Jetlagged, sick, exhausted and disturbed.

Re-entry is a bitch y’all!

We all are jetlagged, sick (Aven, not so much), exhausted and mommy is disturbed.  It is hard to get going when I am sick on a good day, but partner that with jetlag, new mommydom and exhaustion and it makes for serious disorientation.  I went for utencils 4 times and each time I looked in the cabinet where I keep the pots and pans.  OY! 

Now on to the disturbed part:  I was alerted by my best bud that blogland had gone through what appeared to be a lockdown with passwords, etc. while I was gone. . . I did some pokin’ around and saw that photos had been lifted and used without permission.  Anytime you put something out in cyberspace you run the risk of that, but I understand why it is done.  For many, this is the big way we keep in touch with family and friends who might otherwise not be able to have this type of access.  It is nice to be able to stay in touch without having to coordinate scheduled visits or phone chats and to be able to visit a blog at your convenience. 

I decided some time back that when I got Aven home, I was going to change to a different blog URL as this adoption journey would come to an end.  Honestly . . . .I need a fresh start.  The process, which started out as fabu, turned traumatic at times.  It is also not something I wish to remain attached to for the time being other than for posterity’s sake.  Besides . . . . based on our first couple of weeks together, chronicling motherhood should be a pretty wild ride by itself.  I want to post honestly about what is REALLY going on and to do that and share pics, I’ll be compelled to password protect much of what I write.  I probably won’t have time to make a change immediately, but perhaps over the next week I will.  I haven’t decided if I will post the URL here or not, but if I don’t and you want the URL, just email me. . . .

More to follow. . .

P.S.  Snuggling with baby Aven rocks!

” . . . and from this day forward, you will be a family forever.”

With those words from the Thanh Hoa Provincial People’s Committee . . . she legally became what she has been since May 19, 2008.  She signed the papers and nodded her head “yes”. . . she is now stuck with us  . . . . FOREVER.

Below is the picture that was over 5 years in the making . . . my father holding my daughter . . . his granddaughter.  His chemo began yesterday and he made the 4 hour trip to see his baby girl . . . No more words are necessary . . . .

 

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Bathroom finished (almost) . . . I must post piccies!

We have just finished redoing baby girl’s bathroom.  Honestly . . . . I HATE yellow in general, but something about a little girl and yellow seems so sweet to me.  Anyway, the Hubs suggested a yellow wall so that it would be a bright, happy place.  I hunted for weeks for just the perfect bathroom ensemble.  Finally settled on a turtle theme.  After spending 6 hours and visiting 5 different stores I got everything I needed except for the soap dispenser and bath rug which I ordered.  They finally came in!  I put the finishing touches on this morning except for some wall art.  I think what I want to do is take pictures around Hoan Kiem Lake in Hanoi and the Turtle Pagoda for the walls and we’ll do photoshop them when we ever get to VN.  The yellow, however, turned out to be POW! Yellow instead of Buttah Yellow. . . . OY!   It will certainly wake a girl up in the morning.  Piccies to follow as soon as my camera batteries are charged up!

A tribute to Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

I have my own forum for women.  It was started 5 years ago, give or take.  Our motto was one of the first orders of business as we upgraded to a better cyber “neighborhood” and got some tricked out software.  It reads:

 

“Well Behaved Women Rarely Make History . . . . “   

attributed to Laurel Thatcher Ulrich. 

What a powerful lesson it has been for me to learn what the rules are so that I know which ones to break, how to break them and when they should be broken.  It is a lesson that I wish to perfect and someday pass on to my daughter. . . .

Rumour of news . . .

I have gotten some emails from people that were with my agency about rumours of news on bringing Aven home.  Just wanted to mention it here in case anyone has heard anything that hasn’t emailed me yet.  I’ll just copy/paste one of my responses to a dear person that was just checking up on us. 

There isn’t “news” so much as there isn’t a “NO!”.  Hard to explain I guess.  Where we are is essentially, we have moved from being denied to simply not being approved.  I realize this makes no sense to anyone NOT in the adoption community.  We have not been given a G&R and have no idea when that might happen.  I guess ANY movement in VN is better than NO movement.  So, we have moved from a HARD NO to a “wait and see”. 

That is all I think my lawyer would feel comfortable with me sharing at the moment.