Forever Family

Yeah, it’s been that kind of week.

I pretty much go through my day, with WTF repeating over and over in my head.  There is nothing else I can think to say.

So I promise I’ll try again tomorrow to be somewhat more upbeat, or at least post something worth reading.

All I can write now is W…T…F.  Not exactly literary stimulation.

The good news is that I wrote several posts for my new site Symphony Rocks last weekend while I was still in a pretty good mood.  One will be posting Friday morning, so you can pop over there for something slightly more meaningful.

I promise I’ll get all caught up on my comments and such.  I know I’m behind.  I’ve been doing more lurking than usual lately, but there’s no excuse.

I’m feeling a little discombobulated today.  Something’s been off all day and I’m just not sure what it is.  Perhaps it’s the fact that it is April 7th, and snow flurries are blowing past my window.  Maybe it’s because this darn chair is hurting my bum so bad that I want to just pick it up and throw it off the balcony and right square onto the freeway below.

Darn it my tooshie hurts.

But that’s not quite right.  There’s something else.  Like the universe is out of sync somehow.  Do you ever get that feeling?  Like you want to launch some kind of rocket into outer space that will start a chain reaction and will magically set things to right?

Could it be because there is so much arbitrary silliness in the world?  Why does it always have to be about the bottom line?  What happened to nurturing thought and promoting quality?

Maybe that’s part of it.  But that’s nothing new, and why it surprises me so much when it proves to be all about the money is beyond me.  I guess I’m a slow learner.

Well, whatever it is that’s throwing of my chi, it’s downright irksome.

Something just tells me that our little community here will never be the same, and that the loss is ours.

Anyhoo…

My friend The Tarot Queen gave me an award.  Huzzah!

Yeah, I know.  You’d think this would help my dilemma, but my chakras still ache.

If you haven’t stopped by and asked a Stephanie a question , well then that’s just your loss.  The questions have ranged from “what shall I wear to prom,” to “how to become a rocket scientist,” with a dash of Tarot reading thrown in to spice it up .  It’s a great read with a new home .  Even if you’ve visited before, you should go back and be sure to bookmark her new home .

“This award is bestowed upon a fellow blogger whose blog’s content or design is, in the giver’s opinion, brilliant.”

I love that word brilliant.  It makes me feel so smart.

Now I’m supposed to tell 10 honest things about myself.

1. My iPod is on shuffle.  A Bach piano concerto just finished playing, and the next song is Living Dead Girl by Rob Zombie.  No.  I’m not schizophrenic.
2. I once played piano for Benjamin Zander, who’s currently director of the Boston Philharmonic.  I played Poulenc.  He thought it was good!
3. I won a piano competition playing that same Poulenc piece.
4. I am not above shamelessly self promoting my new blog Symphony Rocks .
5. I have a new unattainable crush with Seth MacFarlane.  He’s the genius behind shows like Family Guy and American Dad.  Have you seen the new Hulu ads featuring him doing all the voices from his shows?  He’s H-O-T!  He’s witty, and clever, and a writer, and a composer…the man is a complete package.  He’s a sci-fi fan, a skilled pianist, and is not afraid for speaking out for what he believes in.
6. I have not played the piano in over a year.  I’ve made up a bevy of excuses, but I’m ashamed.  I want to set a good example for my son.  I’m so bad, I haven’t even been good about keeping the darn thing in tune, which is now another excuse.  I can’t possibly play an instrument that is out of tune.  Whatever.
7. I’m obsessed with the piano today.  Perhaps it’s because I downloaded some Phillip Glass piano etudes last night.  As I was listening to them, I was thinking “I could totally play these.”  Which then led me to a guilt trip about item 6.
8. I’m currently very annoyed with account executives.
9. I’m going to use a vacation day to see the new Star Trek movie.  I don’t see how else we can do it.  Kiddo is too little for a movie like that, and we don’t have a sitter.  I am über excited!
10. My son’s birthday is still 3 months away.  I’m already planning it.  Yeah.  I’m THAT mom.

And it’s my turn to pass the baton.  Let’s see…here are a few good ones

Kellyology at Mommadosey

jasdye at ChicagoDads

Melissa at Full Circle

Tami at Sunflower Seeds

Texasholly at June Cleaver Nirvana (yes, I’m a lurker)

Jen at Cake Wrecks

That’s a start.  You’re all fabulous!

And many thanks to Stephanie.  

Well whaddya know.  Madonna flew home this weekend…without a new daughter.

Huh.  Who woulda thunk it.

My first reaction was surprise.  I didn’t honestly expect a country struggling like Malawi to turn away from a gift horse and not take advantage of the money and notoriety someone like Madonna has to offer.  Can’t say I really blame them for wanting a piece of her very extensive financial pie.

My next reaction was happy.  Good!  See?  Fame and fortune really can’t buy you happiness!  Take that, Madonna!  See what it’s like to be the rest of us that have to play by the rules.  We don’t get little inconvenient laws bent and an army of lawyers at our beck and call to exploit loopholes.  Now she knows what it feels like for thousands of other adoptive parents who’ve waited months, even years, for a court in another country to rule in their favor or paperwork to get sorted out.  It SUCKS!  It’s incredibly taxing, emotionally draining, and just downright exhausting.

That was all fine and good, until I saw this article this morning.  Then, being the girly sucker I am, I started to feel bad.  Check out this picture.  I know that look.  That look is layered sadness, dejection, hope, and perseverance all mixed up.  I think this really hurt her.

I wouldn’t wish that kind of pain on anyone.  It’s hard to describe the hurt of being within grasp of taking a child into your family, only to have it snatched away by a court.  It’s so difficult to meet and spend time with that child, working towards finalizing that adoption, but not knowing.  You want to just sweep that child up and reassure them that you will always be there to love them, but don’t yet have the approval of some judge in order to do that.  This small innocent face just looks up at you, not knowing what to do or how to think, but wanting so badly to have you be the one that returns some love and sense of family.

I’m starting to think she really wanted this.  No doubt she was hoping for a shortcut, but I’m guessing her heart really was in the right place.  I’m so sorry for her.

However, it’s really Mercy that’s getting hurt through this whole mess.  I doubt she knows what is really means to be Madonna (the whole fame thing), but she does know about mothers.  She knows she needs one, that one was there, and now she’s not.  Mercy doesn’t understand about courts and laws, but knows she’s still waking up each morning in an orphanage.  How confusing and painful this must be for her.

Madonna will appeal.  It will be interesting to see if the Malawi court will continue to stand their ground.  How far will she be willing to go?  How far would you go if you were her?  Would you follow their rule and take up residency in Malawi for at least 18 months?  No tours…no press junkets…no flitting about with A-Rod.  Will she put that all on hold?

If she does, I may resurrect my old 1980’s old school Madonna collection and become a fan all over again.

In case you missed SNL’s weekend update, click here for your enjoyment.   I tried to embed the video, but I’m having problems and got tired of fighting with it.  Old fashioned links never fail!

IT’S FRIDAY!!!!!!!!

No, I’m not excited (insert sarcasm here).

We must commemorate this week.  We’ve had a pretty positive week.  After all, it would seem that my son has mastered the potty.

Plus, I have more good news.

I’ve started a second blog.

Yes, I’m crazy.  I’m still sorta figuring out where I’m gonna find the time.  But it’s been nagging me for some time to do this, and as I watched my friends at Rocket Scientist , Caregiving Daughter and Huskies to Husbands take the plunge, I started feeling left out.  Slow down the bandwagon…I’m hopping on.

After all, if I don’t feel challenged I start to get bored.  Boredom is not good.  Not that I haven’t been challenged just keeping up with this site, but I see those great bloggers doing it and I don’t want to get left behind.  If they can find the time to manage it all, then so can I.  I hope.

So, without further ado, I introduce you to…

This blog is completely different from my mission here at Forever Family.  The purpose of this site will be to nurture my personal passion.  I feel pretty good about my musical appreciation skills, and it’s here that I’ll share my gift with the world.

With this site, I’ll get to feed my soul a little.

So if you could hop on over and check it out, I have my intro posted.  I’ll be writing my first real posts this weekend, and be throwing them up next week.  It will be fun, I promise.  Even if you don’t think you like classical music, you will learn to appreciate it after I’m done with you.

Which leads me to my other bloggy milestone this week.

Stephanie the Rocket Scientist aka Tarot Queen aka best advice giver I know has awarded me with Honest Scrap award.  This means a ton to me, cause as I’ve said before, I have a little blogger crush on Stephanie.  She’s a master of the written word, and I’m totally twitterpated that she comes to visit me.  To have gotten an award from her is the coolest thing that’s happened to me in a while…aside from the potty that is.

So I’ll do that award proper homage in my next post.

So where’s you next stop?  That’s right….Symphony Rocks .  And leave a note when you check it out.

I have nothing revolutionary to say today.  Pity, huh? 

I had a hankering to write anyway, so I went surfing for something to talk about.  Google searches for adoption turned up lots of articles about Madonna and pets, but I’m not interested today.  After all, I’ve been there and done that in these posts.  I need some new material.

Scroll scroll scroll…click click click

And repeat.

Then I found this article .  I saw the byline that it is from Science Daily, so I figured it had to be somewhat interesting.  At least I could count on it not mentioning Madonna.

The thing that gets me about some of these studies is that someone actually spent 3 years of their life engrossed in something we all kinda know anyway.  When it comes to parenting, why do some people prefer boys to girls, and vice versa?  

Adoptive parents make a perfect subject to study this question, since we’re not forced to play gender roulette like biological parents.  We can be choosy.  

Dr Goldberg concludes: “This study represents the first investigation known to date that explores the child gender preferences of both heterosexual and sexual minority preadoptive parents. The data suggest that both the adoption context and the sexual orientation context may have implications for how men and women think about the gender of their future children.”

Thanks Dr. Goldberg for scientifically proving that conclusion.  I’m pretty sure all parents, adoptive or otherwise, tend to obsess over the gender of their child.  It’s kind of like ground zero for future development.  Most of us would consider it a pretty big deal.

And no, this picture has nothing to do with genders and our babies.  I just thought it was funny.

In case you’re concerned and despite the total lack of quality of this post, I’m not losing my marbles.  I’m just a little punchy and I’m cooking up a new project.  The reallocation of my brain power resources causes strange disruptions at first, but it will correct itself eventually.  Have hope for tomorrow.

Plus, I’ll have a big announcement about the aforementioned project.  Aren’t you excited?? 

No, my mind is not in the toilet today.  Scratch that…my mind is not in the toilet today any more than usual.  Yes, I admit that potty humor sometimes makes me snicker, but we all need to smile every once in a while.  Studies have shown laughter is good for your juju. 

So what’s up with the catchy headline then?  Well, we’re having a bloggy potty party for my remarkable little toddler.  He stayed dry ALL DAY yesterday AND while wearing underpants!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  HUZZAH!!!!!!

He stayed dry all day Monday too, but while still wearing a pullup.  I sent him to school yesterday armed with 4 changes of clothes and lots of cute little underpants.  He even made it during the 20 minute car ride home and through supper before going potty before his bath.

I’m positively swelling with pride today.  My little boy can use the potty.  He’s not going to grow up to be some freak of nature that wets himself without warning.  He’s a freakin’ genius.

I was a little concerned there for a bit.  He started using the potty at school, but wasn’t good about using it at home.  Every once in a while he would, but it started to get worse till he flat out refused to use it at all.  I think he just got lazy, and it was way more fun to torture Mommy with his shun of the toilet.  I went from casually concerned to downright panicked.  What if never uses it?  What if he spends his life wearing Depends?  The girls will surely avoid him and the boys will laugh.  He’ll be a social pariah, and I will be his failure of a mother.  

You think I’m blowing it out of proportion a little?  So maybe I am a little, but I have no control over my late night restless thinking.  It takes me into all sorts of strange conclusions.

But, it’s all moot anyway because there’s hope.  My son has bladder control after all, and isn’t hell bent on tormenting his mother.  Woohoo!

Well, for those of you who were actually hoping for toilet humor and stuck around this long but fear you may have been disappointed, think again.  After all, I’m a full service blog, remember?

Well, not THAT full service.  Sheesh.  Get your mind out of the toilet.

Here’s a link to site with some funny jokes found on bathroom stall walls throughout the country.  

My favorite?

A Woman’s Rule of Thumb: If it has tires or testicles, you’re going to have trouble with it.
* Women’s restroom, Dick’s Last Resort. Dallas, Texas.