Another Year Over...

Wow, I cannot believe that tomorrow's the last school day with students and that Thursday is the workday... and then... then, I'll be finished!! I cannot wait to be finished with this school year!!!!

I'm so looking forward to spending the summer with my girls. I'm so looking forward to kissing this year goodbye and never looking back.

Bittersweet? Someone asked me today if it is bittersweet that I'm finishing my last few days in this job. Nope, just sweet! I still do not know what I'll be doing next school year, but I do know I'll have a job. Honestly, that's all that I care about right now. For a few weeks of the month of May, I was totally stressing myself out about what will happen next year. Now, I'm just sort of in my zen place about it. I'm not going to allow myself to stress.

Sure, I'd love to be able to move my stuff into the classroom I'll be in next year, but the principal doesn't know where I'll be placed yet (even though I was supposed to know on Friday...). So maybe that means I won't be in a classroom again. Or maybe it means, come August I'm going to have a lot of work today. Either way, it's fine.

On that note, the Merry Merry Month of May is over... Tomorrow's June 1st, and on Friday, life will be good again.

Just wondering

Do you have anyone you know whom you really like but are driven crazy by at the same time? At my job, there are 4 others people who currently have the same position that I do. We all work in different buildings in our district, so we get together weekly for meetings. One of the girls, she really sweet and nice, but she cuts me off all the time when I talk and disagrees with me allllll the time.

Like at our last meeting on Thursday, she disagreed with everything I said. Ok, maybe not everything but a lot of it. I'm probably oversensitive, but it drives me insane. I like the girl, but I get so tired of her talking over me, and when she does allow me to finish a thought, she immediately says the opposite of what I'm saying.

In fact, she had me in tears on Thursday. Maybe I'm making a bigger deal of this than it really is. The other girls always say, "oh, that's just her... she doesn't mean anything by it." Etc. It's just hurtful, and I've put up with it for 2 years now.

Now that my time in this position is winding down, maybe the point is moot now... But how to deal with her is still a mystery to me!

Melt my heart.

My favorite moment of the dance recital on Sunday?

After R danced, I rushed from the theater to the backstage area just as she and the other little girls in her class were just coming down the hall.

R looked down the hall, spotted me, yelled "there's my mom!!" and ran into my arms for a big hug with a huge smile on her beautiful face.

Oh, honey, my little dancing big girl baby, I love you so much.

Thank you for being you.

It was dance recital weekend...

... and here is my dance recital princess-baby!

Deep Thoughts... by R

Today at breakfast, R was in deep thought. A asked her what she was thinking about after a minute or two...

To which she replied: "Umm, rainbows."

I need moments like this to ground me, to remind me of how beautiful and precious my eldest daughter is. Yesterday was a rough day for us-- she was whiny and fussy and demanding... Ugh. She cried a bunch, and I yelled a bunch. Last night, as I laid in her bed with her at bedtime, we talked about how tomorrow would be another day, a better day, for Mommy and R.

Sweet girl, I thank god for you. For your beautiful spirit and soul. For the precious little girl you are and who you will grow up to be someday.

Some days I have to say, it's hard to be your mom. I imagine some days it's hard to be my daughter, too.

Some days, I forget about how my heart ached to hold you. I take you for granted.

Some days, I get so frustrated.

But, I always, always, always love you. We both need to remember that tomorrow is a new day on those hard ones.

Love isn't enough.

Do you ever have situations in which you're talking about something, and the other person just doesn't get it? I was talking with a few of my co-workers today about where they send or plan to send their children to school. I am planning to bring my kids to my district (at this point!) when the time comes. This may or may not change-- not really the point.

One of the people I was talking with attends my church and sends her kids to the school attached to it. I just mentioned something about how I'd intended to send my kids there but I had concerns about my girls' being the only black children in their grade or maybe even the school. I said that sometimes on Sundays, my girls are the only black people in the church. She said that she was sorry to hear that I didn't "feel welcome" because she'd gone to that church her whole life, etc.

I didn't mean that. Not at all. I wasn't saying that the people from the church were unwelcoming or not accepting of my kids. In fact, people always smile and are friendly to my girls. I didn't mean racism.

I meant... well, that I didn't want my kids to just stick out. I tried to explain that and she got more tense... I got more tense. I finally just said, "Well your kids aren't black." And then I tried to explain what it is like for transracially adopted kids. She wasn't getting it, and neither were the rest of the people in the group. One started talking about her twins and getting comments about them. Then they started talking about how younger kids don't notice differences, etc.

It wasn't helping.

Ugh. I don't know. I was having this conversation with people I like, trust, and admire. I didn't mean to make them feel awkward, so maybe I just shouldn't have brought it up. I was just trying to get her to see another point of view. Maybe more for me than for her. I would like just every once in a while for someone else to understand where I'm coming from with things like this.

I don't even really know what my point is here. I guess it is just hard to explain to people who have never had the same experiences I have had. I just wish things could be simple.

Like yesterday, my precious and darling R was planning on a piece of playground equipment during a birthday party for my BFF's youngest. The party was at a local park, and the kids were having a great time. R was climbing everywhere and running around. I was keeping close to her because she isn't particularly cautious on playground equipment.

I looked up. There, carved in the plastic of the playground equipment, was that word... you know what I mean. There was my beautiful daughter, who happens to be black, standing there smiling and having a great time playing, not a care in the world, with that freaking word glaring at me behind her right shoulder.

Right now, my girls of course are blind to the idea that people may not like them because of their skin color or where they came from. Right now, R can continue on in blissful ignorance of the meeting of the ugly, scrawled letters on a piece of playground equipment.

I dread the day when one of them comes home from somewhere crying because someone's said something hurtful or done something to them. It makes me sick. I'm powerless to stop it, and just the mere thought of it right now is making me feel nauseous.

My children are so loved. I wish that were enough to protect them from all the hate and stupidness that goes on in this world.

Closing Time

"Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end."

And, oh, how I am ready for a new beginning and the close of this school year. This week, I feel like I am finally awakening from the funk I've been in this entire school year. It's testing week, and including my teacher work day, I have 19 days until summer.

I haven't written for a long time about my work situation. That is not because it got any better as the school year went on. more because I just didn't have anything else to say. And, really, it didn't seem like anyone wanted to hear about my misery any longer on here anyway.

I was/am miserable pretty much daily. And that clouds everything. That's probably also why I haven't written on my blog as regularly as I used to either. Who wants to share with the world when all you feel like doing is hiding?

I couldn't see it at the time, but the weight of this school year has been pressing down on my shoulders much more than I realized. Now that I can almost see the finish line, I'm feeling better-- didn't even realize I wasn't feeling well all along.

And you know what? My kids are happier, my husband is happier, and I am happier. The stress of all this was hurting us all. I feel like caring about my appearance again and just this week have lost some weight (I've gained it at an alarming rate since Dec., when things at work were the worst)-- because I have actually cared about it. I mean, don't get me wrong, I have a long ways to go before I could even get to where I was weight-wise before R came home, but this is the first time in a LONG time that I've even cared enough to do something about it.

When I applied for, interviewed for, and accepted this position almost 2 years ago, I never expected that I'd just be placed in one building this year. Frankly, had I known, I wouldn't have taken the job. I know that last year, it was better for us (my family) for me to be in a position that wasn't in the classroom. Being able to spend time nurturing my children-- especially E when she first came home-- without the burden and stress of worrying about my students, grading, lesson planning, etc-- was something we needed. (I had a really rough time returning to work after R came home.)

So, in that regard, I know taking this job was the right choice. Professionally, I've learned a lot, too, and I know that if I return to the classroom next year (that's still up in the air), I will be a better teacher because of this job. And if I'm not fated to return to the classroom, this job has given me an edge experience-wise that I never would have had otherwise.

All I know for certain is that Closing Time-- June 2-- cannot come soon enough!

Waiting List... Two Years Ago, That is!

Two years ago this evening, we received the phone call from our case manager that we were on the waiting list for a referral of an infant girl at #33. I remember thinking it was going to be an eternity until we got our referral, as 33 sounded like such a "big" number compared to where we started on the waiting list for R (at #4).

We'd waited "so long" to get on the list-- and then there we were. At the time, our agency was saying that the waiting time for a referral was 10-12 months for our parameters. One of my friends had a trip to Ethiopia scheduled for late Oct- early Nov 2009, and I just kept praying that we'd have our referral by then-- by some miracle. In the end, that miracle did happen, as we got our referral on Oct. 19, 2009.

Two years ago today, my E was a tiny 3 month old baby (oh my goodness, I'll bet she was cute-- 3 months old is the age R was when we brought her home!!). I wonder today was her day was like. While our day was one of celebration, was her family getting closer to the decision to relinquish her? I have other thoughts about this, too, but I don't feel comfortable sharing them because it involves specific questions I have about my daughter's story.

As I look back over the 2 years since our referral, I think about how my family has grown and changed. R-baby, 2 years ago today was not quite 18 months old. She was just barely talking, and now, as of a few weeks ago, she can write her name and NEVER stops talking!

Two years ago today, I was about to finish (although I didn't know it at the time) my last year teaching, as a new job came my way over the summer... On the other side of the coin, two years ago we were worried A was going to lose his job based on an (unfair) evaluation from his boss and an ultimatum.

Two years ago today, E was only a dream to us... Who she was to be was completely up to the imagination. And now, she's home. She's worked her way into the fabric of our family and is my adored, precious, darling daughter. And for that, I am so very thankful.

Umm, random

On Sunday, as I was driving home from my parents' house with the girls, I got a phone call on my cell. It wasn't a number I recognized, but I answered it anyway.

I said hello, and the man replied something about Craigslist. I couldn't understand what he was saying (and was confused), so I asked him to repeat himself. He said it again, and then I finally understood-- he was calling about "my" listing on Craigslist.

I said, "I'm sorry, you have the wrong number."

Random Guy: "Umm, I don't think I do!!!"

Me: "Yes, you do have the wrong number. I don't have anything listed on Craigslist!"

Random Guy then hangs up on me without another word.

I just found it bizarre that he'd try to argue with me about the whole thing. And this only crosses my mind because I just got another weird area code number call on my cell, this time the person asking for "Mark." My name does in fact start with M, but it isn't Mark!!

So I'm just hoping that whatever is listed on Craigslist with my cell number (or something close to it!) is sold/traded/whatever soon!

L.O.V.E.

I did a "Mommy and Me" photo shoot with my princesses on Saturday. This is just a preview; I haven't seen them all yet. I love my precious girls!