Red Beans & Rice Noodles

The watched agency never boils

Nothing much going on these days but waiting. And keeping very busy at work. And hurting my shoulder doing yoga, so no yoga for three weeks. No news from the agency, not that we're expecting any yet, but the referrals have slowed down. I don't think there have been any since mid-September.

We are slowly getting the place ready for the wee one. I'm totally being lapped by my pregnant neighbor. She's been doing tons of research on carseats, strollers and all kinds of baby stuff. I guess it's harder to neglect these things when you feel a baby squirming in your ever-growing belly. But with me, I've been easily distracted and keep jumping from project to project. It's all sort of preparing-the-house-for-the-wee-one-related. I was looking at my neighbor's "the girlfriends guide to baby gear" book, and it just annoyed me because it didn't seem to take us adoptive parents into account at all. Not that most of these books do, it's just that the guide I have is more informational and to the point, whereas the girlfriend's guide is more chatty and cutesy and annoying. To me, anyway. I guess the real difference is my book says what you need at 6 mos, 12 mos, etc. whereas the other book tells you "when your baby is 20 lbs" or "when your baby is sitting up". At which point I need another manual (or the internet) to comprehend that manual.

I never mentioned mine and Chuck's first baby gear shopping excursion. Ikea, a few months ago. We were checking out all kinds of stuff; and about 2/3 of the way through the trip, it hit me that we were shopping for baby. I turned to Chuck and told him, "Can you believe this? We're actually shopping for our baby for the first time?" It was very exciting and I think I may have teared up a little at the thought. We ended up buying a changing table/shelf from the "as is" section, and a big dragon stuffed animal. I've finally started a registry, but only have a few things on it. I need to get on the ball... it's a huge learning curve though, and cleaning the garage somehow always seems less intimidating.

What the... I haven't posted in a month?

Oh, I know, I know, it's been a while. Nice work, Ann Marie, you prodded me out of hiding. I needed that shove to remind me. It's been a very busy month. They're keeping me exceedingly busy at work, we had my dad and stepmom in town for a week, I've been working out, going to yoga, learning to meditate, and on and on and on...

I've been eating pretty healthy, and about 96.5% vegetarian, which my body seems to appreciate. I've lost about ten pounds, actually did something resembling a handstand in yoga class... well it was against the wall and the teacher was helping me, but I did a headstand and a full backbend on my own! Feels awesome, I love doing yoga. I'm still working hard on making these things into habits before the wee one comes along, so that it'll be easier to keep doing healthy stuff. I haven't been as consistent about going to the gym, but make it once or twice a week. So lets see how I'm doing on the goals I laid out in August:

• to be able to keep up with the youngin' when he or she comes home
remains to be seen, but on the right track

• to build up my strength and endurance
The yoga and elliptical are doing the trick here. Muscles are growing, soon I'll look like Popeye or maybe the Hulk.

• to be less tired, and more energetic
Check!

• so that the habit of exercise and eating healthy will be in place when the wee one arrives, so it may stick
Still need to go to the gym more, and the amount of cheese I eat is outta control. But I haven't had Ben and Jerry's in over a month! And I've sworn it off for 90 days.

• to generally feel better
Check! Feelin purty good.

• to look cute in my clothes again rather than frumpy
Still oozing frump. Need to lose another 30 lbs before defrumpifying is possible. At which time I may get a cute lil haircut to go with my defrumped figure.

On the baby front: no referral yet (unsurprisingly, our dossier went to Vietnam only a month and a half ago), but it seems people are getting referrals pretty quickly judging from our adoption agency's yahoo group. Like 2-4 months from DTV. Which is insane. I never expected it could be so fast. But, again, things change all the time, and we're still just on the waiting list for now... but I am already starting to get a little hopeful when I see unfamiliar phone numbers on my phone.

In other news: my neighbor, who is an uber-cool chick (surfer, rocker, masseuse, and much more), after suffering two miscarriages in the past year, is now 4+ months into a healthy pregnancy. So we're both going to become mamas at about the same time, and she and her husband live right upstairs... this is gonna be so fun. It's fun already figuring stuff out together on what to buy... she has no idea about baby gear, and the bulk of my child-rearing (i.e. babysitting) experience is from the early '80s, so baby products have become much more advanced. And we're both being idealistic and hoping to save the planet by using a cloth diaper service instead of disposables... Reality may hit us hard. Having our wee one is going to be quite the learning experience. Speaking about baby products... cribs? Anyone have some recommendations of safe, sturdy, reasonably priced cribs?

Damn, my dog just farted. Gross.