Six Months and Counting.....

On Monday we hit that magical six months home day. The one where "they" say "they really start to feel like yours" and where "you achieve your new normal."

So, my new normal is:
going to bed at 9 every night because I'm so exhausted.

Kidding.
Well, I'm not, but I hope it isn't forever.

In six months we have:
*taught Iris to eat pizza. so well, in fact, that it's all she wants and drives me crazy about it.
*taught Iris that toilet paper goes in the toilet and not the trash
*taught Iris that she can tell us anything and we'll try not to freak out until she is tucked safely away in bed.
*gone off on a child who ate the same thing for 10 days running for saying "again" when we had Mexican buffet two nights in a row. "get used to it. you can change it up. see all the options?"
*cried more tears than we can even remember
*watched ourselves get old and drawn
*the ability to communicate really well.
*found out our newest child is an "aggressive learner."
*celebrated contact with birthfamily
*begun to "fix" our youngest since "he's only five" doesn't translate. (and shouldn't have this long...)
*given and especially received undeserved love and affection and forgiveness.
*survived.
and lots more.
we've grown.
All of us.

And you know what?

"They" are right.

She's mine. 

Crazy fake smile and all.
(By the way, very excited because she just got pizza....)

But I hope the new normal includes Iris learning to speak in past and future tense. I have a feeling it will be less confusing.

If I Were to Write a Blog Post

This would be it. If you change all the "boy" to "girl," that is.

And I would tell you that this is my sister and we are all in deep mourning.

And these children were friends with my Iris in Ethiopia.

Sometimes I want to scream at the injustices of the world. Those "sometimes" have become nearly "every waking hour" anymore. And sometimes I wake up just for those moments.

It's been a very emotional week and frankly, even though it is contrary to my make-up, I've got no words to describe my chaos anymore. I could tell you a funny story about the first grade field trip to the pumpkin patch in a freezing cold downpour, but I just don't have the heart for it. That sentence just about sums it up without actually complaining about something that is irrelevant compared to life's true problems.

So there you go. My week in review.

Time Warp

It's an interesting thing, leaving and returning to your hometown nearly 20 years later.

I've made new friends and it doesn't bother me at all to see them in the role of "Mom." After all, that's what we are.

No, what gets me is seeing my old acquaintances rockin' the minivan.

I realize this is shallow. I drive a minivan and it is perfectly normal. I rejoiced the day my first one arrived. It was like driving a house. And when my daycare kids were over I wasn't housebound. It was awesome.

But there are people who will never look right to me because I didn't see them transition from muscle car to minivan. They're just.....there. Driving one. All of a sudden. Like time has passed or something.

I am living Marty McFly's nightmare. Thank goodness *I* am still 17.

Hair

Well.....
I'm 37.

I guess I should back up.
Yesterday as I sat in the back row of church and analyzed the heads of women ahead of me, I again had the thought that someday I, too, would be an adult woman who got up every day and "did" my hair. Meaning, I guess, that I would use a blow drier, or curling iron, or flat iron (as if that would be remotely necessary) and have a style beyond, "Hey! I graduated in 1994, the year of the grunge!"

When the thought occurred to me, Well......I'm 37.

I'm not sure you get more grown up than you are when you are 37. Wiser, yes. But grown up? I don't think so. If I was going to do my hair, I would be doing it already. I'm going to quit lying to myself and let myself off the hook. I will probably never grow up and do my hair.

I cut 10 inches off a few weeks ago in honor of a friend in the throes of chemo. If I wanted a style, that would have been the time. I chose, instead, to tell her, "A style that doesn't require style."

Hello grunge, ole friend, ole pal.