Life with Ava

J has been gone for less than 24 hours on this (hopefully) last trip of the summer.

The kitchen sink decided to spring a leak as soon as he left so he's already walked me through the disassembly and reassembly of the drain pipes via speaker phone. It was uber gross with water and sludge everywhere and I am decidedly not happy. Let's hope it worked, otherwise I shall be calling a plumber in to take care of it.

Ava is also not happy. She spent her first full day in ages in daycare today and she was clearly pissed off at me when I picked her up. She's usually extremely happy to see me when I walk in to get her (J drops her off in the afternoon so lately she's only been spending 3 or so hours in daycare) but today she totally dissed me -  turned her back on me and went over to one of the ladies who worked there to be picked up. Yeah - it hurt my feelings a little until I walked over to sign her out and she freaked because she thought I was leaving again. Then the screeching commenced and she couldn't get to me fast enough.

Part of the problem is that she naps like a dream at home - at least 2 to 2.5 hours - but will barely sleep an hour while she's there. That, on top of the 2+ hours she was up crying the night before, made for a cranky Ava. I also think her molars are beginning to move around in there a bit. Her gums are very swollen and her hands are constantly in her mouth. She's bitten down so hard on her own fingers that she's left bite marks. I do believe in better living through drugs when necessary so she's getting Motrin every night before bed and occasionally during the day if she seems to need it.

So far she seems to be sleeping tonight (please, please let this continue). It's been a heckuva rough week at work and I'm beat so it's off to bed for me now, too. I'm quite sure that as soon as I get upstairs and rest my weary head that she will somehow sense it and start screaming bloody murder.

I ran the dishwasher today. Just a normal thing. For some reason I was back in the kitchen to get something and I noticed all the little lights were out on the dishwasher when it should have had at least another half hour to run. I asked A if she stopped it, to which she replies "No." Hmmm. So I open the door and there is water in the bottom, the cycle unfinished. Weird. Ok, I close the door, figuring that it might have just not closed all the way. Nope, that's not it. I push a few buttons….nothing. Uh oh….So out to the newly (mostly) cleaned out garage to check the breaker. That's not it. Ok, now the tools come out. A is mumbling that this is the last thing we need right now (to which I agree) but I'm not ready to chuck this really expensive dishwasher we purchased right after Hurricane Isabel. I figure I can at least look at it a bit to see what is really going on. After about 20 minutes of looking into it A comes in the kitchen, sees the carnage of what was our dishwasher and proclaims "That's it! I'm going to Lowe's tomorrow to get a new one!!!"

I'm still not convinced that we need one, so I continue to look and check wires and such. About another 10 minutes go by and I figure out that there is a blown thermal detector-thingy. (See what all my years of military training got me? I work on multi-gazillion dollar aircraft and I call this broken part a thingy!) Anyway, since Hurricane Isabel came through our house some time ago and ruined an exact copy of the current dishwasher we have, I go trekking out to the shed at 10 o'clock at night to see if I salvaged the same part. Bingo! I did. Being a pack rat for old electronics pays off sometimes!!!

Suffice to say, we now have a working dishwasher again and A does not have to go to Lowe's in the morning.

Geez. My last 2 posts have been kind of negative so I felt like I should at least write something to bump them down the page a bit. Not to say, of course, that this might npt turn into a bit of a whinefest if I ramble on long enough after the last week or so. It feels like it's been at least 2 weeks of Mondays - one right after the other.

J and I (and half the neighborhood) got the fancy new vinyl picket fence up over the last 2 weekends. It was mostly J, although the neighbor with the post hole auger came in mighty handy on Saturday. I think he took pity on watching me be mostly useless and J struggling to dig many, many holes the old fashioned way. We fenced an area on the side of our house, enclosing the decks, so the dogs could go out without us having to be right there with them all the time. It's also an area large enough for a swingset and some of those horrible, quickly fading plastic toys that seem to spring up wherever there are little kids. J and I are stupidly impressed with the fact that we sprung for the lighted fence caps that were supposed to be muted accent lighting but seem to more accurately resemble runway lights. Dangerous, probably, since we live next door to an Air Force base. I'll probably end up with an F-22 in my yard soon.

We're plugging right along on the home renovation stuff, in preparation for our now annual homestudy update visit. I'm slightly afraid our social worker will walk in and realize that we haven't done a darn thing in the spare bathroom since last year - meaning we still have no countertop, sink, or moldings. I, of course, have now changed my mind on what I wanted in there anyway and we're going to rip out the floor (for the 3rd time) and change it all around again. Partly because we figured out the hard way that Pergo in bathrooms is a stupid idea. Trust me - don't do it. It doesn't work.

The rumours are all over the place as to how far along referrals will go. Initial rumours were indicating a large batch this time and it honestly freaked me out. I never thought I'd say it, but we're not ready for a referral right now. We definitely need a couple more months to finish the laundry room and the foundation work. Not to mention that the kid would still be sleeping on a treadmill since we've made no move toward finishing the room as a nursery. Anyhoo, back to the rumours. Nothing solid to report so my best guess is that we'll see the CCAA get through another week making the cut off date 11/21. Who knows, really?

The rumors have, however, focused me back on preparation. I really need to begin looking at packing lists and start sorting out what we need to plan on bringing. Not only in terms of things, but I'm also thinking about how we can be prepared for potential issues and problems. One thing I'm carrying for sure is a list of basic mandarin phrases for adoptive parents which can be found here:
Chinese Words and Phrases for Adoptive Parents
and another is a comprehensive list of medical resources in China which can be found here:
Medical Resources in China.

Wow - I managed a couple of paragraphs with only a minimum of whining. I should probably stop now while I'm ahead.

Oh, and to all the folks who've asked about my jogging neighbor. I (sadly) haven't seen him lately. I don't know if it's because my schedule is kind of whacked out or because he isn't out as consistently as before. I hope it's the former.

I'm finally done with the horrid Stats class and, surprisingly, ended up with a B for my final grade. I will freely admit to learning almost nothing from the class except for the knowledge that you can apparently manipulate numbers to support any argument you might form. My 'B' grade comes solely from the fact that I have very good short term memory and can manage to regurgitate enough info to BS my way through.

Now that the semester is over I'm finding myself in a very strange place…feeling a bit let-down and subsequently feeling very detached from my life. School has been my outlet, social and otherwise, for so long that I don't really know what to do with myself without it. I'm sure my current outlook on life is greatly influenced by the never ending wait on the adoption and the toll it's taking on both me and J. (More on me than him.) I'm just tired of waiting and it seems like every time we get close then the wait extends yet another 6 months. Yeah, I figure we're still (at least) another 6 months away from meeting Ava. We've been officially waiting for a little over 17 months now. I did practice some serious retail therapy yesterday by hitting the Prime Outlets in Williamsburg, VA. I do love me some Ann Taylor and J Crew and they can always make me feel better for at least a little while.

The house is nearly done - so very close to being finished yet still so far away. We're having a difficult time finding a concrete contractor to come out and pour a new garage floor and that's pretty much holding everything up. I came home today to find (Surprise!) J building a second level onto the new deck and the very welcome news that the picket fence will be delivered tomorrow. The landscaping guy will be here next week with plenty of topsoil to grade the yard out and seed the entire thing. It will be nice to have grass again. I know the dogs will appreciate it. Little white long-haired dogs + mud = unhappy owner.

I'm heading out to San Diego next week and will be working from our corporate office. Know what I'm looking forward to the most? I get to live in a hotel for a week and someone else gets to clean up after me. I don't have to vacuum, clean the bathroom, or feed anybody but myself for 5 whole days. I can't wait! I also can't wait to hang out with some of our San Diego folks that I only get to see once or twice a year at most. I'm already booked up for lunches and dinners for most of the week but I do hope to get at least one evening to do some sightseeing. Anybody have suggestions on must-see/do things in San Diego????

I can't believe it's been so long since my last post. And it's certainly not a situation where there's been nothing happening and therefore nothing to say. Quite the opposite, in fact. Too much going on and hardly any time to take care of it all. So much so that I was out of work 2 full days last week and a couple of hours on 2 other days - and anyone who knows me IRL knows that I don't take very much time off from work so it must be a pretty big deal.

The house has been lowered onto the new foundation so now we're waiting on the block guys to come back and finish the cinderblocks where the beams supporting the house were removed yesterday. They also have to fix all of the foundation vents since they installed them inset instead of flush as they should have. Now we're having a hard time finding finish bricks to match the original brickwork on the chimney (circa 1895).

What else? Can you believe it's frickin' snowing here right now? We haven't had any snow all year and some finally shows up in April. It's windy and cold and I don't think I'm going to leave the house today. I'm surrounded by dogs, two laptops, and a space heater and I can't think of any really good reason to move from this spot. I'm sure it will be in the 70's again next week.

Referrals for this month are not looking good. The rumours say that the LID cutoff will be 10/26/05. If that's the case then the CCAA will only have matched 2 days worth of applications. It doesn't take much to realize that is officially not good and IF that's the case then this will have been the least number of days matched ever. There are conflicting rumours flying so I'm not taking any of this as gospel at this point. Just one thought - if the CCAA decided to match only 2 days per month then we could still be 18 or so months away from referral. I haven't had many doubts throughout this process and have pretty much felt certain that J and I made the right decision for us in how to build our family…but this rollercoaster called Chinese adoption has very much gotten to me of late. We've put a lot of things in our life on hold in the last couple of years waiting on this to happen and I am very much regretting some of the choices we made (mainly opportunities not taken) based on the premise that Ava would be here soon. Ah well, what can we do but continue to wait?

Check back later - today just may be a multiple post day. I have pictures that need to be posted and I just might try and make it happen this weekend.