There is an age at which reverse psychology ceases to have any effect on a child. That age is not 3, as is evidenced by the following two photos. In this first one, my SnuggleMonkey made the face she wanted to.

For the second photo, I stood behind camera and used a very dorky tone and said, “Do not smile at me. No. Don’t. Whatever you do, do NOT smile for the camera.” And the result was the following:

So I took a short break to praise her and snarfle her sweaty little neck (she DOES sweat a LOT for a tiny girl…). And then I moved on to another child of mine. And while 3 is not the age of failed reverse psychology, and 5 is also not the age, I believe that 7 is that age. I turned the camera on Mama’s Boy and said, “Boy, don’t smile normal. Do NOT smile normal for me.” And I got this.

The usual. Sigh.

SnuggleMonkey tried to wrestle him over that.

I turned to a few more normal people to see what I could get. Don’t you know George and Martha would be proud of the USA headgear that has come out now?

Well, those went pretty well, so I’ll go back to my own kids again and see what I can shoot.

Yeah, no. That’s just a little bit severe. Well, I’ll isolate the almost 5-year-old and try that.

Nope.  Back to Mama’s Boy. Looking for ONE.GOOD.SHOT.

I hope that wasn’t a real attempt.

Stop it, boy, or I will go get the milk of magnesia out of the car.

Brother.

About this time, the parade started. It was 900 degrees and sunny. I was sweating like an Olympic wrestler. Every year the kids sit on the curb with their bags for the candy. And each year the candy gets more and more sparse with the “floats” becoming more like Jeb and Daisy just driving their leased Dodge Ram slowly through the parade route.

The above photo is a typical scene from our small-town parade. There are no vehicles in the picture. There are no kids looking, because there is simply nothing to look at. And my Beloved is staring with disgust into her empty candy bag.

Ah, the faces of childhood joy. Positively giddy, they are. Way up at the top of this photo, you can see a golf cart. That was cool. Still no candy. Or anything, really.

A few things started happening, so they stood up. They were poised and ready. For something.

You might notice in the above photo that my daughter is waving to a generic brown truck. Nothing decorated about it and no candy to be seen. SnuggleMonkey appears to be crying, which happened on occasion that day. Her sweet sister gave her more than  half of her own candy, which I loved watching. Even if she only got one piece thrown to her, she’d drop it in her sister’s bag.

And while the parade seems to be declining in quality a great deal, the fireworks on the golf course are not.

They put on an awesome show for a dinky little town. The only drawback I could see was having to answer ‘no’ to the question “was that the grand finale?” more than 67 times in the 30 minute show. I’m not sure I ever got to answer yes to that question, because when the grand finale actually lit up the sky, they didn’t ask.

This is a final shot of the non-camp-attending cousins. I did not dress SnuggleMonkey in a bathing suit like a mother who doesn’t care at ALL. She wet herself. And THAT was the grand finale.

P.S. We do not actually keep Milk of Magnesia in the car. Nobody does that. Nobody.

I should be writing an ebook right this second, but I thought I’d take a break to make a few random updates and observations.

First of all, this kid (see picture, below) is going to summer camp tomorrow for 6 days. What? Seriously. WHAT? Will I cry? Probably not. But my system is fighting against this. If only my friends cared about me or their children at all, they wouldn’t start their own children on this Journey Toward Instantaneous Adulthood so soon. And if their children were not on the fast track to renting their own apartment, my child would not be shopping the ads for his own.

I’m just kidding. But my heart does not believe that my first born is leaving for a week. I cried for 4 hours the day he started Kindergarten. But in all fairness to telling a true story, I had given birth to Beloved 2 weeks before that and I was a mess that no counselor could clean up. I remember making the statement to Todd, “That was it! Now someone else will be raising him!” Then I wiped my nose on my sleeve and Todd responded, “You better hope not!” And all has been well up until now. And now he leaves his mama again.

I am an idiot.

Speaking of idiots, can I please, PLEASE have just a brief moment to mercilessly mock pet owners? Please. Let me have this time. Really.

Last night I took the three younger kids (the ones that still love me and don’t want to move out of the house. ha ha.) into Pet Supermarket. It all went fine. We just needed some hamster bedding to provide our wee ones with a lovely place to sleep and dispose of their hamster messes.  When it was time to check out, the lady said, “Are you a part of our VIP program?” No, ma’am, I’m not. Do I look like a VIP? I’m standing here with 3 people under 44 inches, none of whom can stand still for more than a fraction of a second, and one of whom is about to pee her pants. I’m nobody’s VIP. These were my thoughts. My words were,

“No, I don’t live close to here. I won’t be using a VIP card.”

“Well, we’re all over the place, ma’am. You can use this card anywhere,” she said.

“Oh. Well,” I stammered.

“It’s free,” she argued. “What could be wrong with ‘free’?”

Folks, I’ll tell you what’s wrong with free. The extra ten minutes I stood there and got to hear about her husband’s cat allergies. I can assure you that my VIP card was not free.

She started filling out my information, which took an unnaturally long time. When she got to my address and zip, she asked for the last 2 digits of the zip. I gave them to her and she said,

“Well, you don’t live far from here…”

BUSTED.

However, I do NOT go down Fowler toward the mall. And I did not know that this Pet Supermarket had been open for 7 months. So, whatever lady, you know?

As I waited and waited and WAITED for her to finish my information, she chit chatted about animals. I said that at some point in the not so distant future, we would probably have an outdoor dog. Oh boy. That was the wrong feral cat to let out of the bag.

“Why?” She said, obviously unsettled by this information. “Why not get an indoor dog?” Well, because you may have noticed that dogs are hairy, slobbering beasts and shed and chew and smell like the bottom of your shoe. And you may have further noticed my large, unruly band of gypsies that have off-sprung from a questionable gene pool. I don’t need another beast inside my house. Those were my thoughts. My words were,

“Because an indoor dog would kill the husband, and we need him. He has bad allergies.”

“Well then, get an indoor something else. Or get an outdoor cat.”

What if I don’t want an indoor something else? I have more things indoors than you could catalog with bar code software. And what if I don’t want an outdoor cat? If I’m getting a dog for protection, because we are moving to the country (by the way, we are moving to the country soon, but that’s another blog entry), how does the outdoor cat solve that problem? When Cletus drives up on this 4-wheeler and freaks me out at 10 p.m., am I going to throw my outdoor MEOW MACHINE at him and say, “Go get ’em, Felix!” No, I’m not, because cats never cooperate. They own whatever joint they live in and they also don’t scare a fella like Cletus. I hate cats with the white hot intensity of a thousand suns. But most of you already know that. Put your cats away when I come around.  Even if I love you to pieces, I will not love your cat. It’s who I am.

Jumping Weasel Critters on a Hot Cross Bun. May I just point out that when God created animals, He gave them what they needed to survive outdoors? They have fur and claws and paws and barks and instincts. They have skillz. Sleeping at the end of my bed and breathing their nasty pet breath in my face at 3 a.m. doesn’t change their lives as much as we think it does. They don’t need that. They aren’t lying at the end of my bed in the dark of night thinking, “I’m sure glad Missy gave me this couch to soil. I was really, really afraid of sleeping on a pet bed in a nice wooden dog house. My owner rocks. I hate the outdoors.” A dog outdoors is not the same as a homeless guy without a place to sleep when a thunderstorm rolls in. It just isn’t.

So, yes, I will likely own a dog in the country who will likely spend most of his time outdoors and have a very nice place to sleep. And it will be a nice dog that will bite the leg off someone who doesn’t have the proper number of teeth in his or her mouth.

And that’s that. Give my stinkin VIP card already.

I really wasn’t that mad. I don’t get that mad at pet store cashiers. But I did think the whole thing was a little bit much. And that is precisely why I just wanted to pay an extra 46 cents and get out quick. As it was, I then had to take Sister Tinklepants to the pet store bathroom. And then look at ferrets. Sigh.

I am writing Chapter 13 of 22 tonight. I don’t think I can finish this one before bed, but definitely by tomorrow. That will leave 9 left to write when I am done. I’ve never been this focused or this fast. And I think I’m learning how to do this so the children won’t always hate words. I think they are okay with this. Lately, I’ve been doing it into the wee hours of the morning and spending as much time with them as I can in the daytime. I must seem tired, though, because I heard Mama’s Boy pipe up in the back seat last night and tell another one of the kids, “When adults get enough sleep, they are really nice.” Ha. I love that boy. He needs a therapist, but I love him.

More on the ebook tomorrow. For now, I need to get back to it. August will launch a better blog. And I will actually feed it and care for it.

If there’s anybody still out there, here’s some love. Love.

Also, Happy Birthday to the Organizer.:)

And goodbye.

Writing, writing, writing.
Oh, the writing.
The clock is ticking and I am in the thick of a deadline, loving every minute of it and trying not to waste time spinning unnecessary wheels. I’ve gotten some good advice over the last two weeks and some of it has perhaps saved me already.

Due to my needing to actually get work down, we moved out scary couches from the living room and moved in a small desk from upstairs. The living room is perhaps my favorite room in the house.  It’s not particularly charming, but it is flooded with natural light and it’s just a happy, cozy place to be.

And besides being well-lit, it is now the place where I am, which means it is often where my children want to be. I welcome this and we set them up a place doing this or that, when they want it. Sometimes they come in and color. Sometimes they play a computer game. Sometimes they put on music and shake their groove thangs.

Today it was Beloved and the Computer games. She wanted Starfall.com and she likes to listen to their songs, while singing along herself. As she was going to TOWN today, I realized that my Canon PowerShot was on my desk and Beloved was sitting on the other side of my desk. So like the sly dog I am, I set my camera on my computer, aimed at her, and started to record. She never knew I was taping. This is a little slice of our life and her personality. I could just snarf her up some days.

Besides the general preciousness of looking into the heart of a 4-year-old, there is a moment at the end that makes me laugh. I was trying to turn off the camera during a fake, explosive cough. Why I felt I had to conceal the powering OFF, I do not know. All I know for sure is that I did NOT power it off because I didn’t hit the button with enough force. So what we have is a badly orchestrated theatrical choking.

And a little girl who melts my heart. Completely.

That is one rockin’ name, I can tell you. I wish it were really mine.

Allow me to introduce you to the most extraordinary person living in my house right now.

It’s me.

bahahahaha.

But the honorable mention goes to Spemma.

Spemma is living with us for the summer. We are hoping to somehow secure her for life, (possession is 9/10 of the law) but have not yet figured a way to do that.  I know her birth parents will want visitation. We are willing to work something out with them, providing we can agree that We of Little College Funds (indian family name) do not have to put her through her remaining 2  years of college.

Whatever. That’s neither here nor there, really. It certainly is not the point of this blog. Not that it  has a point. You should know that right up front. It’s pointless. If you are strapped for time, just move on.

Spemma speaks spanish at garage sales, for which we were recently grateful. She also speaks some other strange languages that I am still attempting to learn so that we can communicate in the 30 minutes when she isn’t handing fried chicken. Here are a few recent examples:

“Probs” = Probably, though I did have to rule out the abbreviation for “problems”. Context has now proven this to be “probably.”

“Bob” – you, me, anyone. Everyone is named Bob.

“MaFa” – pronounced Mah-Fah. Short for Marriage and Family class. Hmm.

kkk – Does not seem to stand for Ku Klux Klan. Seems to be some sort of emphatic version of “OK.” Honestly, I have no idea. I’m very confused.

There are others. I will list them as they come to me.

At any rate, besides being multi-lingual and exceedingly interesting, Spemma is just pleasant to have around. It is hard to get past her pat answer of “My pleasure” when you thank her for a thankless task (she has obviously been brainwashed by her employees), but we are trying to believe that folding our underwear or washing a nasty plate with dried ketchup on it truly is her pleasure.

And speaking of pleasure, she brought home a little experiment tonight. And she made us try it.  And here it is.

And here’s a typical scene from the garage sale. If I could have gotten her off this couch, I might have sold it.

But probably not.

Well, I have applied for, interviewed for, researched, been offered, and accepted a contract writing job. It is an ebook, for people younger than you. I’d like to tell you more, but I signed a contract which enables sharp shooters to legally take you out and leave a tag on your toe in the morgue if I so much as utter a word in my sleep about what I’m writing. The CIA is so picky about things.

Bahahahahaha.

I’m so stupid.

I did sign a document. But I don’t think there was any death mentioned. Kinda hoping not. Maybe prison. But by July 15, when I finish this thing, I may be so tired that prison will be a sweet relief of linen stripes and chicken broth.

I’m excited.

I do not intend to dump my blog. I have big plans for it. I believe my blog is somewhat responsible for my getting this job. So yet another shout out to the Informinator and that poor man I’m married to. Poor, poor man. He loves me in spite of myself.

So be patient with me, if you can find it in your heart to care just a little. And here are a few pictures that warm my heart from a recent day of failed kite flying at a local park. Notice there are no kite pictures. That’s because Snapps can’t fly kites. In our family Coat of Armor, there is a picture of a kite on the ground. Adjacent to that picture is one of a kite in a tree. Aaah, so what.

Nothing like letting your street urchins run around in a large cat litter box with no shoes on. Good one, Missy.

I like the look of glee on the face of Snugglemonkey in this one.

You can’t really tell this, but Snugglemonkey is gripping her sister in a the precursor for a Full Nelson. And while Beloved is still smiling, she is trying with all her might to pry her sister’s Kung Fu grip from her back.

No loss of love, though.

This is deceptively sweet looking.

And sometimes a weird kid with Cheeto mouth shows up and ruins everything.
Good times. Good times.

Oh I feel like a little moo cow coming down the road.
This post will be a salute to all things arbitrary.

I want to start out with a brief confession: Most of the things I initially disparage, I end up married to. For example:

• Todd. Couldn’t stand him. Literally married him. Love him.
• The iPod Nano. Publicly decried Apple, all Apple products, and Apple product owners. Now I belong to a family of Apple product owners and the children all have nanos.
• Bunko. Thought the whole game was stupid. Now I play it like a crazed old goose. Monthly. With other crazed old geese.
• TiVO. Belittled the technology greatly. Called it a “classic waste of money.” Then I discovered taping episodes of Little House on the Prairie. Oh, the joy of watching that show on my lunch break in the quiet of my home. And one day the TiVO broke. I called Todd in a cold sweat and asked him to get a new unit on the way home from work. The end.

I could go on, but why? You get the point.The nano is a very real obsession of mine, though. And that’s where this post is headed. I bought myself a little iPod nano through Craigslist a couple of years ago. Got myself a good little deal. And when I held that tiny baby in the palm of my hand, I fell hard. And I petted it and petted it. And gave it the occasional peck on the forehead. Then I started buying them for others. My children. My mother-in-law. My dad. My friends. My friends’ kids. It became a real problem. And if the house is dark and quiet and I can’t sleep, sometimes I can be found in the glow of my laptop, shopping for nanos.

And in that pursuit, just last week, this little gem of an ad turned up:

5th gen i-pod radio cam and all already loaded with variety of new country and classic rock call Skully any time make offer reasonable please call anytime retired and always up seem to be up. text anytime for sure. or will trade for a hand raised small parrot will pay boot on rehome fee.

WHAT? Huh? Skully? And Skully wants to trade his nano for a small hand raised parrot? What does that even mean? And what in the world is “pay boot on rehome fee?” Honestly, I feel trapped in a bad scene from Forrest Gump.

Really. I wonder if reading that ad was the marketing equivalent of sitting through a Jimi Hendrix concert in 1969.

I could go on, but I’m tired and this could get old fast. Oh wait. We are way past that already. So here are a few of my favorite, non-electronic, things:

I wonder if you use grammatical rules of plurals on things like howdy. It looks right to me, so I am going to remain true to Professor Grammatical.

I know it appears that Neglect is my newest personality trait. Also, I know no one really cares WHY I’m neglecting Snappshots. And it’s entirely possible that no one even cares that I am neglecting the site, period. But I don’t consider Neglect a personality trait and it isn’t going to become the norm. I have been as tired this week as I was in the first three months of every newborn I’ve ever reared. I was not nursing a baby, but a chapter. And chapters, as it turns out, are very demanding feeders. Don’t even get me started about the burping. The gas was just awful.

A person who has nothing to say should not talk.

And yet, it is difficult to stop myself at this point.

Thing is, I DO have things to say. I just can’t say them all yet. People that have secrets are so annoying. Really. I mean that. I hate it when someone lets on that they have stuff to tell you, but they can’t. Then why’d you open your Pie Ingester in the first place?

Still working on a creative project that may or may not become an at-home job for me. I am hopeful. I am also tired, but we discussed this already.

Still trying to lose 15 pounds, but gained three. Good. Really good. I’m waiting for a letter from Loseit.com that might go something like this:

Dear Missy:

You really stink at this whole process. In fact, we are going to ask you to leave our site on your own volition so that you don’t continue to drive our averages the wrong direction. This is not a weight gain site (sorry, Wade). Therefore, you have the following options:

• Lose 3 pounds in the next week and get yourself together. You are on probation from this point forward.
• Remove  yourself and be quiet about this.
• Allow us to send a representative to your door who will follow you around and confiscate the Cheetos bag (we’ve done research on you…) when you inevitably get a hankering for orange fingerprints.
• If none of the above occur, we will delete your profile and you will be dead to us.

Enjoy your muffin top, Loser. (But not the right kind of Loser, if you understand our implication.)

Sincerely yours,

Loseit.com

Now, to all reading this, please don’t send me pity mail. I’m not depressed. I am simply waffling (interesting choice of verbs here. I wonder if this could be half my problem…always thinking about cheetos and waffles.) between the camp of deciding to just forgo the other half of the closet and the camp of deciding to hit it hard and forgo the occasional trip to CiCi’s Pizza with the family. Yes, I just got back from there.  I’ll let you know what I choose. Or you can just check my muffin top and you’ll know. Ha.

Friday I spent the day at Silver Springs with my son, my friend’s son, our buddy that practically lives in our house, and the entire 3rd grade. I thought I was in for a bad run when I got stuck in the back of the charter bus with a kid with really tall hair (not that I have any room to talk about big hair, mind you) who wanted to chat about video gaming. At one point, he looked me square in the eyes and said, “If you could have just one super power, what would it be?”

“Mmmm, maybe teleporting?” I answered.

“I’d choose stretchy.” Ah, good to know, little fluffy fella. Then his teacher moved him to the front of the bus (maybe he wasn’t supposed to be mingling?), another kid traded across with me, and suddenly I had the best seat in the house.

Silver Springs was one of the most enjoyable things I’ve done in almost a year. I loved it and highly recommend it as an interesting, yet mellow, place to see in central FL. I loved being with AG and his buddies. I loved seeing the Kodiak Bear that they must be trying to kill off. How does a Kodiak bear survive in Florida? I loved the ancient, could-break-and-kill-you-at-any-given-moment rides. I loved walking and walking and walking. Seeing panthers. Seeing tarantulas (from a distance). Seeing the injured alligator who was grumpy and looking for a free snack.

In the above picture, the white spot on the left back leg is a leg blown out by a boat motor. That’s tissue. But don’t pity him too much. He’d still eat you without remorse.

My favorite moments of the day were the glass bottom boat rides. There is just something amazing about being able to peer down 90 feet and see things that have not been altered in hundreds of years. Silver Springs was where they filmed the black and white dorky Tarzan movies. It’s also where SeaHunt (Lloyd Bridges) was filmed. Actually there were about 60 things shot there that you would have heard of. None of them seem worth a rent, but I might rent them, just for sentimental reasons.

The slanted tree in the right section of the following picture is the tree Tarzan always ran out on and jumped from. Really dorky stuff, but a cool tree.

I even loved Chief Micanopy, who narrated our first boat ride in language that I did not understand a word of. I take that back. I heard him say fish. The rest of what he said, all 1500 words of it, completely unintelligible.

And I love these guys.

Happy Memorial Day.

m

 

 

For the first year of AG’s life, I could not answer May 20, 2001 when asked to supply his birth date. For me, he had not existed on May 20 and May 22, the day we met him–the day we brought him home–was so extremely significant. And so I stumbled on that question for months, possibly years. I no longer stumble over the information and the entire sequence is perfectly clear in my mind. We were tired, but frenzied with excitement, when we got up that morning. We had predetermined that Einstein Bagels would be our breakfast on the way out of town. In the car, each of us would call our bosses and ask for the day off. If they told us no, we would become indignant, scream obscenely, and quit on the spot. Also we would sue. For 5.5 billion dollars. This would pay for his college.

Neither boss denied us a day or two off for Baby Retrieval, so that whole law suit sort of went away. Bummer. College is looking grim for the boy. The other children need not even consider it.

We had been told by Ray to meet him in the hospital lobby at 11 a.m. I was so sick to my stomach over it all. I was going to meet my son! I spent about an hour of the drive trying to convince Todd to reverse his “Don’t Tell/Don’t Tell” policy with friends and family. He refused. Guts, again!

And then we were there. We parked in a parking garage. I so vividly and distinctly remember the pavement between the parking garage and the lobby. Will I ever forget walking that path? Why did I choose those shoes? Did I look like a mom? Why don’t they use Round Up for all the weeds growing up between the pavers? What are you running here, a farm?

I’m sorry. I’ve grown distracted. Ray was walking off the elevator when we walked through the automatic doors to the first floor lobby of Shands Hospital. He spread out his arms, wrapped us up in them, and said, “Hello, parents!” I think I must have passed out or completely crumpled. But if I did, it seems like Todd would have mentioned this before now, so probably I just cried a little. We wanted to know what had been going on up in the room.

“Well,” he said. “April has a migraine and is on some medication right now. The ink is probably not yet dry on the paperwork, but it is signed and you are parents. Your boy is waiting for you upstairs.”

“Can we see him now?” we asked.

“Of course,” he said, “But just realize that this is a hard time for all of them. Don’t expect too much.”

How could I expect anything of them? They had given birth to perfection and offered him to me? What else is there?

When we walked in, April was feeding him through a bottle. She handed him to me and looked away. He was a sloppy eater. Still is, that varmint. But while he was sucking like a fiend on that bottle, I saw his dimple for the first time. I fell completely in love with that dimple. It is still adorable. We have asked him not to smile around females. We have a wife picked out for him and some paperwork already in a safe deposit box. We don’t want the Unchosen Girls to get mixed up in that Dimple Business. That can only hurt our cause.

He took my finger after he finished spewing most of that bottle. Five tiny fingers wrapped around my one. If I had won the $5.5 billion lawsuit, I’d trade it all to just have those five fingers holding mine for the rest of my life. But he will let go. Sooner than I want him to.

And I won’t even have the money for a comfort.

I love him.

Happy Homecoming, Dear One.

Ten years ago, at this precise hour, my oldest boy was 24 hours and 29 minutes old. But in my mind, he was 5 hours old. That afternoon, at 4 p.m., we’d gotten the call that changed the world. If Ray, our adoption agency’s director, had announced that I would soon grow a third eye or the world would soon have live Dinosaurs again, things couldn’t have changed any more drastically. I am glad, for the record, to have only 2 eyes and to have a large insect be my biggest predatory fear. I’m pretty sure the grammar is wrong on that. I can’t care tonight. I have work to do.

Only 5 hours old in my mind, I had no idea what he was like. What did he smell like? What did his cry sound like? What color hair did he have? Would he be blonde and blue-eyed? That would be a beautiful break in family tradition. Something like this perhaps…

Or would I have to work at adjusting to him, if he came out a little more like this?

Would he be sleepy? Alert? Hyper?

Would we know what to do for him?

That night was an unhinged series of shopping trips and cleaning tasks, to ready our selves for picking up our son. Though I wanted to hire a sky writer to spell out “WE ARE GETTING OUR SON TOMORROW!”, Todd wanted to tell no.one. Guts. So we told no one except the friends that were loaning us a car seat and some receiving blankets. His homecoming outfit came from Wal-Mart and was purchased around midnight that night when the bats in the belfry are the only ones shopping at Wal-Mart. Sorry, boy. Gap was closed at that hour of the night. Unless the monkey picture was accurate, I was certain he could make Wal-Mart look like Gap.

I laid down at 3 a.m., though I had to get back up in 4 hours. My sleep was spotty and dream-filled. And the dream was waiting in Gainesville…

May 19, 2011

Dear Boy:
Tomorrow is your 10th birthday. On the one hand, it feels as if a lifetime has passed in these 10 years. But on the other hand, I feel I have hardly taken an adequate breath. I have not had time to stare at the dimple in your cheek or feel the soft wispy hair as it grows from buzzed fluff into hair befitting of a ten year old. You are halfway to 20 now. I will blink once more and you will be calling home from a dorm room. Or worse, not calling home from a dorm room. How has it gone so quickly?

When I stop to reflect on all of the things that grabbed hands to make your miracle happen, I get almost weepy. You are too meant to be. Too amazing. Too good to be true. But you are true. And you are mine. For now. I love you. Happy Birthday. Happy 10th Birthday.

-mom

P.S. Your friend’s mom keeps calling me and it’s 10:30 p.m., so I may have to take some of this back if this keeps up. Just kidding.

October 28, 2000 (almost exactly 7 months before his arrival)

Dear Baby:
While I haven’t yet seen you with my eyes, I am able to picture you in my mind and you are beautiful. And although I don’t yet have you to love, I can tell you that I love you already.

At this moment, everything about you is a mystery to me…what you will look like, what color eyes you will have, your cry, your voice, your talents, your interests…I know nothing of these things. But one thing I do know is that you are special. you are a gift from God that is coming as an answer to many, many prayers. You have been prayed for by more people than we could count. It is my hope that, as you go through life, you will have a sense of your life’s special purpose, knowing with confidence that you were loved and longed for before you were even born. If you ever have doubts, I hope the words from these pages can dispel them. Everything I have done in my life up until now has led me to this: to light a path for you that you can always find, no matter what you are facing.

I have seen you in my dreams many times. I can hardly wait to meet you face to face.

Dear Baby –
Figuring out what to name you has been a much harder task than I first thought it would be. We considered Pookie, which is of German descent and means “cute person,” but I think we’ve decided to take a more traditional approach. Two days ago, we wrote down all the different name choices on a barf bag from an airplane. Someday this will make you proud. Your name–whatever it may end up being–is loosely connected to vomit. I  hope we won’t give you a name that will cause you to suffer through elementary school. But if we do, and your name ends up rhyming with something it shouldn’t or whatever else, just know that it wasn’t for lack of trying. It’ll be because we were too stupid to see it coming.

April 27, 2001

Dear Baby,
We have believed from Day 1 that you are out there waiting specifically to come to us. We are not searching for just any child. We are searching for you. We believe that nothing is going to keep you from us. We aren’t really going to fully understand this until we are a happy family looking back on these early days. But we trust God. We trust that right now — April 27, 2001 at 9:16 p.m. — God is watching over you, baby. And right now, at this very same moment, God is also watching over us. He will bring us together at the right time for all the right reasons. I know there will be times and situations that you don’t understand through your years as a young person. In those times, we pray that you will trust God. He has been holding you in the palm of his hand from the very beginning. As we continue to wait, we love you.

-mom