It was the Best of Times...

And, yeah, we've had some pretty rough times too.

Its been a long time since I've actually sat down to write a post of real consequence on here. The past month or so has really been a roller coaster of moments for us. Obviously, we had our referral two weeks ago. That was one of those moments, like the birth of a child or a wedding day, about which you dream and plan and then the real thing is totally surreal and nothing like you'd imagined. A year ago we hadn't even thought about re-starting the adoption process, now there's no turning back!

At the same time, my husband and his brother have been working tirelessly on the manuscript for their new novel. Is "tirelessly" even the right word? It has been a huge undertaking. They are behind schedule due to so many unforeseen things that life threw our way, and are now working at a feverish pace to catch up. So, no, I don't think "tireless" is the right word. They are very tired! And we, their families, are too. It has been a difficult sacrifice on our part. Little boys don't do well for extended time without their daddies. And a boy with autism even more so. My husband and brother-in-law took a week and holed up in a rental house on their own so they could work whatever crazy hours their creativity required and not be disturbed by the phone calls and emails that normally follow two self-employed businessmen. I stood up straight and tall and braced myself for a challenging week, telling myself that although it would be far from normal, I needed to try to maintain some sense of normalcy for my boys and that, my goodness, it wasn't like my husband was being shipped off to Iraq for months on end like some women have to endure. Well, as it turned out, our house became its very own Iraq. Okay, so maybe that's exaggerating a little bit...but it really was ugly. There was screaming and there was crying...and it wasn't just me! It was not a good week in our home. In the meantime, I was trying to complete our referral packet as much as I could on my own, all the while feeling like a real schmuck for thinking I could/should bring such an adorable baby girl all the way across the Atlantic Ocean to such madness as there could be found in our humble home. Did I mention that the floods that made national headlines took place that very same week? Oy.

Our nutty family is all back together now, though Hubby continues his crazy hours. Today we were finally able to attend church for the first time in weeks. This we took on with mixed feelings. Our church has recently undertaken a merger with another church nearby. My husband and I support the church leadership in this move, but it is not without its own hardships. It had been ages since I felt at peace at any particular church, the last few I attended having undergone some serious troubles. Our current church revived my spiritual life in a way no other church had, and I felt safe there. It was very hard to attend the new, combined church this morning...for all kinds of reasons. Oh, I was worried for the boys -- how would my eldest, so wound up in routine and predictability, respond? (We have had to sit in roughly the same seats for the past year or so to avoid major meltdown.) How would the youngest, so clingy and unsure of himself, do with teachers he didn't know? But they ended up faring much better than I! Let's just say its going to take time...and some serious dying to self.

Speaking of our eldest son, he continues to do well at school. He couldn't wait for Christmas break to end so he could return. His teacher (and more importantly, the resource gal) have apparently felt no further need for the behavior charts they used before. We haven't seen one come home in weeks. He had a substitute for three days last week with nary an issue -- a huge deal for him. He had his first field trip and an assembly (all in one day, no less) and came home without issue. If only things functioned so well at home! We do rejoice, however, in the progress he has made.

The boys are very excited for the arrival of Baby Jo, as we have called her for years now. Today, as we drove to church, we were chatting about how far away she lived, trying to create an image in the boys' minds of where she would be coming from. A few months back we had happened across an IMAX movie in Seattle about the Nile River, which actually flows north into Egypt from the Blue Nile in Ethiopia. Hubby reminded the boys of the movie and mentioned that Baby Jo lives (relatively) near the mighty Nile River. That got a huge response: "What?! Wow! We are getting the coolest baby!" exclaimed our eldest. Indeed, Hubby responded, the Nile River was were Baby Moses was found. "Oh my gosh!" said the eldest again, "We are getting the best baby ever!" It was pretty precious. Let's just hope he has the same attitude when his poor sleep-deprived parents stumble off that airplane!