Whooooshh.

See that picture? That picture proves that our friends are the greatest friends on the face of the earth. Our friends know us well enough to know that along with the mountain of tiny socks, board books and adorable outfits we will also need a good stiff gin and tonic every now and then to help us through the upcoming weeks. As we say in Texas, bless their hearts.


The toddler shower that our friends put together for us was incredible.


Friends who have cheered us on over the last year, friends who are parents, friends who don't ever want to be parents, friends who are just starting their parenting journey, friends who just like a good party--all gathered to help celebrate YH. The gifts were so thoughtful--in pretty much every picture (except the one above) I am making a crying face. Because they ALL made me cry!


Personalized t-shirts for the whole family with our roller derby names on them to wear in the airport (MamaKaze, PapaKaze and MiniKazes 1-3), personalized rash guards for YH to wear to the pool (with matching swim trunks), a book of recipes handwritten by one of the hostess' Korean mother, a library of board books curated by a true friend, Robeez with yoda ears, bunny slippers, a stuffed fox that perfectly matches the bedding I sewed for YH, on and on. A parade of items picked with love for our sweet boy.

And as I looked around the party at all our supporters I finally exhaled.
I have been holding my breath for the last 10 months or so.
Job stress, adoption uncertainty, family crisis--with each challenge I held my breath a little tighter, closed myself off a little more.

Until last week. When finally it felt safe enough to let it all out in one big "whoooosssshhh".

I know that the "thank you" cards I spent all week writing will never be enough to accurately express my gratitude to our people. How do you say "The fact that you showed up to celebrate our growing family gave me the strength to finally let go and be happy" without sounding like a loon? And yet, it's true. The collective love and energy of that party was exactly what I needed to buoy my spirit.

After I started to breath again, I crashed. I slept SO much over the last week--which is really out of character for me.

And each time I woke up I felt lighter. I am excited and nervous and anxious to start our life as a family of five. I can't wait to meet my son. My SON!

I'm ready. I'm taking deep breaths and letting them out. I'm ready.

Update: Our awesomely dumb acquisition

Ruthie in the wildflowers

You may remember that just about a month ago our family made the awesomely dumb decision to acquire Miss Ruthie Millicent, canine wondergirl. You may be asking yourself "Hey--I wonder how that is going?"--unless you are my friend on faceplace, in which case you are asking yourself "Another picture of that dog???? This lady needs to get a life."

The answer to the first question is: it is going (mostly) well.  I think we have finally reached a place where having Miss Ruthie in our lives feels like part of our normal. Certainly during our first few days together I had many a moment of panic: wondering if we had made a terrible mistake, wondering if the cat would ever forgive me, wondering if we could handle the needs of a young energetic dog AND two-soon-to-be-three kids.

Part of my panic came down to Ruthie being under 2 years old. She's a big goofy teenage dog--with lots of love and energy to spare. For the last FOREVER Sean and I have had old crotchety dogs. Even Archie (the three legged beagle) came to us as a late-middle-aged fellow, and now he is firmly entrenched in the pursuits of old-mandom (namely: eating, sleeping, eating, barking, sleeping). Whereas our-pups-now-passed were essentially furry paperweights, Ruthie is a whirligig. She can't be expected to spend all day napping with an occasional pee break.

And so we walk her four to five times a day. Some walks are short and business oriented, others are long and leisurely. As a result the whole family is out enjoying the neighborhood more. Ruthie is by far the least leash reactive dog we've ever owned. Her normal pace is a "loose leash" walk, and when she spots another pup she wags her tail and waits for the chance to pleasantly greet a potential new friend. This applies to dogs of all sizes: she has shown equal enthusiasm and deference to a 170lb mastiff and a 13 pound chihuahua.

In fact, if we spent all our time together walking around the neighborhood life with Ruthie would be idyllic.

But we do spend a good bit of time indoors. And that is where we have some more work to do.

Miss Ruthie's back story is that she was brought in as a stray--and it shows. In her first days with us she had no idea what to do with a dog biscuit, but would eagerly snatch any scrap of paper with food residue on it. It took about two weeks for her to become more food motivated. Now she loves her training treats.

Her response to dog toys was similar--they were completely foreign to her and she had little interest (no matter how exciting I tried to make them seem). But slippers? And chair legs? And raised garden beds? ALL DELICIOUS. NOM NOM NOM. It took a lot of redirection and training diligence to get her to learn to love the kong instead of slobbering all over my boots. She still is freaked out by frisbees and only yesterday did I convince her that sticks can be fun to crunch on.

In all of her attempts to nom on verboten items it has become clear that this dog has no idea of her breed. She comes from a bone-crushing pedigree (as an aside: my mom would be happy to email you articles about Ruthie's potential to rip all of our throats out!) and is all muscle and yet manages to barely nibble the object of her desire. She mouths them and gums them and gives them delicate nibbles (the way a mom dog would nibble her pups)--but does not destroy or damage them. The beagle can eat through a door in a matter of minutes (he actually did this once at our former doggy daycare center), but Ruthie can barely pulverize a milkbone.

We are now at the point where we leave her uncrated in the house for brief periods when we are out. This works well, and the biggest casualty to date has been a tipped over rocking chair that she stood on to to look out a window. Oh, and a soggy doormat that she nommed on. When we are gone and the dogs are uncrated the cat is put in her safe zone in the back of the house. The critters are separated by a door in the interest of everyone's safety.

Ruthie has come a long way in learning to live with our cat. At first she didn't acknowledge the cat. Then she went through a period of barking at the cat. So in an effort to desensitize her to kitty, we started "jackpotting" her. It worked like this: Ruthie was on a lead in the house while kitty roamed free. Whenever the cat got near her I would make her sit and started giving her a steady stream of treats until kitty left the space. We repeated this for a few days and eventually Ruthie learned that sitting quietly when kitty was around earned her rewards. Now everyone can roam free when Sean or I are there to supervise.

We have started attending an obedience class with Ruthie and hope that we can help her reach her doggy potential.

Challenges left to overcome: jumping on people and an aversion to getting in the back of the car.

Overall I'm very happy she's in our lives. We're not so dumb after all.

Bust that mutton.

Lest you think my poor children had to spend all of their Spring Break with a morose mother who was consumed by thoughts of addiciton/adoption related anxiety, let me assure you: WE HAD FUN Y'ALL.

We went to the RODEO!

Boy howdy, as a native of the North East nothing makes me happier than the annual opportunity for our whole family to don western wear and gorge ourselves on fair food. This year there was red velvet funnel cake. RED VELVET FUNNEL CAKE PEOPLE.

For the past two years the main draw to the rodeo for my littles has been the opportunity to participate in a real-live-actual-honest-to-goodness rodeo event: MUTTON BUSTING. Now those of you who don't live in my state, who hail from my homeland, are probably thinking "Say what now?" (Except for my friend and former classmate who is now a real-life barrel racer! HI DEBBIE!)

Allow me to explain: mutton busting is like PBR for the elementary school set. Children between the ages of 5 and 7 are clad in protective head/chest gear, placed on top of a large sheep, instructed to "bear hug" the wooly beast and released into the arena. The children cling with all their might to the sheep for as long as they can, tumble into the sawdust and then get scooped up by a rodeo clown. The kid with the highest score wins and gets to kiss the rodeo queen.

Are you unsure whether to call PETA or Child Protective Services first?
It's cuuutttteeee you guys, for real.
And my kids freakin' LOVE it.

Miss A competed last year and was determined to better her prior score this go 'round. Here she is squeezing her sheep as hard as she can. She had a brilliant ride up until the sheep took a header trying to shake her off and rolled on top of her. She jumped right up and stomped to the other end of the arena. I could practically see her shaking her fist at that durn sheep. Her score was third highest.

Sweet Bubs had his inaugural ride this year, and he spent weeks developing strategies for  how best to win. He decided he would try to win the sheep over by telling it how much he loved it, how cute it was, what a good sheep it was--all while pretending he was a sloth with super-grip powers. Works for me kid.

Sweet Bubs' ride was pretty great too. His sheep tried to shake him off by rubbing up against other sheep.

In the end some kid named David with a giant belt buckle won. Whatever, David.

But the kids still got to meet the rodeo queen!