God's timing

I've been lazy these past few weeks...not posting anything of substance. In an effort to remedy that, I've dusted off my neglected timer and am planning on focusing solely on this blog for fifteen minutes.

I've been thinking a lot about babies lately. My brother has a new baby. My other two brothers are expecting new babies. A friend just had her baby today, and a cousin is expecting one any day now. Babies seem to be all around.

This week, my husband and I participated in a vocations panel as the "married couple" representative. But when we speak about our vocation to marriage, we also always bring up our vocation to parenthood and specifically adoption. As we were sharing our story this week, it occurred to me that God was preparing us for Olivia. Every fertility struggle made us more and more open to the possibility of adoption, and as soon as we said "yes" and made the decision to pursue adoption, God opened that door for us. He opened it so fast that He practically smacked us in the face with the door.

As we wait for #2, I often wonder what's taking so long. Yeah, I know, we were spoiled with Olivia, and adoption takes time. But still, I wonder.

And then we'll have a particularly difficult day with Olivia, and I'll think...maybe God's timing is better than ours. I know it is. It was difficult to wait for children during those years of infertility. We couldn't always see the light at the end of the tunnel. And then Olivia came along, and in retrospect we realized that the timing was perfect. God gave us years of "couplehood" that allowed us to do things that we don't have time to do anymore. We were more emotionally and financially stable by the time Olivia came along. It was the right time.

I know that God's timing is perfect. It's just hard for me to let go of my need to control and plan everything out. To let go of these control issues is my constant prayer.

In the meantime, I'll enjoy the new babies who are being born to our family and friends. It will be our turn soon enough, I suppose.

My brain is all afloat today

I have a sinus headache today, so I took some pills which are making me drowsy and a bit cloudy, so forgive me if this bounces around.

Olivia and I went to visit her cousins this weekend, and she had a good time. She's completely worn out today, and I'm hoping that means I'll have time to get a little nap in myself.

When we got home from our 4.5 hour drive yesterday, Olivia's diaper was completely dry. That has never happened before. So we sat her on the potty when we got home, and she went! That's the first time that has happened. Well, for us. Grandma claims that she used the potty at her house on Friday. Isn't that always the way it happens?

Come to think of it, Grandma always gets the happy, well-mannered child. My husband says that Olivia only gives us a hard time to test the boundaries, and she doesn't need to do that with Grandma because, well, it's Grandma. There may be something to that...

The temps are more tolerable and the humidity is down today. It may be a good evening for grilling...

I promise to try to be more focused tomorrow.

Seven takes, mostly anecdotes

I feel like I've been complaining a lot about the sleep issues and tantrums that come with having a toddler. But there are some really great things too that make each day a true blessing. Like:

1. Olivia recently unearthed two dolls from her pile of dolls/stuffed animals, and she's been carrying them around everywhere. When she found them, she informed me that "I have two babies!" "Kiss 'em, Mommy." And then she proceeded to "kiss" me with the dolls, making a kissing noise while putting each doll up to my face.

2. Olivia was playing with her babies this morning and doing the kissy thing with them, and she put them up to her feet and made a kissing noise. I said, "Are the babies kissing your toes?" Olivia said, "I lub yoo, toes!"

3. This morning, I was watching something on TV, and I kept pausing and coming back to it (the joys of DVR). Olivia wanted me to play with her, and she was doing her darndest to get me away from the TV. "Mommy get you?" Which means, let's play Mommy's going to get you...our chasing game. So I started playing, but she didn't want to play in the living room. "No, Mommy get you...room?" Meaning her bedroom. She has her way of getting what she wants. Plus, I guess it should have been some sort of hint to me that I should turn the TV off. (Bad Mommy.)

4. The going-to-sleep thing isn't really getting any better except that we don't do rocking anymore. Instead, I sit next to her as she lays in bed and I threaten her (usually with being held and rocked, which she has decided that she hates) for 45 minutes until she finally decides to lay still enough to let sleep overcome her. *Sigh* It's exhausting. She tests my patience a million times by trying to get up and escape. We listen to her "go-to-sleep" music, which she calls "Arise, arise!" because it's the first song on the CD. She always ends up getting me to lay down with her even though I would rather not get into that habit. But I can't resist when she sits up and points to her pillows and says, "Mommy's pillow, Libby's pillow." (She can't do a 'v' sound.) "Mommy hold you? Mommy lay down?" OK already!

5. We are going to visit the wee baby cousin this weekend, along with all of Olivia's other young cousins from my family. The baby is being baptized this weekend. I've been telling Olivia about it, and she talks excitedly about her cousins, using their names. So verbal, this child.

6. Grammy & Grampy babysat yesterday while I had some meetings, and they were tickled by her because she's recently begun to use polite speak regularly, and in proper context. They told me that any time they gave her anything or did anything for her, she said, "Thank you". She also uses "please" for almost any request she makes, and when she was dancing around and accidently hit Grandma's leg, she quickly said "Sorry!" Yeah, she's pretty remarkable.

7. Olivia follows along with meal prayer now, mumbling the few words she remembers. She always says "night-night" to Jesus and kisses him (crucifix on the wall) when we go to bed. Last weekend, Daddy was getting her dressed for Church, and he told her where we were going and asked her who we were going to see there. She said, "Go to church, see Jesus."

Yep, she's a pretty sharp cookie. Sweet too. Love ya, babe!

Heat wave

We've been experiencing an oppressive heat wave here. To pass the time and wear Olivia out a bit in the evenings, we've made a couple of visits to Grandma's pool. Olivia has had a chance to try out her new life jacket and her new swimming suit, both of which look great on her.

It's unfortunate that my camera takes such awful pictures, because she was having a great time in the water. The pics are all fuzzy, though.

Olivia will be quite the swimmer, I think. She is already trying many things...some more daring than others. She is doing everything from kicking and floating on her back to climbing out of the pool and jumping in on her own. Someone is always there to pull her out right away, but she is doing really well with the head-under-water-don't-breathe thing.

Yesterday was a weird day for Olivia. She was defiant and quick to throw a tantrum all day. It was exhausting. Especially since I was dealing with that while the satellite installer guy was here. Yeah, I don't care how indifferent the guy seemed to be to Olivia's presence...it's still embarrassing to have her throw herself on the floor in a fit of screaming over not being allowed to climb over the baby gate.

It was one of those days where I actually had to relocate some things because she just WOULD. NOT. LEAVE. THEM. ALONE. Like her CD player, which always sits on her chest-of-drawers. It had to be completely removed from the room. Why? Because every time I turned my back she would be CLIMING ON THE DRAWERS to get to it. She turned it on, then off, over and over again. I also had to move her little bookcase because she climbed onto it and was pulling pictures off the wall.

Yeah. It was one of those days.

So far, today has been better. She went down for nap without having to scream herself into a frenzy first (she never does this, but yesterday...). She played nicely with her toys. She got down when I told her to stop climbing. Let's hope the rest of the day is as good.

What's on my mind...

We are all homebound today. My sore throat was sore all weekend and then just disappeared. I'm SO thankful for that, but my husband was not so lucky. His ear infection spread to his soft tissue, and we discovered that he needed a more powerful antibiotic. He's laying low and recovering today, and hoping that the new meds kick in quickly so that he can get back to work tomorrow.

Please say some prayers for Adrienne. For reasons far beyond their control, they have decided to walk away from their adoption plan. It looks like the adoption would be difficult, if not impossible, to successfully complete at this point, and they needed to protect their family from further emotional involvement.

I cannot imagine what she must be going through. Independent adoption is hard, and there are so many things that can go wrong. We were so lucky with Olivia.

I have lots of thoughts on that subject, but my mind is too cluttered today. I have a kitchen to clean and lunch to eat and some housework to do while the child sleeps. Happy Monday!

Seven takes

1. Olivia's sleep disturbances have been creeping into my dreams lately. I wake up thinking she's in bed next to me and that I'm going to wake her. Which is weird, since she has NEVER slept in our bed at night. A few times, she'll come in our room in the morning and we'll lay her between us and she'll fall back asleep for a half hour or so, but she has never slept with us at night.

2. Olivia's cold is getting better. Now, though, my husband has an ear infection and my throat is starting to feel throbby (is that a word?). So I'm afraid we won't escape this unscathed.

3. As I write, the child is standing behind me writing on my t-shirt with a pen (I assume she's writing...I haven't checked). She keeps wiping it with her hand and saying, "Sorry, Mommy." Yeah, right.

4. We went to the zoo today with Grandma. She's off work today and wanted to take us. Olivia had a great time.


5. We are having our cable turned off today and are getting our satellite service hooked up on Tuesday. We should have a weekend of no TV at all. I'm not so worried about that from an entertainment standpoint...we have plenty of other things to do and movies to watch if we are homebound for some reason (like if these cold symptoms turn into a full-blown cold). But I'm a little concerned that we can't get TV weather updates in the midst of storm season. At least there's the internet.

6. I've been following two adoption bloggers who are adding children to their family RIGHT NOW. The first is Adrienne. The baby boy was born this week, and so far the adoption plan is still in place, but she had an adoption plan fall through last fall and is a bit nervous. Go give her some love.

7. The second family is Troy & Amber. Amber was a classmate of mine in high school, and they are bringing their son home from Ethiopia TODAY. I love following adoption stories. So many things need to come together just right for it to work out well, and when it does, it just seems like you are witnessing a little miracle.

More takes here.

Can Olivia come over and play?

We went outside yesterday evening to inspect the first three daylily blooms of the season. You may think that's not all that exciting, but it is for us. That's two more blooms than we saw all year last year. The deer are relentless and seem to delight in picking off our daylily buds before they have a chance to bloom. We moved the plants around this year, and for some reason, the deer haven't bothered them yet. I'm under no illusion that they will stay away forever, so I'm enjoying the blooms while they last.

This beauty (above) is in the backyard flower bed. When we came around to see it, we noticed that our backyard neighbor kids (the ones who just moved in a month ago) were outside playing. The littlest of them is seven, and as soon as he saw us he said, "Can Olivia come over and play?"

Now, it took about two minutes for that invitation to turn into a question..."Is it OK if we play with Olivia on her swingset?" But that's OK. As it turns out, Backyard Neighbor Kids have been outside most nights hoping that we'd come out and play so they could come over and play on Olivia's rockin' awesome playset. They are quite a bit rougher on it than Olivia and her cousin have been, and I think we are going to have to establish some rules in the future about not kicking rocks when they swing, but it was nice to have someone for Olivia to play with.

Olivia was having a ball! She loves kids (even though these are a bit older), and they were including her in their fun. One of them wanted to push her on the swing, and she laughed and laughed (while we panicked a little because she was going pretty high, and this is a regular swing...not a toddler swing). When we pulled her away for bathtime, the kids politely moved back into their own yard (without being told to do so), and Olivia cried and said, "Kids? Play with kids?"

Looks like we'll be spending a little more time in the backyard now. It's so nice to finally have kids in the neighborhood.

Some company is installing some sort of cable (fiber optic or something) throughout our housing development. They are, at this moment, in my front yard making a massive rut in the grass with their backhoe. I'm not happy about it, but apparently there's nothing I can really do. They have dug holes in all the yards in the whole neighborhood, so I guess it was just our turn.

I wish they could be a little quieter in their digging. Olivia is napping, and the "tractor noise" isn't so bad. She's used to mowers and such. But they keep making a noise that sounds like they are dropping a metal pipe onto another piece of metal. It's a sharp, clanging noise, and it's almost sure to wake her before she is completely rested. Great way to extend her cold. Grrr!

I'm off to get something substantial accomplished while the princess sleeps. Happy Thursday!