The Edge of the Deep Green Sea

Henry has moved up to the next size swaddler, which might be a tad too big, but still works.  He's eating like it's his job, though I suppose it technically his is job at this point.  Eat lots = sleep more at night = must use bigger size diapers at night.  He'll be moving up to the size 2 diapers soon anyway.  And the 0-3 month clothes will be moving out pretty soon, too.  

ETA:  I did measurements this morning.  11 lbs 12 oz and about 22 1/2 inches.  

The driveway finally has asphalt, but we can't drive on it yet.

The swaddling mostly works still, but Henry is starting to get very strong and Incredible Hulks his way out when he's really pissed.  Also when he's really pissed, and he's crying really hard (like when I'm making him a bottle or something and he isn't interested in being patient), he works up this major sweat on his face.  All over his nose and forehead.  It's actually kind of funny.  My co-worker says her daughter does the same thing.  I'm glad it's not just Henry.  As funny as it is, I've never seen anything like it before.  

And let me tell you how glad I am to not be breastfeeding this kid.  He started off eating twice as much as the other babies in the hospital nursery.  At discharge, he was taking about four ounces every four hours.  He has now increased the amount to about 5-6 ounces, but has actually DEcreased the time between feedings to 3-3/12 hours during the day.  And Level 1 nipples were too weak for him.  Remember that he'll only be 3 weeks old tomorrow.  I should weigh him on my garage sale baby scale later.  Since we don't know what his due date actually was, I wonder if he was very late and that's why he's so ahead of the game on eating.

Swaddling is my night time friend.  No joke.  Apparently unless John does it and then it just makes him mad.  ;)

Did I mention this kid can eat?  I'll have to weigh and measure him later, but I'm sure he's growing like crazy.  

Poor Nora is having adjustment troubles.  She's been crying about going to "school" every morning.  I tried to point out that I am actually still going to work (for a few hours a week anyway) and that when I am home, I'm not having any fun and she'll definitely be having much more fun at daycare.  Tried to point out what a good time she'll have with her friends and that she'll learn lots of new stuff.  Tried to point out that when she was a baby, I stayed home with her for a long time.  Tried to point out that Henry will be going to daycare soon, too, but I don't think she'll care about that fact until it actually happens mid-January.  

So I haven't stumbled on just the right thing to say.  She wasn't kicking or screaming or protesting that she had to put her shoes and coat on or anything, but she was in tears when she and John left this morning and I haven't heard yet how drop off went, but it hasn't been good lately.  

Angry jealousy is easier to work with than this, I think.

Still in Ohio.  Just waiting.  Getting antsy about it.  Tomorrow we start driving towards Cleveland in the hopes that we get a call along the way and don't have to get a hotel room.  

As for the driveway, my neighbor tells us that they started digging it up today, but it's not filled yet.  I called to check since I had voicemail from the contractors today telling us we can't drive on it for seven days.

Seven days?  Um, my car is still in the garage and I kinda will need to drive it if we ever get home to get this kid to the pediatrician and go teach my class Friday afternoon.  So we let the neighbor know where the spare car key is and he's going to attempt to drive on the dry lawn.  Of course, it's November now and we're technically not supposed to park on the street from November until April.  

Let's hope they're not ticketing or they'll see our dug up driveway and understand why we're parked there...

For those of you who have seen pictures of Nora, that's the hair I grew up with.  As I got older, it got darker and wavier.  But it's always been super thick.  I always wanted curls and tried numerous perms in junior high/early high school.  I think I had only one that ever lasted more than a few weeks, and even that wasn't the spirally look I wanted.  My hair has just always been too heavy to hold curls.  Even for fancy updos and such, it would take a serious amount of hairspray to keep in a curl that was ironed in, and even that would fade out by the end of the night.  

Well, if I couldn't have curls, then I wished for stick straight hair so I could pull off certain looks when it was shorter, but that wasn't meant to be, either.  Too thick and too wavy.  It always just waved upward instead of under, even if blow drying strategically with a round brush.  

I've had hair of just about every length.  I'd have a vision in my head of what I wanted it to look like and go get a cut, but it never turned out quite like that in reality.  Who's known me long enough to remember when I went "Halle Barry short" one summer?  That was a pain in the ass to grow out.  And also, I do not have Halle's texture so that definitely didn't turn out the way I envisioned.  

During that growing out process, I used a lot of hair product to keep it under control.  Horrible for my skin, so that made me go styling product free.  Have been ever since.

And let's talk color.  I dyed it in 12th grade a magnificent shade of red (actually Julie dyed it, but you know what I mean).  Red Penny.  And that began my love affair with red hair.  I did a lot of red.  Once in a fit of post-break up craziness, I went black.  Then I did a lot more red.  Then I moved on to red highlights because I didn't need to worry about roots as much.  Eventually, before I was planning on getting pregnant, I had the salon figure out what color my roots actually were and dye it back to that.  It had been so long, and in that time, it had gotten a lot darker.  So I was rather surprised to discover what color my hair now naturally was.  

Then I got pregnant and enjoyed my hair for many months.  Then I wasn't pregnant anymore and it was even wavier than it had been before.  Then I got an IUD and my hair got even coarser and wavier than it had been before that.  Thanks hormones.

And all the while, I kept going to get haircuts with lovely visions in my head of what I wanted it to look like, but it never turned out that way.

Enter the adoption process.  Most of you know that we're open to race, and in all likelihood, we'll probably adopt a baby that is not white.  So I've been exploring and researching how to take care of natural black hair.  Because I would want to keep my child's hair natural.  I quit hair styling products years ago and I've never worn much makeup (except that blue eyeliner phase in 7th grade, which was also a bad time for hairspray), so I'm pretty natural myself.  I don't even like to blow dry it, but I really need to in the winter.  Even then, I will only buy blow dryers that have a warm setting so I don't have to use it on hot.  

I have found some fantastic resources online.  The Natural Haven, Black Girl with Long Hair, Nubian Tresses, Happy Girl Hair (which is written by an adoptive mom with two twins from Ethiopia who have completely different hair texture).  I've gotten some fabulous hair style ideas, some of which you've seen demonstrated on Nora, and I've gotten a really good dose of discussion about loving what nature gave you.  

And I really took that discussion to heart, except I seemed to forget to apply it to myself.  

I got my hair cut Sunday and I had this vision of what I wanted it to look like.  Except that the bottom layer will never be all one length for me because my wavy hair shrinks up in the front when it dries.  I made a remark about how hairdressers should account for that shrinkage and grumped that it wasn't what I was thinking of.  

And then I looked at it and decided I liked what it was doing anyway.  Because this is what my hair does.  This is me in my natural state.  And if I learn to work with what I have instead of trying to fight it all the time, I'll be much happier.  Isn't that what all my favorite hair blogs have been telling me all this time?  Oh sure, there are certain styles that will never work on my head.  But so what?  I can do certain things that others can't do and vice versa.  And if I believe that this is good, I can instill that in my children to be happy with what they have, which is something I've been hoping to do anyway by reading and researching.  Now it's more likely to happen just because of the example I set.

x-posted to Facebook

Just had an e-mail from a couple in our adoption group.  They e-mailed us and one other couple separately to let us know that they were picked for that whirlwind case on Thursday, but they had found out we and the other couple included in the e-mail had also been profiled for it, and they wanted to let us know before publicly announcing it to everyone.  Which was a very sweet thing to do.  I've always assumed that certain people we know were being profiled for the same cases and figured it was only a matter of time before something like this occurred.  

In any case, this couple is absolutely our favorites from the group, so if it couldn't be us, we're very happy that it was them.  

But I'd still like it to be our turn soon.

Finally got a call right at the end of the business day today from our adoption worker.  The birth mom is opting not to go with us.  She gave a flimsy reason.  Something about her concerns that John's family lives so far away.  But then my family lives here and it's a weird reason anyway.  Our worker is of the mind that she's still not totally invested and she's making up excuses.

So back on the saddle...

I should go back into my archives and see if I can figure out when the last of our water main breaks was.  Because we had a good one today, let me tell you.  

I didn't get in the shower until 11:30 this morning and towards the end of it, the water pressure got really low really quick.  The last time this happened it was because they were turning the water off right then and I got stuck having only one leg shaved.  So I hurriedly got rinsed, got out, and threw on my bathrobe to see if I could see where the break was.  And it wasn't too difficult to find since it was in our front yard.

Yelled for John and then went to find a water bill to get the phone number to call.  I tried to tell the man that answered that this was a major one.  He replied that they always are in this area.  No really.  This is a major one, even by our usual standards.  

The force of the water pushed up the sidewalk, pushed up the end of our driveway, and pushed out all the stones underneath both the sidewalk and driveway.  We all went out in our rain boots to check it out and set up a picnic lunch for Nora and the girl next door.  The water authority guy showed up an hour after I called, though he said he was coming in from a town at the southern end of our rather large county (Eden for you locals) and we're at the northern most corner of the county.   He got there just before the guy who lives in the same town as us.  Go figure.  

Apparently there were other breaks elsewhere as well, so we're waiting for them to show up for some digging, but the water is off now.  This was huge, though, and even the guys that showed up were pretty amazed.  We're going to be needing an entirely new driveway.  And it's likely not safe to drive on it at the moment so we're sort of trapped until they dig and then refill it with dirt and rocks, unless we want to drive on the grass, but that's worse case scenario.  

Nora was amused at first, but then started to understand the inconvenience factor since we can't flush and I have to Purell her hands since we can't wash them.  This last bit was mostly a pain because when I put her down for nap, she couldn't suck her thumb because the Purell made it taste gross.  

We were supposed to have had the driveway sealed Thursday, but it was raining so the guy didn't show.  Good thing or we'd have wasted $45.  Now the town gets to pay for a new driveway, though the problem with that is that they take forever to get that done, as we've experienced before.  I may have to be an angry taxpayer if we get into snow season because snow blowing dirt and rocks will be impossible.

I got some much needed clarification from our worker today.  What the judge would actually do is appoint a guardian ad litem, which is representation for the child, to be sure it's a good placement before finalization could occur.  NOT before placement would occur.  Even with a newborn, it takes months for finalization to occur.  And even with a newborn, this particular judge often appoints a guardian ad litem because she doesn't like open adoptions.  So this isn't actually something that would slow up the process like I was thinking before and is something we could potentially experience even with a newborn adoption.

So if we say yes, this would go to court in just a few short weeks.  And if she shows up to court and signs the papers, we bring a baby home.  And if she doesn't, we move on, and we're in no different a position than we are right now.  

As for the age, we've both thought about it, and we're okay with it.  I've done the newborn thing with Nora and I'm not someone that absolutely needs to have that again.  There are certain things I won't object to missing, honestly, and it's not like he's been abused or anything.  When our friends met him a few months ago, he was a very healthy baby who had no problems taking to them, they said.  And one of those guys is a pediatrician at the hospital where Nora was born (and is also gracing local PSAs about immunizations that I see on TV everyday).  If we ever had a third child, I was planning on adopting older anyway, possibly international.  I think we're well prepared for the challenges involved with that, and if we're not, we're okay with seeking help.  

I told our worker I'd give her an answer tomorrow.  I think you can see where our thoughts are going...