Okay...so to be totally honest I'm not entirely sure I'm super excited about going to Latvia.  I want to go.  I do.  But I'm not looking forward to it as much as I thought I would be.  I think the most exciting part about going right now is seeing Kelly and Donna and the extra 5 days that Matt and I are going to spend there.

I think this makes me a bad person.  I should be invested in this trip more emotionally and more spiritually than I am.  Why am I not doing that?  Because I'm about 100% positive we'll be finding another church when we get home.  Because I want to relax and do nothing because I just graduated from school and I feel entitled to a break.  Because I'm incredibly, heartbreakingly homesick and I'd rather spend that time in Wooster with my family (including Jamey, Ben, and Andrew).  I think that's the biggy.  I look at the pictures you guys are posting of your summer s ...

I had an interview today for my perfect job (at least, my perfect job at the moment...not my dream job).  Seriously, though, it doesn't get any better than this for me.  I would be running Poudre Valley Health Systems' Healthy Kids Club in Loveland!  Here's a website in case anyone wants to check it out:

https://vic.pvhs.org/portal/page?_pageid=333,429685&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL&pagid=137

This is an AMAZING opportunity for me.  I would be doing something I love and people would be paying me for it!  I just need to get the job.  The interview itself went very, very well.  I know people where praying for me.  I could feel it.  I could tell because of how calm and confident I was and how articulate my answers we ...

Apparently, Ben has decided that today is a book kind of day. He's been bringing me books nonstop since he woke up this morning. Some days (like today) he really likes to be read to, some days he likes to sit beside me on the couch and he'll read his own book and I get to read my own book (I like those days). He's doing a little of that today. Other days though, he wants nothing to do with books. The idea of sitting still is apparently repulsive to him and so we'll only read at naptime and bedtime. Luckily, those days aren't very often.

Today we have read:

Kitten (affectionately called by Ben the "titty book" ...the "kk" sound is a little hard... ), My Big Truck Book (2x), The Eensy Weensy Spider, Once Upon a Potty, The Truck book, Noni Touches, Under the Sea, Spot Plays Hide & Seek, Philadelphia Chickens (not all of it, but a lot of it), Sheep in a Jeep, A Ride in a Fire Truck, Funny Bunnies, One Fish Two Fish Red Fi ...

I had to go to the pharmacy the other week on a Saturday. I generally try to avoid this like the plague, because they only have a few windows open, they're notoriously slow, and the place is filled with retirees.

We show up at 9:30 with the optimistic plan that we'll just run in and grab my prescription quickly, and then we'll take Andrew so coffee at work as a surprise. I take my number, which to my dismay, is THIRTY numbers away from the one they're currently serving. They have three windows open out of nine and like I feared the place is running at the speed of retirees. In fact, when we walk in I think we were the only people in the lobby who didn't remember the Titanic sinking.

Ben stands quietly and holds my hand for about half a second and then is bored. The good news is that old people have to sit down while they wait (and I NEVER get to sit down and wait) so there was plenty of hallway space available for Ben to run around in. So he did. Up the hallway ...

Since I'm not yet keeping any kind of baby book (I know, bad mom) I figure that I'll keep track of some of these momentos on here and at least when I finally get around to making one (maybe before the next baby is born...) I'll at least have all the info I need.  HEY....That said, if anyone has any of the emails that I was mass-emailing during Ben's infancy left over in their inbox, if you wanted to mail it back to me so I could have a copy of it that would be great. Mine are gone...

Anyway...

I gave up counting how many words Ben knows. I counted before his 18 month check up because I knew the doctor would ask and I came up with around 70. Since that time, he's hit 100 and I've quit counting. Just today he pointed out and named a picture of an owl with the accompanying "hoo hoo" and I've never heard him do that before. He's also recently started saying the names of several aunts, though sorry girls, he can't pick you out of a lineup ...

Last week, Todd asked Logan, "Who did you play with at preschool today?"

Logan answered, "Mostly with Jed."

Todd asked me what I knew about Jed, was he nice, who were his parents, etc...

I answered, "Well, the week I took snack and was the helper, he was b-a-d."

Logan asked, "What does that spell?"

I quickly tried to change the subject, but I should have known better than to spell such a short word in his presence in the first place, because after a moment Logan said, "I know. It spells 'bad', Mom."

Whoops! Guess I have to be more selective now.

So Andrew leaves in five days. He'll be gone Monday through Friday until mid-July-ish. I can pick him up on Fridays and bring him home for the weekend, but will have to take him back on Sundays. We're also trying to save money for our (presumed) trip to California this summer and this is going to be even harder to do since all this driving will be monstrous to our budget. Such is life.

Here is what scares me: I'm afraid I'm going to go crazy again. Logically, I know this is not going to happen, but emotionally I'm having a hard time moving past that. Here is the convulted way that this works in my brain.

First, it assumes that having a baby was stressful and that I wasn't able to "handle" the stress and the result of that was my postpartum depression. (Again, I know that's not how it really works, but somehow this is where my brain is taking it.) Having Andrew gone will be a stressful situation too (topped off by all the normal financial woes ...

I started reading the blogs of families who are in the process of adopting or have adopted from Ethiopia about a year ago.  I feel close to about 4 families in a cyber-relationship sort of way because I've witnessed them go through the paperwork, the financial struggles, and the waiting.  I've cried "with" them over their referrals and rejoiced "with" them when they brought their children home.  It's made me feel close to the process even though Matt and I haven't started our own adoption.  It makes me feel hopeful for the day when we will.  I feel more prepared to face the ups and downs we'll encounter.  It makes me excited and a little scared.  Today, however, I experienced fury and heart break.

The other day I read the blog of one of the families I've felt this parti ...

I guess I'm going to have to jump on the list-making blog-entry bandwagon. Look what you started, Jamey! What are you going to do for us to emulate next week?!

Before I Became a Mother, I didn't know that I would someday...

(in no particular order)

1. Give birth 3 times in under 12 hours total.

2. Nurse a baby and walk around a store at the same time.

3. Carry a perfectly good couch out to the curb for the trash rather than try to clean up the vomit a 2-year old spewed all over it.

4. Nurse a baby and use a computer at the same time.

5. Correctly identify a backhoe, a front loader, a knuckleboom, and a hobknocker (plus various other random construction equipment).

6. Consider it a successful day if I brushed my teeth AND got a shower.

7. Be able to get 4 human beings up, dressed, fed, and out the door all by myself in the m ...