Wanderlust

Today I received an unexpected gift...a collection of photos on CD. The CD was from an old student of mine as a "thank you"...he has spent much of the last year traveling all over Latin America and building his photography skills (he definitely didn't develop those in my class). I was blown away. And very jealous.

I've never gotten much of a chance to travel, and it's something that I deeply regret. My visit to China will be the first time I've been off the North American continent. I've always been so goal driven that I would never have considered traveling for a year in my mid 20s...I would have never considered wandering. Maybe it's time to change my goals.

My friend Andy and I were having an interesting conversation about raising children. He and Nicole plan on showing Abby, their brand new daughter, BBC "Learn Italian" DVDs at six months of age. I cracked up at that one, and of course, made fun of Andy. Andy is an "intellectual" with a capital I. But he got me thinking about what I wish for Isabella. This is not me criticizing anybody's parenting techniques...this is just me reflecting on what I wish for my daughter.

Do I hope Isabella is smart and curious about the world around her? Certainly. But most of all, I hope she has FUN, whatever that means for her (language DVDs or The Lion King). I know I'll have a role in shaping what she considers "fun", but part of me just wants to let her go and explore. Figure stuff out on her own. Be whomever it is that she wants to be, and give her lots of space to BREATHE.

I was a serious kid, a studious kid, with a fair amount of responsibility at a young age. I did not have a lot of fun. I put myself through college and I got a Ph.D. in economics before I turned 30. I loved my time in graduate school. I am a nerd, and I know it. I got a tenure track job in a very competitive market. I am a person you can count on to help you, to problem solve when things get rough. Blah, blah, blah. BLAH.

Reflecting back, I never just let go. I never took time to savor what I had done at that moment...I was always looking for the next benchmark. It wasn't until I was 30 that I started to learn...

-maybe working so hard isn't as important as it used to be

-to let other people deal with their own problems,instead of feeling a responsibility to help them

-that no matter how hard I try, I am never going to be as "good" as I want to be at what I am doing, so I might as well be happy with what I am doing

-that my feelings in and of themselves are worth something, even if I can't "think" my way through why I feel a certain way

Tim has had a big role in this learning process. First of all, he cracks me up EVERY SINGLE DAY. Secondly, he has helped me learn how to relax -at least a little. I am never going to be able to warm a couch for as many hours straight as he can, but I do often sit down and watch a movie with him, or I'll simply curl up next to him for a while. And then there's the dogs. They love me and they could care less if I get tenure or not.

I am SLOWLY learning to turn down some of the noise in my head. It's hard. I still crunch up my shoulders and neck. I still get massive tension headaches. I still grieve things I cannot change. I still have days when I am so disgusted with myself that I want to crawl under a rock.

So, if Isabella ends up as "book" smart as me or her daddy, that will be OK. And is she doesn't, that will be OK as well.

What I really wish for her is that she has all the other kind of "smarts" that it has taken her soon-to-be-mom so long to develop. I wish her a passionate life. I wish her peace. I hope that she wanders a bit, with the security of knowing she will always have a home. I hope that she will always feel as beautiful and as special as we will believe her to be.

The Blog People

Saturday night we had the pleasure of meeting up with some folks I've gotten to know through blogging...Amy and her Chinese daughter Ruby, Donna/Sparky & Bob, Carrie & David, Debra & Simon (who just received their referral for daughter Lulu) and our gracious hosts Richard & Kikalee. We celebrated the Year of the Dog with some great food.

Ruby was very adorable, but also very tired, so we didn't get to oogle her quite as much as we would have otherwise. We did get to see the very cute referral pictures of Lulu, who will hopefully be home in March.

Here are some pictures from the evening:

Rich and Kikalee - our wonderful hosts, waiting for their little one:



Donna/Sparky and Bob (waiting for Grace):


I thought Bob was very cute. He said he "won the lottery" with having Donna as his wife to a crowded room of people he barely knows! I told Tim to write that line down and use it often.

Carrie and David (waiting for Annika):


And us:


I hadn't met any of these folks face to face before, except for Kikalee and Rich.
It's pretty amazing. When we first got invited to this potluck, Tim agreed happily.
Then the other night I hear him telling his parents on the phone that we will be traveling with these people. I shake my head. He gets off the phone. The conversation went something like this:

Tim: Who are these people then?
Me: People I've met on email groups or through blogging.
Tim: Do I know any of these people?
Me: You met Kikalee and Rich at the workshop, remember?
Tim: Who?
Me: The guy was tall with red hair, he likes fencing...they were sitting all the way across the table from us.
Tim: Uh, OK, maybe.
Tim: Uh, why are we meeting these people then?
Me: To be SOCIAL.

In the end, I would say he had a fine time! He didn't even flinch when I told him that we would host one of these potlucks in a few months.

With the adoption blog/group people I've gotten to "know", I sometimes feel like I am a member of some bizarre cult. I normally do not spend a lot of time online...in fact, I have been known to make fun of people who do. But I do think both this blog and reading some of the information on the adoption groups has saved me from insanity...or at least reassured me that there are plenty of other insane ones like me out there.

Deborah mentioned that she hadn't yet started a blog because she wasn't sure who she would be writing for. I think that's an interesting point. When I first started this blog, it was a way for me to let our distant family and friends know what was going on with the adoption process. But, as it turns out, those are not my main readers. My main readers are other adoptive families. Is the blog for Isabella? Not really. I have some thoughts for Isabella, but those are more personal, and will go in a separate, hand-written journal. In the end, the blog has been for me. Yes, it's all about me. It's been a place to document, a place to share, a place to connect. And that seems like reason enough to stick with it.

Andy and Nicole have a daughter!

So, the Year of the Dog is starting off very well! My friends Andy and Nicole brought their daughter Abigail Elizabeth into the world on Sunday morning (OK, so it was mostly Nicole doing the work!). Nicole is a private gal, so I cannot post any pictures, but we are very excited for them! We look forward to watching Abby grow. We are also hoping Abby and Bella will be "Year of the Dog" mates!

Babies R' Us Blues

Since my back issues have flared up recently, I have to take a lot more breaks from the computer when I am supposed to be spending the entire day on the computer doing research on my non-teaching days. Standing and lying down are good...sitting with my legs straight out isn't too bad. Sitting in a chair...bad.

I sound like an old geezer ratting off my health woes, so let me move on.
Today I decided to go to Babies R' Us to buy a bib for the bib swap I am participating in with the October 2005 DTC group. I received a beautiful bib yesterday, and I am feeling bad for being a slacker. And Babies R' Us is near PetSmart, and Indie and Buca were in need of more Science Diet.

This was the first time I had been in Babies R' Us without Tim. Normally we go, pick out what we need for a shower, birth or birthday party, and Tim starts making a beeline for the registers as soon as possible. I think he's afraid I might go wild with our credit cards otherwise. Where he gets that idea I cannot fathom.

So, here I am in Babies R' Us, unencumbered by hubby. I can look to my heart's content. I can even buy for Isabella. And you know what? I wasn't into it. I can't really say why. I think seeing parents shopping with their babies and toddlers, as well as seeing very pregnant women shopping, made me sad. Not because I am not waddling around or struggling to stop little ones from "re-organizing" the store shelves, but because these folks seemed to either already be parents or knew with a fair degree of certainty when they would be parents. I didn't see a single non-pregnant woman without kids in the store. I felt out of place. And I felt weird buying anything for Isabella when we are so uncertain about when she will finally join us. Of course, this has never stopped me before. This future daughter of ours already has a better wardrobe than me (I still have more shoes though. Ha!). But today it did. Strange. So I bought a few bibs and a few things for the Secret Pal Swap that has started in the Nov. 2005 DTC group. Then I left and headed over to PetSmart. I do have dogkids!

So Indie got a new purple fleece jacket for cold weather, Buca got a shorter leash (in our so far largely insuccessful attempts to turn him into a dog that consistently heels rather than pulls), and they also got a few new dogs toys (no fleece or plush toys since Buca eats those) and I bought a Schnauzer calendar that was 75% off for Tim. When I came home, Indie and Buca got an extra long walk. I had some tea, lit a candle, and got on the laptop while sititng up with my legs straight out on the couch. I listened to a Cat Stevens CD. And ya know what? I feel better.

Until Tim gets home, surveys the new dog loot, and I have to tell him that Indie and Buca went shopping again. Damn dogkids.

A lot of random thoughts

First, a referral update! The CCAA has matched waiting familes with log-in dates up to May 13, 2005. Our agency received 14 referrals, all for girls from Hunan Province. The children were between 6 and 13 months of age. Congrats to those new families!

What this means for us, we don't know. It all depends how many referrals the CCAA decides to send out at one time. I wish people got this. Tim and I find ourselves explaining this over and over. But we do realize that while this adoption is at the center of our lives, it isn't at the center of everyone else's.

My lovely husband is a Howard Stern fan. Yeah, I know. Sigh. What can I do? Well, he tells me that Howard had Martha Stewart's 40 something single daughter on as a guest recently. She's made a decision to become a mother through use of a sperm bank. The next day, Howard said that he was struggling with her choice, since there are so many kids out there that need families, and he spoke very favorably about adoption.

My response to this was "Well, some women want the experience of being pregnant and physically giving birth". This got me thinking about our own story.

Tim and I knew that if we were to have children, we would adopt. Since we were friends for about 10 years before we got married, we knew this going into our marriage. We cannot have children because of prior medical issues - the details aren't important. We just can't.

I was married to another person before I married Tim in 2004 (Tim claims I was playing hard to get by marrying someone else). There were infertility issues in my first marriage (different set of issues). I've been through infertility treatment...I have experience with Clomid, injections,IUIs, ICSI and all that. I feel for those of you who have been there as well. I would have moved straight to adoption, but my former husband really wanted us to try and have a biological child. Third party options weren't appealing to us. We talked about adopting from China, and went to a few seminars.

That marriage fell apart for a lot of reasons, some of which were my "fault", if there is such a thing. No one cheated. No one hit. We just couldn't click. I think we would have made each other miserable if we stayed together, and neither of us deserved that.

My former husband is one of the most decent human beings I've ever known. However, I did learn through some painful marriage counseling sessions that he didn't really want to be a father for himself. He was willing to become one (and I believe he would have made a fine one) because I wanted to be a parent, but it isn't something he truly wanted for himself. Sorry, not good enough. We are not talking about agreeing to steak for dinner just because I want it.

After my marriage was over, and my friendship with Tim began heading toward romance, I was very straightforward with Tim. I knew I wanted to be a mother. Not right away, but I knew this was a non-negotiable part of my life plan. My attitude was "Don't waste my time if you aren't interested in being a father". Lucky for me, Tim had always wanted a family of his own.

We knew we would get married pretty soon after we started "officially" dating in August 2002. And so we knew we would adopt, and we knew we would adopt from China.
We moved in together in April 2003, and Tim proposed to a very sick chick in her PJs a few days before Christmas 2003. We married in June 2004. A perfect day in many, many ways. We went to our first meeting at CAWLI one month after we were married.
We had to wait a few months before starting the paperchase in February 2005.

I've seen many of my friends become pregnant and give birth to precious children. Do I feel jealous? Sometimes. I do wonder what it would be like to be pregnant and give birth to a biological child. I mean, I've got a stomach that sometimes looks like a 2-3 month pregnant stomach - it would be nice to have it because there's a baby growing in there!

But I never feel cheated. I know some people think having a biological child is "different" than having an adopted child. And they are right. They have an ultrasound picture...I will have a referral picture. And a million other little different things. I feel like we are on our own path, which is no better, no worse. Just different. I also feel truly blessed to have Tim with me, 100% saddled up for this path.

I never pictured having a child that looked like me. Ever. Maybe it's a coincidence...maybe I don't want a child to have to endure hearing "Hey, Red", "Hey, Carrot Top", "Strawberry Shortcake" or "Duracell-the Copper Top Battery". Maybe I don't want a kid to have to experience turning as red as his or her hair in a half second, or painful sunburns, or comments like "Let's play connect the dots with your freckles". But that's not all that bad. I think maybe adopting is just what I am supposed to do, for whatever reason. It feels right. It has always felt right.

The other day I was talking to a lovely older woman that I have known for years. She recently became a grandmother to a Chinese-American girl, the biological child of her daughter. She was very excited about our adoption and said to me "And you know, you'll love this baby just as much as if she were your own".

Yep, we got that. Because she will be ours, as much as any child ever could be.

A lovely Saturday afternoon

Today was like spring here in Massachusetts. We took a walk with the mutts at the Blue Hills Reservation. I feel compelled to add that it was also very windy. I do know about gel, mousse, etc. to control my wild hair...I just don't use them a lot of the time.











We also tried to take a picture of us and the dogs together with our camera, but we could only get us or the dogs, but not both:

CCAA Update

Normally I try not to speculate on what's going on with the China Center for Adoption Affairs (for non-adoptive families: CCAA-the Chinese government agency that oversees international adoptions). But recently they've started posting information about the referral process on the CCAA website. I've always had trouble reading it, but not surprisingly others in the adoption community are a lot more computer/web savvy than me, and I read what they've discovered. Everyone who has a log in date (LID) up to April 25th 2005 has received a referral. The newest news is that everyone who has a LID in June 2005 has had their dossier reviewed. This suggests that those dossiers are on their way to the matching room.

What does this mean for someone with a LID of November 15th? I have no idea. It will depend on how much Chinese New Year slows down the CCAA, and how many referrals the CCAA sends out at a time(a month's worth? two weeks worth? 5 days worth?) between now and when we receive our referral. But heck, progress is progress.

My current prediction is an August referral with October travel. But we all know that my predictions mean nothing. As much as I want Isabella home yesterday, we would be thrilled to have her home for the 2006 holidays.

Another Indie and Buca Photoshoot

Yes, we take a lot of pictures of our dogs!!! Indie is a three year old Bichon Frise, and Buca is a year old Mini-Schnauzer. And yes, of course they have their own homepages!

Another family united.

Wow, I just reread my last post. Negative! Sorry about that...I realize that some back pain is a pretty minor health issue in the scheme of things. I have a hard time doing nothing...tend to get depressed very quickly. The good news is that Wednesday's massage helped a bit, and my doctor prescribed me some new pain medication. So hopefully things will improve soon.

Now, into GOOD NEWS. When I first got active in the on-line adoption community, I "met" a woman, Dawn, whose family was at the same point in the process as Tim and I. They ended up finding a waiting child (a child considered to be "special needs"), and applied to adopt her. Her name is EmmaLi Faith. Originally, EmmaLi had a club foot, but it has since straightened and she is able to walk normally. On Monday, Dawn and her family met EmmaLi in China, and EmmaLi met her forever family. Click this link to see her web site: EmmaLi.
Isn't she lovely? Dawn has been a tremendous source of support for me, and I am so happy for this family.

Tim and I have discussed whether or not we should consider adopting a waiting child a great deal. Cuurently, we are not approved in our homestudy to do so (we didn't ask to be evaluated for a special needs child). We've stuck with the Non Special Needs program for a couple of reasons. One, we've never had a child, and we would like to experience being parents to a child that is as young as possible. Two, we've never been parents and have no idea what we are doing...We both have thought at times that it might be easier to start with a child that appears to have no special needs, at least until we learn the ropes.

But these waiting children tug at my heart. Sometimes I feel foolish being sad and upset about the long wait time these days when so many are waiting. And sometimes their "special needs" are simply that they are a bit older, or something that is a minor medical problem in the US. We have some of the best hospitals in the world in our back yard. Finally, although I am not against abortion as a personal choice for some people, I don't believe I would ever personally abort a biological child even if I found out he or she had a serious medical issue. So I go back and forth. The resolution I've come to for now is that perhaps when we adopt a second time, and are more experienced parents, we will apply to adopt a waiting child.

The month of ills.

One of the great "perks" of my job is that I don't have to teach most of January (classes start up again on the 23rd). Normally it's a time to regroup, do some research, have some fun.

This year, my fall semester grading load was brutual...I finished on 12/30-the day grades were due. Since then I've been feeling pretty crappy...very tired, allergies acting up, etc. I actually went to the doctor last week and she's running some bloodwork to make sure all is OK. And then we tinker with my asthma/allergy meds.

On Friday, my back totally seized up. This has happened before...not fun. It usually involves trips to the hospital and heavy duty painkillers (I'm told it's some "muscular issue", which seems to be code for "we can't do anything except drug you"). Luckily, I had some of my old stash left. I take a heating pad to bed (sexy), now have one at work, and I can't walk upright (again, sexy!). I made an emergency massage appt. for tomorrow. I hope they can fix me! Everytime a massage therapist works on my neck, shoulders, and back, I hear "Wow...you poor thing". It makes me feel quite, um, old. Unattractive. Very unsexy. I am not trying to hurt myself! I guess I hold my body in bizarre ways or something. In any case, this incident has reminded me that I need to get my butt back into a Pilates studio where I can feel old and unattractive amongst the willowy ballerina types.

Poor hubby is stuck with dog walking duty and most household chores. He rubs me and says "Wow, you are as hard as a rock". And that's how you know he's rubbing my back, and not my tummy!

All I can say is "owee"!

Quiz Fun

Ok, so I took an online quiz to determine what my perfect major is.
Here are my results:

You scored as Anthropology. You should be an Anthropology major! Anthropology 92% Journalism 83% Sociology 83% Psychology 75% Linguistics 75% Engineering 75% Philosophy 67% English 67% Mathematics 67% Theater 58% Biology 58% Dance 50% Chemistry 42% Art 33% What is your Perfect Major? (PLEASE RATE ME!!<3) created with QuizFarm.com

Where, oh where, is economics on this list??? I am not sure this quiz even has it as an option. After getting a BA and an MA in economics and a Ph.D. in environmental economics, I would like to see it somewhere on the list! One thing the quiz got right...I am definitely fascinated by human behavior, and I am definitely a somewhat analytical person. That's how I got into economics...I am fascinated by how people make choices that affect their economic and environmental welfare and the welfare of future generations. Sometimes when I think I might ditch academia, or get thrown out, I think about alternative careers. So, here goes:

Top 3 Advanced Degrees I would have considered:
1. Public Health / Epidemiology
2. Medicine
3. Statistics

Top 4 Daydream Careers:
1. Biostatistican/Epidemiologist
(I'm fascinated by why disease does or doesn't occur).

2. Medical Doctor
(I probably have seen too much of ER, House, and Grey's Anatomy. Beautiful brainy men everywhere!).

3. Forensic Scientist
(Probably too much CSI).

4. Massage Therapist
(My previous massage therapist referred to me as a "table sl*t". I am convinced getting a massage is one of the nicest things you can do for yourself.)

Top 4 Careers I would totally suck at:
1. Physicist
(What's torque again? I must have missed that while I was busy getting a C in "Physics for Morons")

2. Artist
(Cool and gutsy career choice, but I've no talent in that area. I got Cs in elementary school art).

3. Financial Analyst
(Yes, I could do it. But I would hate it. Yawn! No offense to anyone...just not my thing).

4. Professional Athlete
(Being able to drive a stick is my idea of coordination. The only reason I like fencing is because I get to poke people).

The Big Brown Envelope

Sounds exciting, doesn't it? The big brown envelope is an packet of paperwork from the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou, China (this is for all you non-adoptive families out there). It basically says "We know you've been approved to adopt a child and we know you are coming". We will take the envelope and the paperwork enclosed in it when we go to China. Now, if only we knew when we are going to China!

Yes, referrals have slowed down dramatically, and our adoption agency has confirmed that they will continue to do so. I haven't been feeling well lately, and find it too depressing to discuss further, so I will leave it at that for now. We will be thrilled if we can have Bella home for Christmas!

Water and some big questions.

Americans take the quality of our drinking water for granted. I can tell you that water from public water systems in this country is generally very safe, both as an environmental economist and as someone who spent last year on a fellowship, working at the US Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water. One branch of that office alone just pushed through a regulation that decreases our level of risk from dis-infection by products. This was not an easy task, especially with a presidential administration that, shall we say, cannot be described as "pro-environment". Trust me.

Is it 100% safe? No, but pretty darn close, and we as a nation could never afford to have 100% safe drinking water. OK, that's the economist in me coming at you, but it's true...We would have to give up too much of other things that we also value and generally consider "good" things for our people (e.g., public education, police protection, public transportation, public radio, air quality, etc.) to achieve 100% safe water. OK, so that's the professor in me coming out. Lecture over.

Anyway, today, I read the following article online about the quality of China's water, and it hit me again how much we (and by "we", I also mean "I") take for granted. I've thought a lot about the level of pollution in China, both as a professional, and now, on a personal level. What will it mean for our daughter? Will she have acute or chronic health problems as a result of the short period of time she lived in China before leaving her country to come into our family? Will we see adverse health effects, and always wonder why they are there, suspecting that the level of environmental quality she experienced may be a cause, but never knowing for certain? What will it mean for me to spend two weeks in China as an asthmatic with severe allergies? How will I hold up on the trip? Believe me, Tim and I have thought about this one a lot.

And what can be done about it? After all the development, industrialization,and pollution that the US has seen, can we simply tell the Chinese "Ok, we know better now"? In other words, is it fair for the US to suggest stringent environmental regulation to China, a developing country with a great deal of poverty, when many Americans have experienced a level of economic well-being that most Chinese have not?

Yes, Bush backed out of the Kyoto Protocol. But China, where both coal demand and production is huge, was not going to sign it in any case, and many argued that the Protocol would not be meaningful unless China agreed to it. Can we say China is wrong? And what will happen as Chinese economic well-being grows, and the Chinese become the personal transportation (i.e, automobile) lovers that most Americans are?

One thing I often talk about with my students is how environmental protection is both a necessity and a luxury. It seems like a luxury to a country that struggles to feed, to educate and to care for the health of its citizens. Yet, it's a necessity because if China pollutes today for economic gain, and fails to address its environmental problems, it will create additional and more serious demands on the China of tomorrow.

Unfortunately, like most academics, I have no hard and fast answers...Just lots of questions. And unlike many academics, I'll admit that.

*******************************************************
300 Million Chinese Drink Unsafe Water By ELAINE KURTENBACH, Associated Press Writer
Thu Dec 29, 5:16 AM ET

About 300 million people living in China's vast countryside drink unsafe water tainted by chemicals and other contaminants, the government said Thursday in its latest acknowledgment of mounting risks from widespread pollution.

The most common threat to water, after drought, is chemical pollutants and other harmful substances that contaminate drinking supplies for 190 million people, state media quoted E Jingping, a vice minister for water resources, as saying.

The report follows recent chemical spills in the northeast and south of the country that temporarily spoiled water supplies for millions of people and highlighted the severity of the pollution crisis.

The problems are not limited to the countryside. About 90 percent of China's cities have polluted ground water, the official Xinhua News Agency reported, citing a recent nationwide survey.

In Shanghai, the country's biggest and wealthiest city, fetid, stinky canals bubble with pollution. The city's tap water, drawn partly from the heavily polluted Yangtze River, is yellowish and smelly, despite efforts to clean up local waterways.

Some 136 Chinese cities report severe water shortages, adding to the problem, Xinhua said.

"The top priority of our drought relief work is to ensure safe drinking water and safeguard people's health," Xinhua quoted E as telling a conference this week in the western city of Chengdu.

Heavily polluting paper and chemical plants have long been cited as key sources of degradation of most of China's waterways. In some areas, the problems have prompted riots by local residents outraged by chronic health problems and the destruction of their fields and fish farms.

Millions of other Chinese face risks from naturally occurring contaminants, such as excess fluorine, which affects water supplies for 63 million people, and arsenic, which taints water supplies for 2 million. Another 38 million have only brackish water to drink, the report said.

Earlier this week, authorities reported that toxins in the Bei River, in southern China's Guangdong province, had nearly returned to safe levels after a Dec. 15 spill of more than 1,000 tons of cadmium-laced water from a smelter in the city of Shaoguan.

Cities along the Bei temporarily stopped drawing water from the river and dams were closed to keep the spill away from the provincial capital, Guangzhou.

Residents in Russia's Far East have been warned against eating fish after a 110-mile-long slick from a chemical spill in northeastern China crossed the border earlier this week. That spill, from a Nov. 13 chemical plant explosion in the city of Jilin, forced Chinese cities along the Songhua River to shut off water for days.

Copyright © 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.

Copyright © 2006 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.

Signs?

Today is the first day of the year we expect to bring our first child home. Wow!

I am not a big believer in "signs". I am not against folks believing in signs; I just don't happen to be a believer in them myself. But since Christmas eve, a number of interesting things have happened.

1. When Tim and I went to mass on Christmas eve, we immediately spotted a Caucasian woman holding a Chinese baby girl. We thought that perhaps she was adopted, but waited until we spotted the dad. He was also Caucasian. Then the beautiful baby was chosen to play Jesus in the nativity scene. Her name is Helen. I didn't pursue the parents after the service, because I wasn't sure if that would be appropriate. But to the best of my ability to guess, Helen was probably adopted from China.

2. I was at a coffee shop recently, and a young woman walked in with three girls. All looked to be under the age of 10. The oldest was Caucasian, and the younger two were Chinese. I smiled at her briefly on my way out and found out that all three grils are her nieces, and she was out spending the day with them. The youngest girl was trying to eat a huge wrap sandwich and said "my mouth is too small". It was hysterical. But again, I said nothing about Tim and I being a waiting family to the young woman.

3. While reading my new photojournalism book, I came across some photos of women that had adopted baby girls from China.

Weird, huh? Pure coincidence? Probably. Lots of folks in this area have adopted from China, and of course, lots of Americans have adopted from China. But I am going to take these events as signs that our daughter will be home by the close of 2006. Because I need to.

Our New Year's Eve

Since this New Year's Eve is the last New Year's Eve we won't have children (we hope!), we decided to really live on the wild side. That's right...we went out to a nice dinner at Coriander Bistro. We ate A LOT. Tim gave a rather sweet toast to us and to Bella.

Then we drive home and said "Ugh, we're FULL". I changed into my PJs. We watched bad TV and took pictures of the dogs. Yes, we are pretty damn edgy.

Here's our self-portrait:


The dogs:





And I wasn't the only lucky one to get a kiss at midnight from Tim: