Hi all,

Sorry I have not posted yet, and will post the whole story but must wait a bit until I have brain function. We still seem to be on Ethiopia time, so I'm running on about 1.5 or 2 hrs. of sleep a night. Not enough. Hopefully will have more energy and powers of concentration in a couple of days. Meanwhile, the little one is a treasure and adores her big sister. The big sister adores her baby sister right back, but is experiencing some jealousy issues. Hmmmm. More later. Here are a couple of pictures to tide you over! The christmas one is one of 10 that are either blurry, girls looking like refugees from a mental intitution, picking noses, fighting, etc. Oh well. Will try again later. haha The first picture is at 2:30 am the night we got in from the airport! They sure look better than I did!

WE LEAVE TOMORROW FOR ETHIOPIA!

WE HAVE TRAVEL DATES!!!

Yep, it's true. Finally, after a million new gray hairs, we got a call today telling us that we must be in Addis on the 4th of December for an embassy appt.

Here's the kicker.... now, don't get me wrong - I am supremely grateful for dates. However, because of the delay we are now traveling during the high season for Ethiopian travel. Flights are mostly completely booked leaving us with the choice of paying nearly $1000 more per ticket for business class or staying 2 weeks. Honeybun is so upset at me leaving and after a looooooong talk with a child psychologist, we've decided to streeeeeeeeetch our teeny finances and take the higher fare. I can't be traveling on Honeybun's birthday. Just can't do it.

I am grateful for my 2nd daughter, can't wait to get my mommy hands on her, can't wait to see the girls united finally, and love both of my princesses, but I cannot wait to be done with our agency. I'm so very disappointed in their practices of late and their disorganization. It makes me sad to know that the children are suffering due to their cavelier attitude.

On a happier note, here's a picture of Honeybun after carving her very first pumpkin, and one of Sweetpea just 2 weeks ago taken by a wonderful mom that went to get her own child!

Frustration Mounts

Amazingly, I'm still incredulous that this process is so frustrating. Though I went through it not a year and 1/2 ago, I somehow expected the experience to be similar. It isn't. As you know, this time its been fairly challenging financially for us and we are doing everything we can to make it doable. That said, I had a conversation with the agency yesterday. I have reserved tickets for me and my sister to go to Addis on the 25th of November. (The agency had previously told me that it was 90% chance of going to Ethiopia then.) After a discussion with our travel agent, who can get us a missionary rate to Addis and back, I found that without at least 2 weeks notice I'll get reamed for tickets. When I called the agency for a more solid idea of whether that date was it, do you know what they told me? That they really wished they could be more helpful, but they would not know anything until the Ethiopian staff called them. That they did not expect a call until November 13th. NOVEMBER 13TH!!!!!?????????!!!!!! I calmly asked her if she was aware of our situation, and that we were trying to save as much as possible........etc. etc. etc. She said, as I heard paper crackling in the background, that there was nothing to be done and I would have to just wait. I'm sure I had steam rising from the top of my head and broke down in tears after cutting off the call. I was, unfortunately, in the parking lot of Lowe's so had to pull it together. I'm so tired of keeping my game face on and 'going with the flow' that I could scream! The agency has changed so much since last year (when my dear friend left the agency), and now I feel like we're just a check to them. It's a sad sad way to feel when your child or children are at stake.

Got more recent pictures, though, of our little Sweetpea. Here she is. I so want to hug her.

Postponed again.

I was informed by the agency that I will not travel until the 25th of November. Yep, that's right - Thanksgiving Day. Can you imagine the delays, crowds, and cost involved in traveling on the holiday? I tell you, I am counting the minutes until this is done and I don't have to deal with anyone about my child anymore. I'm sure you can imagine what nasty thoughts are whirling around in my overtired/overly frustrated/over everythinged brain. When I explained that she has bonded to a nanny there and, according to a psychologist I spoke to, the longer that she is there at her age and developmental stage and more securely bonding to the nanny, the more adjustment issues she will have here. Nice. My poor little girl. She will not spend Thanksgiving with us giving thanks for her, nor will she spend her 2nd birthday with her big sister.

LOST IN PREPARATION.....

Sorry to have been silent for so long. It's rather amazing that life can spin out of control in a mere 48 hours if you let it! Certainly not bad - out of control, just frustrating/procrastinating/getting-nothing-done-though-I-seem-to-be-busy out of control. I've also decided not to refer to my darling daughters as #1 & #2 (seems a tad chilly), and so from this day forward DD#1 will be called Honeybun and DD#2 will be called Sweetpea. Just so you know. :)

First a quick update: I have a tentative travel date of November 10th, and though I will try like heck to make travel arrangements that can be changed I won't hold my breath quite yet. I must admit that it kind of ticks me off that the agency only gives a couple weeks notice, as the ticket prices then are HUGE. I tried to make my case with the program director yesterday, but was pretty much spitting into the wind. Anyway, there you go. A few families are going in the next 2 weeks, and they have very kindly offered to take some pictures. I miss my little daughter! Honeybun has decided that Sweetpea will share her room (she knows that we painted the blue sky/grass & flowers motif just for her and does NOT want to give it up!), so we will have to cram 2 twin beds into that one. Of course nothing else will fit besides the 2 beds, so thank goodness there are built in drawers in the wall! We'll see how long Honeybun and Sweetpea will want to share.

A reader has asked me to tell a bit about adopting a pre-schooler, so here are a few thoughts. Before adopting Honeybun, I thought that an "older" child would be too hard, come with too much baggage, have trouble attaching, etc. but I'm happy to tell you that thus far none of that has come to pass. Honeybun is very well adjusted, bonded to us like cement, and seems to be relaxed and unpacking her baggage a bit at a time. Puffing out my chest, raising my chin, and smiling that self satisfied smile, I feel that some of this success is due to the way we as parents have tackled the whole situation. While we have never been the types to go for new-age parenting (ie. co-sleeping, long explanations for discipline, no TV, etc.), we have settled in to a modified team approach to family life. Everyone has a say, we have family discussions, all are able to make their opinion known, etc. but in the end we as parents have the final yea or nay. This has worked for us because Honeybun is a very emotionally mature child, and is very articulate. That said, she is a typical 5 yr. old and is trying out all the usual bossiness, anger, selfishness and crazy energy. We feel that since she was 3 1/2 when we went to get her we were able to communicate better as she was old enough to understand a bit about emotion and vocal intonation. I like that she was her own personality when we met her, and so brings Ethiopian-ness (if I can make up my own word) to our now 2 continent family.

Since she was old enough as well to know and remember her family, we had been afraid that the separation would be too traumatic blah blah blah. However, we sort of fell into a modified open international adoption that I would very strongly recommend to anyone adopting any age of child. At first Honeybun's language challenges didn't enable her to pass along anything, but only a few months after her arrival, she began telling me stories of when she lived with her grandmother. I've written these down so that she'll have them as she grows, because memories fade and already her inner "scrapbook" is almost too faint to access. Our invitation and openness about her memories has been good for her I think, as she now knows that she can speak freely about it to either one of us. We've worked hard at combining our families, and always talk about our Ethiopian-American family, send piles of pictures and holiday gifts to Ethiopia, and have recieved several cherished packages from our Ethiopian relatives. Notice that I said OUR Ethiopian relatives. It has been crucial for us to relate to them this way, and so we've become as attached to them as Honeybun is. I'm so looking forward to seeing them when I go to get Sweetpea! Well, enough patting myself on the back. It has worked for us, and I hope will continue to. I keep a journal of sorts where I have been writing Honeybun a letter each month or so telling her how I feel about her, things she's done or said that I want her to remember, etc. When she's a teen and going through the angst of being a teen/being adopted/being different than most of her white friends, it might help to be able to read about how deeply she has been loved from the moment I held her and how proud I am of her/her heritage/our family.

Time's a wastin' and I'm just procrastinatin'. With prose like that, I can't imagine why I'm not a published author.

Ok, last night I dreamed that the agency called and gave me 2 weeks to travel to Ethiopia. Needless to say, I woke up in a cold sweat mathematically working out in my head how I will fit 4 rooms worth of stuff and furniture into 2 rooms. I exaggerate a bit, but I still have our "library" set up with all the books and junk that goes with that in the girls' new playroom. That one needs to be cleaned out, painted light pink with yellow woodwork and Tinkerbells. Their new bedroom is still serving as home office for me, and needs to be cleaned out, painted (same theme as DD#1's former room: blue skies, grass border, dragonflies, ladybugs, flowers, etc. with white clouds and glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling), and furnished. We have a small cape so you can imagine the challenge of fitting regular human sized furniture into matchbox sized rooms. On a good note (albeit a somewhat 'detail oriented' one), I am nearly packed for the trip!

I also decided to shed my extra poundage or at least get into reasonably good shape so that I won't pass out when required to carry my new 27 pound weight around for a week. It is now that I have become best friends with the Three Musketeers. They are delicious. They, however, are not helping me with my goal. It's hard to lose when your friends only want to feed you.