Life with Ava

We survived Christmas.

I think I can speak for J, as well as myself, when I say that we're both glad that Christmas '06 is behind us. It was a tough day for us. We certainly expected to have Ava before now and we both clearly remember Christmas '05 and how excited we were that our paperwork was in China and how it would be our last Christmas together on our own. Yeah, right.

Over the years, we've developed our own traditions for the holidays. While we were living in England we did not come back to the US for Christmas - too hard to determine whose family got which holiday and too expensive anyway. Instead, we always spent Christmas Eve with several close friends celebrating with dinner and copious amounts of wine at our house. I loved this because there's no family drama or pressure and everyone is relaxed and happy. We continued this tradition with a minor variation once we moved back to the states. We now go to my friend Charlene's house for Christmas Eve and then J and I go to a movie afterwards before coming home to open our gifts.

Last year, all anyone could talk about was our adoption. We got a variety of gifts for Ava and she was mentioned in nearly every Christmas card and every conversation. This year? **Not so much. I think everyone is either avoiding the topic OR they think we're crazy and have just made up the whole adoption thing completely. We did receive a set of musical toys and a Baby Einstein CD from my Secret Pal and the cutest North American Bear Co. Lamb Cozy from our dear friends, Johnna and Alan. From the bottom of my heart - thank you for thinking of us and of Ava. That truly meant a lot to us and we appreciate it more than you know.

J also gave me a card and a big box of Godiva chocolates…from Ava (obviously with a lot of help from J).

I took one look at it and promptly burst into tears. Sometimes it feels like it's taking so long and that it will never happen - so this is just what I needed to remind me that it will happen when it's supposed to.

We still have some holiday-ing left to do. We head for my parents' house on Friday to have a belated Christmas with them over the New Year's holiday. We can't wait to see the nieces and nephew. We're pretty sure that Mac will love the toy we got for him, although I'm positive that his parents are going to get tired of it rather quickly.

** Disclaimer: Please understand this is not meant as a criticism toward anyone. I know it would be totally different if I were expecting by pregnancy and people could actually see progress and I know that expecting by adoption is outside the realm of many people's experience, therefore they don't know how to react. I also know that with the new regulations and the press they're getting that people are almost afraid to ask us questions because they don't know how or if this affects us.

I'm a member of two DTC Yahoo groups - November and December. Although we were DTC (Dossier to China) in November, I also signed up for the December group because we could be traveling with folks from either group and I'd hoped to get to know a few people ahead of time. Since the wait has extended far longer than any of us ever imagined, you can see that we've had lots of time to get to know each other.

An interesting phenomenon in the DTC groups is the Secret Pal gift exchange. You're matched up to someone for a set period of time (usually 6 months) and you send them a small gift every month. There is usually a preset theme each month, decided by the organizers, and a price limit that we (generally) adhere to.

I really enjoy this. Not just the receiving, although that's great, but also the challenge of finding a really cool gift. It's also a great way to mark the passage of time. The downside to it is that I end up buying two of everything, because I usually like what I'm buying so much that I have to buy one for Ava, too.

My November DTC exchange ended in September. I had a fantastic pal named Melinda who is waiting on her little girl, Anna, to join her beautiful family. Melinda has a lovely website here where you can follow along on their Journey to Anna.

Since it looks to be a while before we receive referrals, I opted to join a new Secret Pal gift exchange on the December DTC group and I believe I've lucked out again and gotten another amazing pal. I won't know who she is for a while, but I can already tell you she's great. Not only did I get a box o' kid books for the October gift exchange, but I've also gotten a couple of surprise e-cards. Just the thing to lift my spirits while we continue to wait on the October referrals to arrive.

Funny story on the gift, though. We're renovating the front porch with new railings and lots of new paint, so we haven't been able to use the front door for a few days while we've (mostly J) been sanding and painting the floor. J has taped it off so it's pretty clear that the front porch is out of bounds at the moment. At least I thought it seemed pretty obvious - and the UPS guy figured it out fairly quickly and has been leaving packages at the garage door instead. The mailman? Not so bright apparently. I just happened to walk around to the front of the house one day and, lo and behold, the package from my Secret Pal is sitting right smack in the middle of the freshly painted porch floor. Good thing J still had to do a second coat.

So, what was in the package? My new SP sent Ava three board books. One of them is a Halloween book that J grabbed right up and started reading. J is an absolute Halloween fanatic so I think it's clear who's going to be reading the Five Little Pumpkins with Ava.

You know how cool it is to come home and find mail (that isn't a bill) waiting for you? Even better when it's an unexpected package. I've been participating in my November DTC group gift swap for a few months now, but for some reason it's still a huge surprise to come home and find a gift! just! for! me!

Every month the coordinator of the swap assigns a theme. May's theme was Something for Mom and June was Books for Baby.

My May gift was a 3 pack of body butters and some ladybug sticky notes. I don't have pictures of the sticky notes because they went to work with me right away - I have a thing for post-its and mine have to be unique. One of my co-workers came bounding into my office last week and needed a sticky note ASAP. I handed him one and he took off - then turned around as soon as he realized it was pale blue with a scalloped border and a Laura Ashley print. He gave it back and said he just couldn't use that one. I told him that he obviously needed to become more secure in his manhood if it was challenged by a floral print sticky.

The body butters are fantastic and smell amazing. The one on the right is definitely my favorite. I adore peonies and have about 20 of them planted around my house. I've tried planting sweet peas but for some reason J seems determined to mow them down (unintentionally) before they get big enough to climb the fence. I also love the packaging of these - note the fleur-de-lis on the lid. My very first tattoo was a fleur-de-lis in the small of my back. I've loved it since I got it years and years ago (and no, I've never regretted it!). So, you see that my Secret Pal did a fantastic job on this gift.

The June gift was a six pack of board books for Ava. These are so neat and will be perfect for her to learn her numbers, colors, animals, etc.

I so hope that I can share my love of reading with Ava. I would rather read than do almost anything so, as you can imagine, I already have shelves (and boxes) of books for her. Some that we've purchased, some that are hand-me-downs from my nieces, and quite a few that have been gifted to us for her. One favorite so far: I Love You Like Crazy Cakes.

~A

What a miserable Monday it was! It's not that work was bad (I have a fantastic job - no complaints there), but I woke up around 2am with a splitting headache and just couldn't get back to sleep. I finally called into work at 6:30 and left a message for our administrative assistant telling her that I was going to take a couple of Fioricets, go back to bed and I'd be in around 10 or 10:30. That seemed to take the edge off, but I spent the rest of the day miserably struggling through the email that had accumulated over the weekend and desperately trying to get caught up while dealing with the inevitable numerous Monday morning crises. Did I mention that my car didn't want to start this morning and I ran out of Excedrin midway through the day?

I finally gave up at 5pm. I accomplished next to nothing today, my brain wasn't working at all and I wanted nothing more than to come home and lay down on my sofa. That wasn't likely to happen though, since I still needed to complete a take home test, a term paper, and put together a power-point for my lab group to present. All this being due tomorrow and, of course, I had not yet begun any of these (still need to do my paper and here I am wasting time on Blogger). So I get home, check the mail and find a wonderful surprise from my secret pal.

On my November DTC yahoo group I'm participating in a monthly secret swap with specific themes each month that are set by the swap coordinator. This has been great fun, although I quickly figured out that everything I'm buying for my secret pal must be purchased in duplicate because I like what I'm buying so much that I have to buy one for myself. Anyway, this month's theme was scrapbooking and/or journaling supplies. My secret pal sent me the neatest photo backing papers (which I never even knew existed) and some cute, cute, cute butterfly and ladybug stickers and page accents. I also got a journal!

I plan to add these to the box of scrapbooking supplies that I've started collecting in preparation for Ava's lifebook. Now I just need to figure out how on earth to put this all together. I'm so not good at the crafty stuff so I'm hoping there's a "Scrapbooking for the creatively-challenged" book out there somewhere.

~A