stuff

So we've survived week one in the "big bed" only a little worse for the wear. A few tears, a lot (A LOT) of giggling, one surprise early morning visit, and a lot of time spent guarding Simon's door. In fact, I am coming to you, once again, live from the floor outside his room. Good times.

As expected, the excitement of being able to get in and out of bed on his own has kept Simon from a few good nights of sleep. There has been an interesting progression as we moved from anxiety and frustration, as Simon seemed to know he was capable of getting out of bed, but understood this was not what he was "supposed" to do, to sheer pleasure at the idea of surprising Mommy and Daddy with a visit an hour after climbing into bed. No more tears. Not even real fighting when we tell him he has to go back to bed. But absolute determination to stay up as late as possible, playing and laughing behind a door that he tries to open just a little... to let us know he's there and that he thinks that is pretty cool.

I'm told the novelty will wear off, and we are trying our best not to react, not to engage too much, lest Simon thinks this is a game and we end up inadvertently encouraging him to stay up even longer. But still.... a night off from door-sitting on a cold, hard floor would be nice.

In other news, I know some are wondering about adoption round 2. Admittedly, we do not talk about it much here these days, even though it is a huge part of why we keep guzo in the first place. It is a strange thing - even for us.

With Simon's adoption, things moved so quickly (until they didn't) and everything was a new experience, sometimes so good that we were excited to share and sometimes so bad that we needed to vent. This time around has been quite different. Fairly uneventful (so far). Much slower (our expected wait time for a referral is approx 8-9 months; when we adopted Simon, the entire process was not even taking 9 months from start to finish for many families). At over 2 months into the wait for Simon (i.e. where we are now!), we could reasonably start anticipating our referral and imagining the next steps. Today, we are looking at another 6 or 7 months until a referral... and likely several more until we travel (for trip #1, not even thinking about trip #2...). And, of course, as we are now also parenting a 2.5 year old, the opportunity to sit and blog is less frequent.

But I would hate for anyone (including our children who I hope will be able to read these posts one day) to think that the lack of posting is in any way indicative of a lack of passion and desire and excitement for this next adoption. That would be completely, absolutely, ridiculously wrong.

We are as excited, as happy, as open, and filled with as much love and joy this time around as we were two years ago. It is true we are more guarded, more cautious, perhaps even more realistic (or at least trying to be more prepared for the inevitable curve balls that will be thrown our way). And so we struggle a bit to keep track of our progress on guzo. For now, anyway.

But we are still completely engaged in this process. And, we may already have made it through a good 25% of the wait to a referral. So, lack of posting aside, we are very well aware of each and every milestone, and quietly celebrating them all.