Bittersweet Thanksgiving

My mom was able to come to our house for Thanksgiving afterall. It was good to have her there but bittersweet as well. Things went as well as could be expected. The food all came out very good and we had plenty of it. My mom talked about having to get back to her home to go to work; she was very vague about what she thinks her job is. She kept asking us what time her train would be leaving and we'd explain that we were taking her back to the nursing home and that she didn't need to take the train. Her nursing home is called Oak Hill and the train station near where she used to live is Oak Grove which is where the confusion may have been coming from. Jess hugged my mom a lot and said she was glad she was there. After dinner, we took her home and then Patricia, Michelle, Jason and I went to see A Christmas Carol. That was a very good movie and we had a great time. I got up early on Black Friday (3:15 am) and hit Kohls, Borders, Gymboree, Children's Place, JoAnns, Michaels and Bed Bath and Beyond. I stayed away from electronics places and found the shopping to be quite fun. Afterward, we made fattigmon. That's a Norwegian cookie that was made at Christmas. My grandmother made them and taught my mom how to; my mom in turn taught me. Now I'm teaching Jason. He doesn't like to eat them but he said it was a lot of fun to make them. I let him fry them which was a little nervewracking at first. I think I was in my late teens before I was allowed to fry them. Saturday we went to see Santa at Colony Place. It's funny to see how much Jess loves seeing him compared to how she was her first Christmas when she screamed just at the sight of him.

Is coveting your neighbor's vacation a sin?

I get you're not supposed to covet your neighbor's spouse or possessions but I admit I am very, very jealous of one of my coworkers vacation plans. I think my jealousy started hitting hard right around the time I started making Thanksgiving plans. I know living an hour or more from different relatives makes it difficult to get together on holidays. I planned on having Thanksgiving at my house because I had been hoping to have my mom there and with her health it'd have been too hard to bring her to someone else's house. That's not going to happen at all which makes it just hurt worse. DH's side has plans. Fine, I understand. My sister and niece were supposed to come. Niece wants to go to father's; sister doesn't want to make the drive by herself. So, Thanksgiving will be DH, me and the kids. I'm fine with that, really. Okay, not really but I don't have much choice. Growing up, my mom always insisted I be there for Thanksgiving; it was the family holiday. Since we flew on employee passes, we usually spent Christmas flying or at airports but Thanksgiving was dinner at home with turkey, baked apples, and whatever friends didn't have somewhere to go. My mom's physically still here but mentally she is slipping away faster and faster. This just seemed like a time when I really needed family around. I will still have my family of course, DH and the kids, but I wish there'd be more of us. The nursing home advised us strongly not to take my mom out for the holiday because of the frequent transitions she's had to have over the past 2 months, her paranoia, and her fantasies. So, that sets the stage for my jealous coveting.

A coworker is going on a cruise at Christmas with about 20 people in her family. I know some think I'm crazy but I think that would be the ideal trip - cruises have so much to do that people could do what they wanted and catch up throughout the trip (I'm not crazy enough to think that we should all be doing the same thing all the time). I treasure the memories I have of traveling with my family. I am so glad that my son has those memories of my mother; it hurts my heart that my daughter won't have those memories. I know it'll never happen but that doesn't stop me from wishing.

All Sunbeams and Rainbows?



I was reading another adoptive mom's blog and she commented about how so many blogs portray everything happy, happy, happy. It is true that many of the ones I've read do deal with the happy stuff mostly. Do I think our journey has been all sunbeams and rainbows? No, real life never is but it has been pretty damn good for which I am forever thankful. On the plane over to China, I wondered if we knew what we were doing. Could I handle 2 kids? Could I handle a child with a heart condition? Of course, when I was pregnant I had the same thoughts - Could I handle a baby? What if he does have Trisomy 18 (Jason had a choroid plexus cyst on the ultrasound show up which can be a marker for Trisomy 18)? The things that have driven me the most crazy - Jess coslept when we came home in March until the following September. I would have been fine with her continuing to cosleep but Mike didn't like it. One of us would stay with her until she fell asleep. She'd cry and cry which ripped my heart out and Mike insisted she stay in her bed, not lie on the floor with me. There were nights where I was so tired from working and trying to keep up with everything that I couldn't take the crying and I'd beg her to go to sleep which aggravated Mike. That was probably the worst time for me. Now she sleeps in her own bed most of the time although she does come in with me some nights when Mike's working and that's fine. The thing that drives me the most crazy now is the sibling rivalry and I don't think that would be any different if I'd given birth to Jason's sibling rather than adopting her. They're both great on car rides when they're alone; put both of them in the car together and they're megabrats. My friend's daughter's occasionally watches Jess. People have asked why I don't leave Jess with Jason. I don't know that they'd both be alive when I got home if I did that. They're both great kids but they do have the ability to drive me out of my mind. I just threatened them both with going to bed immediately. I'm not feeling well and they've been together maybe 5 minutes and are going at it. This is why I focus on the happy times - I don't really want to dwell on the times that I'm pissed off; it just makes me feel bad.