On Homework and procrastination

Wow. My thumb hurts! Some things never change - in high school, I started a new project or assignment with gusto, promising myself this one would be spaced out and completed early, and I'd get plenty of sleep the night before. Which usually meant I did great on the first day, but truly did my best work in the 11th hour. Or later.
Yikes. Add 10 plus years to that, and you'll have an already exhausted adult, who goes to bed after midnight with a sore thumb, and almost-completed work. Between a lunch break and an hour between work and class, this week's assignments will be DONE. Hubby is a bigger procrastinator than I, and is still working. Rumor has it there's a lot of homework at the beginning, and less at the end.
Let's hope... It's interesting work, and things we want/need to discuss... And while I'm glad this homework comes sans teenage angst, I was hoping we'd have school-aged children before we had homework as adults!
Here's to getting finished and staying awake for week 2 ;)

Just sounding off about the in-laws

Ugh. If. I KNOW they don't like a restaurant, I don't PICK that place when we're going to be eating a meal with them... I would like the same consideration, dang it!!! But no, it's our Sunday to eat with them, and we're going to a disgusting, greasy fish place. I don't eat fish at all, and they know this. They also fry their chicken in the same oil, so I don't eat that either. Looks like it's a yummy lunch of cheese sticks that I will have to share with my niece and nephew.
My mother-in-law was kind enough to buy me a picture at a yard sale. "I know you don't like flowers, but I thought this picture of flowers would look good in your bedroom!" Uh, thanks. That's the most (in)considerate gift!
I was told last week that I'm the most agreeable person a co-worker has ever met. I'm beginning to hate being so agreeable, because it seems like nobody ever wants to return the agreeableness, and you just end up with half a cheese stick for lunch. And hubby wonders why I don't exactly jump at the chance to hang with his fam!

Looking forward

I'm sitting here @ home, by myself, watching some tv while waiting on the washing machine to stop. I went to a state park this afternoon, to play with some nephews.
One might think I would be more than happy to sit here in silence after a crazy day @ work followed by lots of playing and singing and inadvertently teaching an 18-month-old to say "good golly"... And refraining from teaching his big brothers (ages 6 and 4) Y*our Ma*ma jokes. Because so far, I've only taught them to talk about yer mama.
In truth, I'm not sad or upset that it's quiet and I'm about to go get some uninterrupted sleep. It's more a quiet hope, an expectation that life is so close to changing. Will I look back and miss these quiet nights? It's possible... But I am so accustomed to creating kiddie chaos wherever I go, that I don't think I'll really miss it. We're gonna play hard, and run in the house, and play in the mud, and sometimes eat too much junk and not enough "good" stuff for a meal.
While I may bask in the quietness for now, I definitely look forward to a screaming baby and rowdy toddlers. Does this make me sound insane?

First class over... So much homework!

Okay, it's been several years since I had homework! Our first class was lasnt night. Go figure, we knew people in the class - one lady and I went to the same high school for a year, hubby has met at least a couple through his job. Most of those in the class are looking to foster or foster-adopt.
There was one other couple besides us who was only interested in adoption... They look young, too, and I think she and I were the most nervous people in the room! They jetted out the door as soon as we were done, but hopefully we can get to know them better throughout the class.
We have lots of homework - like pages and pages of "together" work, and many more pages of "separate" work. There will be no stone left unturned, no skeleton left in the closet... Not that we really have skeletons in the closet, but if we did, they would be found and dragged out and thoroughly examined.
And speaking of the closet... And spare bedrooms, and garage. We've got a couple of weeks to get them all cleaned out and organized and ready for a child to occupy. There's an entire manual that I have yet to read, that will let us know what we need to do, such as fire extinguishers and safety stuff, to get our house approved.
One of our worksheets is specifically for "loss of fertility," as it reads. It asks a lot of questions, basically to see if we have grieved the loss of biological children and if we have done our research. The past several years have been more about the big IF than adoption, but that trend is changing. I've felt a disconnect for quite sometime, between myself and IF, and last night's class was a huge, therapeutic step away from poor, but fun, infertile Aunt NotTheMama, and toward the fun Mommy. I finally feel like we're making tangible, deliberate movrs towards becoming parents.

We could be parents within the year

Apprehensive is probably the most accurate description of how I feel! I said from the beginning that I would *not* go through our state to adopt. I was dead set on international adoption, and yes, I've done my homework on both. Hubby has signed us up for this 9-week class, telling me we're just gonna "give it a try."
I'm gonna be straight up with the two of you who may read this - fostering, foster-adopting, d*h*r in general scares the hell out of me! I know personally several families who have done or attempted some combination of all of the above, and I can count more cases that have NOT ended well than those that have. Children promised to a couple that had them for years, then were quite literally ripped from those parents' arms and sent to another state to live with stranger-relatives. FP's that made their FC's live in a totally separate part of the house, and when we visited, we were not allowed to go to the "adult" side of the house to eat with our parents. Young friends hoping to adopt an adorable set of twins who were again promised these children, and "suddenly" an aunt decided that since mom was out of the picture, she would take them. Friends of hubby who, even after the adoption of their children is finalized, take alternate routes, watch their backs in public, and within the last couple of months, the biological grandmother saw them at a school function, made threats to take them, and nearly pushed down the wife!
I have been reassured by multiple people that we do NOT have to foster, we can straight up adopt. Don't get me wrong, FP's are greatly needed, and "good" FP's I'm sure are hard to find... It's just not for me. I get too attached, I wouldn't fare so well if I had to send a baby back to who-knows-what. Maybe if we hadn't been through so much already... But I've already given up the *dream* of (biological) children, and I I know how hard that has been. I'm not sure how many losses of actual children my heart and mind could take before I was admitting myself to one of the facilities I package medication for. :) I'm only half joking - I honestly think I would lose my mind.
But suppose I actually DON'T get crapped on in this deal, and we actually DO bring home a living, breathing child, and nobody comes out of the woodwork to take him/her back, and I'm NOT constantly looking over my shoulder for abductors... Holy crap, batman, it's theoretically totally possible that we could be parents by the end of the year!? Well, not really sure what the "wait" is, and how many hoops there are to jump through *after* this class. But wow. Not to sound like Debbie Downer, but while a part of me wants to start buying diapers and wipes and baby paraphenalia, the other part of me thinks about all of the things that could go wrong between now and then. Will there be a time when I just enjoy the moment instead of waiting for the other shoe to drop?

I just want to lay down and cry, and I'm not gonna proofread this either

It's nothing, really. Then again, it's everything. Remind me next year to *not* volunteer for 2 weeks straight of v*b*s! I'm just exhausted, I'm ready for an evening at HOME after work, where I can just come in, do some housework, and COOK a real meal - or not. Being around all these babies is like getting some bad crack - I KNOW it's gonna make me feel crappy, but I just can't stop myself! Last night, I held the little girl who belongs to my best friend from high school, while the grandmother took out her son. Beautiful red curls, made my heart ache to think that she and her big brother have just about made it to the age where my friend will just be done with them and give them to her mom. And she just keeps poppin' 'em out.she just had # 4, she doesn't have custody of her oldest, and more often than not, the grandmother has the next 2. She just no longer has the mental capacity to take care of children, due to an extended illness when we were in high school.
All those "kids" I used to think were just babies? Yeah, I'm taking care of THEIR kids now! Everyone comments on how most of the kids at all of the churches around here call me AuntNotTheMama, and how awesome I am at playing with and caring for any and all children... While that's true, it makes my heart ache, because I want to love and care for my own children like that! I'm tired of "substitute" children, but the alternative (no children in my life at all) is unfathomable.
Work is always a blast (not)... Favorite co-worker always finds a way to mention infertility and someone who "magically" got pregnant after being told it wasn't possible. It's obvious she "really does understand," after today... A girl we all know got pregnant using IF treatment, with thriplets, and now has lost one. Favorite co-worker is all "but I'm sure she's just thrilled with the other 2, and if something does happen, then at least she knows she CAN get pregnant!" Um, yeah. As if the knowledge that yes!you!can! Get pregnant completely negates that you have already lost 1. As a friend who recently had a m/c put it, this was not a practice round! UGH!!! It just goes to show how completely CLUELESS this girl is!
So. It's bedtime. I could go on for hours, but that would only make me more tired and thus more weepy and irritable. And with 15 4-year-old-and-under children to keep up with this week, weepy and irritable are a bad combination! Did I mention AF will be here tomorrow? FUN TIMES MAN!!!

Trying not to lose it on a fire call

I'm pretty sure I've mentioned that hubby is on the vo*lunteer f*ire dept in our community. So are younger sis and b-i-l, Daddy, about half the men in our church, etc. It's just not for me, I'd rather spend my giving-back-time working with the kids @ church.
We hadn't been in the door even 5 minutes tonight when the radio went off, for a house on our road. I don't generally go on calls with him, unless we're out together, or the power is off (big chicken that I am), or there's something going on where I'm afraid to stay by myself. Like when there's an "unkown" problem with a "female" about a mile down the road, and the sh*errif's off*ice is sending an off*icer to investigate.
I'm probably not supposed to go into details, but let's say narcotics and alcohol are involved, a l*dy is on her way to the e*r, and now the guys are checking out the b*by, whose s*ippy c*p smells like the same thing mommy was drinking with the mo*rphine that was NOT prescribed to her. I'm really glad I only had salad for supper, because I'm having a hard time keeping even the little I ate of it down.
I'm also trying hard not to judge, especially not knowing the whole story. But c'mon. You just gave your baby WHAT?????? I'm sitting here dying for a baby, and you're on your way to the hospital, while strangers take care of your scared-out-its-mind 1-or-2-year-old, who may be dr*unk and/or h*igh, on who KNOWS what!
They found at least 1 cup with a lil more than apple juice in it, and d*h*r is on their way for the baby. The baby, who in just a few minutes, will be taken to some more strangers' house. If you're gonna be stupid, get a baby-sitter.