Tonight I looked at the calendar.
Again.
I counted the days.
Again. (I have done this 5 different times today. At least.)
In 44 days, at the most, I will be on a plane.
There are an awful lot of things to do between now and then.
Whenever we have adopted, as soon as we accept a child's referral I have a sudden burst of nesting activity. Because it's early in the process, it doesn't last too long. ;-)
Then later, closer to when I need to be preparing to leave, I go into full-blown nesting mode. It lasts until I walk out the door.
I remember with Abel's adoption, Dean was able to take a couple days off just before we left. Knowing I keep the master schedule in my head, every morning he would ask, "What do we have to do today?" And I would rattle off my list of destinations. He would fill up his thermos and sit patiently in the van while I ran back into the house for the 27th time for something I'd forgotten. "How do you ever get this all done?" he'd ask. When we were finally on the plane he made a confession. "I never thought we'd actually complete one adoption, must less three. I figured there was so much paperwork you would eventually give up on it."
This time around there is no time between phases! I have nesting energy but I don't even know what to do with it. I'm so distracted, and my to-do list is so long that I don't even know where to start. Other adoptive families would probably agree with me when I say this is the time when my stomach is constantly in knots. I go over numbers in my head constantly. Figuring and re-figuring several times per day. Always coming up short. Always looking for some obscure place in our finances where $100 here or there could be shifted to the "adoption expense" column. The little glimmers of hope you feel when the numbers come out just right, only to remember some obscure bill that is coming due.
And still, the rest of the family is living and I need to attend to them before anything else. I close the "adopting" section of my brain and focus on the kids, only to have the door creep open again awhile later, distracting me.
Tomorrow I will start making "the list". This time it will be longer because there is more to do for the other kids just because of the timing of events.
And, when I'm freaking out a bit, I remind myself that when WE get home in April, it will be SPRING and the snow will be gone!!! Oh how wonderful is that thought!
Again.
I counted the days.
Again. (I have done this 5 different times today. At least.)
In 44 days, at the most, I will be on a plane.
There are an awful lot of things to do between now and then.
Whenever we have adopted, as soon as we accept a child's referral I have a sudden burst of nesting activity. Because it's early in the process, it doesn't last too long. ;-)
Then later, closer to when I need to be preparing to leave, I go into full-blown nesting mode. It lasts until I walk out the door.
I remember with Abel's adoption, Dean was able to take a couple days off just before we left. Knowing I keep the master schedule in my head, every morning he would ask, "What do we have to do today?" And I would rattle off my list of destinations. He would fill up his thermos and sit patiently in the van while I ran back into the house for the 27th time for something I'd forgotten. "How do you ever get this all done?" he'd ask. When we were finally on the plane he made a confession. "I never thought we'd actually complete one adoption, must less three. I figured there was so much paperwork you would eventually give up on it."
This time around there is no time between phases! I have nesting energy but I don't even know what to do with it. I'm so distracted, and my to-do list is so long that I don't even know where to start. Other adoptive families would probably agree with me when I say this is the time when my stomach is constantly in knots. I go over numbers in my head constantly. Figuring and re-figuring several times per day. Always coming up short. Always looking for some obscure place in our finances where $100 here or there could be shifted to the "adoption expense" column. The little glimmers of hope you feel when the numbers come out just right, only to remember some obscure bill that is coming due.
And still, the rest of the family is living and I need to attend to them before anything else. I close the "adopting" section of my brain and focus on the kids, only to have the door creep open again awhile later, distracting me.
Tomorrow I will start making "the list". This time it will be longer because there is more to do for the other kids just because of the timing of events.
And, when I'm freaking out a bit, I remind myself that when WE get home in April, it will be SPRING and the snow will be gone!!! Oh how wonderful is that thought!
Yes, "Finding Spring" will finally actually happen in the spring, eh?
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