pictures of my brother and sister-in-law’s wedding coming very soon (hopefully) because they were both too beautiful for words.

So my friend Chrissy is arguably more excited about my birthday (Saturday) than I am. Yesterday morning she brought some jelly beans to one of my classes with a little “Happy Birthday week!” Whether you believe it’s someone’s aura or vibe or whatever, Ms. Chrissy is rockin’ a pretty sweet one. To know her is to love her because she reeks of sweetness and love. If I could change one thing about myself it would be to do more randomly nice things. I have friends like Chrissy who remember that I told them 4 months ago that I like purple eyeshadow (as an example) and next time they see purple eyeshadow they buy it for me. I cry nearly every time I receive one of these well thought out gifts, no matter the actual cost-or lack thereof.

Chrissy is far left here.

So a few weeks ago I got an email telling me about the partnership between charity: water and TOMS (two of my favs, if you’ve been here for awhile). There were 2 pairs of shoes that some of the proceeds would be going to building freshwater wells AND still delivering that “One for One” promise. But there was one pair, it had a map of one of my favorite continents. I wanted them, really badly.

But we’re in the middle of an adoption which means I wouldn’t even be able to sneeze if it cost money. Truly. So I kind of mourned these awesome pair of shoes that would surely be gone by the time we could afford it.

And then at my last class last night Chrissy walks in with a huge box. And inside?

As emotional as I am lately (and always) of course I cried. What a sweet, sweet gift. And really? It was just too much, which is what I love about Chrissy, she is too much in every great way.

Oh and there’s this little favorite part too. Where we’ll be heading 3 weeks from today!!!

And another really cool part is the inside of these. Check out the jerry cans.

Going to try to be a little more like my Chrissy every day and you probably should too. 🙂

So my nephew turned 6 today. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I love my nephews. Love, love them. They were born and sealed the deal that I could love little kids that were not born of my womb. I share no genetic similarities with them and yet, I would step in front of a bus for them any day. They are just two of the most precious people in the whole world.

So of course I loved celebrating his birth today.

During “Happy Birthday”…love the look on his face.

My other nephew, Eli.

And then some of the other people I love, you might recognize them.

My sister-in-law, Kait brought a pinata (Tariku kept calling it a siesta, so at least he was close). It was a REALLY fun time.

Afterward it made a great hat for Trysten and my father-in-law, Frank!

Love you, Oli!!!!!

I’m on a roll with blogs, let’s just keep lettin’ it rain, right?

Family camp at camp this weekend. Lots of fun, lots of swimming it was a fantastic time.

Trysten passed the swim test (swim 25 yards without stopping) for the first time so he got some QT in the deep end.

Tariku chose instead to quit LITERALLY half a hand away from the edge, totally psyched himself out (which is not at all frustrating for his mom, ahem).

Dailah spent a lot of time on her float circle too and enjoyed her special treat of the straight up sugar they call “Fun Dip”.

Oh, and Tariku showed us a new talent he picked up. He can suck his nostrils in for a really long time. Try it, it’s nearly impossible.

Remember how I shared about Tariku’s triggers? I’m trying to figure out how to best prepare him (and the other 2) for what’s coming in 3 1/2 weeks. So Saturday I decided to make some paper chains so Tariku could have a visual on just how much longer he has to wait until we leave and just how long we’re going to be gone. So we made 2 chains.

One for the amount of days he has to wait until we leave.

And one for the amount of time we’re actually gone.

It’s been great watching the kids get excited about taking a chain off in the mornings. Selfishly, it’s been great watching the chain get ever so shorter in my eyes as well! Something like 24 days…Woot!

Some of my girlfriends and I went to Sex in the City 2 on Friday, opening night. Here’s the thing, the movie was fun. Of course there were some eye rolling parts, of course it didn’t live up to the TV show or the first movie, of course, of course. BUT, the people I was with, the atmosphere of the room was just fun. So it’s hard to separate the two.

Zach has asked me before how a cinema major (that’s me, did you know I majored in cinema?) can enjoy the kinds of movies I do. It’s pretty simple, I just need an escape. I don’t want to think, I don’t want to analyze the camera angles and what would’ve worked better. I don’t want to think about how the cinematography worked with the sounds of the film. In fact, I don’t want to call them “films” anymore, I just like “movies”. And there’s a difference.

Sex in the City 2, that’s a movie. Which is what this mama of (almost) 5 needs at this time in my life.

But these ladies, these are my other peeps. They’re the peeps that are on the ground, in the trenches of the hotflawedmama madness. They’ve seen it all with me and they continue to dive into the ups and downs of being my friend. They are some of the people that make this life of mine blessed beyond measure. You have no idea what you’re missing if these people aren’t in your life.

But I get them in mine, and I am so very happy about that.

And come on, could they be any sexier? I even got Janet (second from left) to throw off her Crocs for the night and put on a decent pair of shoes. 😉