March 31, 2007

Well, it’s official. I can legitimately be knighted a legit blogger, I feel, because I just received my first ever negative comment from the ever so cordial “anonymous” (I believe anonymous has visited some of your sites as well? Quite thorough that anonymous). The detestful comment was in response to this post.

I am annoyed at myself because I immediately deleted both my email and the blog comment with anonymous’ message, it was a knee-jerk reaction to hide the evidence and I should have kept it as a trophy welcoming me to the Indisputable Blogger Club. I believe dooce keeps all of her hate mail in a special file entitled “all you need is hate” because 1. it is fun to share on the blog and 2. it is fun to share on the blog.

I will try and paraphrase what anonymous said:

“Please don’t call her your Birthmom. She is a birth mother and she is an expectant mother. And if she chooses to continue with the adoption, she will be his mother, not yours.”

First off, do I really need to clarify here that I do not consider her my mom? I feel as though the people who visit my humble little site here are for the most part (with the exception of a few unruly relatives) educated and logical people and I, therefore, don’t usually feel the need to state the obvious. But here it goes:

I do not consider our Birthmom our Birthmom. I consider her Miles’ Birthmom. I use the phrase “our Birthmom” because she is the Birthmom that we are working with, not because I am verbally or emotionally taking possession of her and her uterus. Also I don’t feel like typing out “our potential son Miles’ expectant mother” because I am lazy like that and it makes for non-flowing reading.

But I think most of ya’ll get that right?

Secondly, I think with adoption, you can’t please everyone. Someone is always going to be offended, even when your intentions are clearly those of respect and admiration for a woman who will always be a part of our lives. So, someone decided to be offended because I said Birthmom instead of Expectant Mother. What can you do? I guarantee someone else would be offended if I started using that term instead. I don’t find the term Birthmom offensive. I don’t find the term adoptive mom offensive either. Sorry. I don’t.

So, anonymous, thanks for inadvertently inducting me into the bonafide bloggy hall of fame. I am proud to receive this honor and I couldn’t have done it without you. I would like to thank all my respective bloggy friends for their guidance and support, my loyal battle station fans who got me this far, my husband for being my foundation, my cute kid and my family, and most importantly God. Thank you!

March 30, 2007

Everyone go read this great post over at It’s Really Me. It’s worth your time. Do it. Do it now.

Hello my interpeeps! (By the way, I stole that word from Boomama. I will give credit where credit is due now, but I will continue to use that word in the future and pretend it is mine)

Where to start.

Numero Uno: We talked with our Birthmom. It was a real live phone conversation with our Birthmom. It lasted 30 minutes and it couldn’t have been more comfortable, calm and peaceful. It was beyond our highest expectations for a first phone call with a woman who plans to give us her child. I won’t go into a lot of detail because it is personal and sacred to us except to say that we got to document a bunch of little delicacies for Miles. His Mom craved hot dogs and peanut butter when she was pregnant with him. She laughs so easily. She is feisty and sweet at the same time. Without ever meeting us or knowing us, she opened her heart and trusted us when she was vulnerable and scared.

And the name. We all decided on a middle name for Miles. Miles Orion, after the middle name of our Birthmom’s deceased little brother. Miles Orion. We just couldn’t be more happy with that. It flows, it’s original, and it came from his first mom with significant history attached. We love it.

Numero Dos: We had the Fugees over again yesterday and thanks to my friend Erica, We made significant headway on speaking English. OVER! UNDER! RIGHT! LEFT! HIM! HER! BIG! LITTLE! Our neighbors probably have their doubts over the new family that moved in and chants THAT IS A GARBAGE! THIS IS A TABLE! really really loudly.

Mike had a good laugh because the 6 year old fugee boy was trying to ask for a piece of gum and Mike really kindly showed him to the bathroom. The kid was all “Ummm no sir. I don’t need to pee”

Also, one last story, we were all eating Mike’s smashingly successful dinner of roasted chicken, wheat rolls, corn and apples when we were trying to get the two brand new American boys to speak a little English. Mike asked the older boy how old he was and he replied that he was thirteen. Then Mike jokingly asked the six year old if he was seventeen. The whole table made this face like seventeen? No, he is not seventeen and then they said “no, six”. Mike was all “We’ll work on Sarcasm next week.”

Numero Tres: After many profane and loathsome emails and comments from my internet vote on the kitchen color, we decided to repaint. Big thanks to Rae at Rachel’s Blatherings for her suggestion of a rusted reddish/orange color. We went with it and here are the results:

Before:

After:

We really love the color and we never plan to repaint it ever again, so please only say nice things. Thank you.

March 28, 2007

So, it’s always funny to me when people think of Boise Idaho as a minuscule hillbilly town. It never fails, when I meet someone new during our travels or whatnot and they learn that I live in Boise Idaho, they always reply with a real annoying, dumbfounded exclamation of “BOYZEE!”

They then go “Potatoes, right? Ya’ll do potatoes there?”

Why, yes sir we do.

They always laugh a bit to themselves and I wonder what the F is so funny.

Even my brother and sister in law are guilty of it. They couldn’t figure it out for the life of them why we were so happy living in Boise. I mean, how can you be happy without running water and a public transit system and McDonald’s. WHO LIVES THAT WAY!

We have those things, obviously. Who do you think I am? Pioneer Woman?

So, anyway, we get that ignorant crap all the time. Did you go to school in a one room schoolhouse? Do you mine for gold? Is your Daddy also your Brother?

And I always laugh about it because I know that our city kicks their city’s buttocks. And I know that we have all the things that you would expect of a state’s capital and we do pretty darn well for ourselves, thank you very much. And we are not hiking to school uphill both ways and catching dinner with our hands in the Boise River either.

So, I laugh about the preconceived ideas about us being so backwoods but then today we discovered this behind our garage:

That’s right folks. There are about 25 deer living behind our house, probably 40-50 feet away. We live on the outskirts of our new happy happy subdivision and so we get the benefits of have open space as our back neighbor. AREN’T YOU SO JEALOUS RIGHT NOW! admit it!

I am like snow white! I live among the wild animals!

I actually saw them for the first time last night as I was coming home from my angry drive-by-myself stew after fighting with my husband over meaningless stupidness. I pulled up and saw all these white deer butts in the dark of the night! I walked inside the house after my angry drive of solitude and was all “I know we should talk about how sorry we are and make up right now but there are like TWENTY FIVE DEER BY OUR GARAGE!” and we both ran outside like 8 year olds and watched them. Just like that, our fight was over. The DEER healed our fight. Mother Nature healed our fight.

This was the picture I tried to take last night with my crappy little camera that I hate:

So, needless to say I was stoked when they came back today! Like they knew that I wanted a picture of them for my blog.

So, ya, I guess Boise is a little country. Afterall, we have deer that migrate to our garage. But I’ve decided to be cool with that. I should be proud of being a little country.

March 27, 2007

Overview: Adam Sandler plays a guy who lost his wife and 3 daughters on 9/11. He starts acting like an autistic man in his grief and meets up with an old college roommate (Don Cheadle). Don Cheadle tries to help him.

Will you cry? Yes.

Is the acting good? Yes. Although the autistic behavior is a little odd.

Believable? Not really. Some parts are but there is a sub-plot that is totally unrealistic involving a really hot crazy lady who likes to perform sexual acts.

Worth watching? Yes, but as a rental.

Don Cheadle is always awsome. You may remember him from A Family Man and the Ocean’s 13 movies. I love him and wish he was in more stuff. Adam Sandler plays his usual quirky socially retarded self with the exception of 3-4 scenes where he shows a softer, more serious side.

Overall: forgettable.

Overview: TRUE STORY! About the 300 Spartan warriors that held off the mighty Persian army for 3 days.

Will you cry? You will probably get teary eyed.

Will you cringe? Yes, it’s very gory.

Believable? Well, it’s true so we know it is believable but we could have done without all the mysticism. It is just as effective without the goblins and wizards and hunchbacks and whatnot. Those parts were distracting and annoying.

Is the acting good? Yes, very good.

Worth watching? Yes. Ladies, you will get big time husband points for going to see this and the bonus is that there is eye candy all over this for ya!

The director is the dude that directed Sin City. So, if you liked the funky filming style of that flick, you will definitely love this one too.

Overall: I would see it again. But fair warning: there are boobs and love scenes and heads being chopped off so it’s not for the faint of heart. But the suck-you-in factor is there and I love that it is a true story.

March 24, 2007

Well, we took our Fugees to the zoo yesterday. This is the whole gang:

We had our 3 Fugees, plus the pregnant couple who have been in America for 2 weeks PLUS 2 other boys that had been in America 1 NIGHT. Because, why the heck not? right folks? We aim high.

On the way there, we kept trying to convey that we were going to see animals. A-NI-MALS. Animals? Yes? They nod and nod saying yes, yes, good, okay. Then when we get there, they ask if we are there to swim.

First exhibit. Leopards.

Mike and I walk right up to the cage and turn around to find them all 25 feet back, absolutely terrified. We begin to wonder if this was a REALLY BAD IDEA. I’m not in to the whole Cesar Milan approach and don’t want them to have to sniff the poop of a beast that probably ate their friends in Africa.

“They can NOT get out. It’s OKAY. It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay. (I felt like we said this about 387 times that day)”

Sloooooowly. Ever so sloooowly, they approach the cage and watch the massive sleeping cats. Our Mama Fugee says “In Africa.. no good! Nooooooooo Good” and then she put her hands in claws and made motions across her chest just like wolverine in X-men. “No this in Africa” and pointed to the cage.

We stayed at the Leopard cage for probably 20 minutes. They were in absolute amazement. The leopard wakes up, they all take a step back. They say that the cat can tear down the cage, they know it with a certainty. We all laugh a bit and the nerves wear off.

So, this is how the zoo trip started off:

Very serious. By the way, they asked for this picture to be taken. They LOVE having their pictures taken but they haven’t really learned the whole smiling aspect of it yet. But the picture embodies their emotions at the Leopard exhibit. Sheer terror and then fascination.

Next up: Penguins. You can imagine Africans seeing penguins for the first time. A lot of giggles and questions that they didn’t know how to ask.

Next up: Tigers. Somewhere between the penguins and the tigers, the 6 year old first-day-in-America kid walked to the side of the walking path and started peeing. Uh!!! Umm!!!! No no no no no no no. Enter: first trip to public American bathroom. Mike had to show him where to aim, how to turn the sink on and off, how to get paper towels and where to put trash.

Fugees seeing a Tiger:
So, overall seeing the animals was pretty cool for them. Except for the occasional “I eat that” they were truly fascinated and had a really good time. Llamas - amazing! Porcupine - magnificent! Iguanas - you get the idea.

But the REAL fun began when we went through the kid’s section and they discovered the giant Giraffe slide. It was a sight to behold! Eight Africans running up and down the children’s slide at the zoo, the adults waiting in line, laughing and laughing, asking for their picture to be taken.

Papa Fugee:

Pregnant Fugee Friend: (yes, a pregnant woman was going down a slide at the zoo and had the time of her life)

Mama Fugee: 6 year old first-day-in-America boy contemplating why he can’t pee outside in this weird American food factory: His older brother about to be knocked down:

2 thumbs up! We have no idea what their generalizations were about a zoo in America, probably that they would be filthy rich once they figured out a way to gather all their common livestock and food supply back home and then charge us stupid Americans to walk by and gawk at it. Oh well.

Afterwards we took them to McDonalds, because, really, you can’t be a true American until you gorge yourself on fried axle grease. We were happy to Christen them.

March 23, 2007

Here’s a riddle for you:

Mama Fugee has a MASSIVE scar on her stomach going from her side towards her belly button and then all the way down towards the holy of holies area. She says it’s from an operation in “Afrique” and she makes hand gestures indicating a REALLY LARGE round object and places her hands where the scar is. She complains of pain still and says she is seeing an American doctor. We hear that she is going in for another surgery.

For the last 3 weeks we have been racking our brains trying to figure out what the deal is.

Did they remove a tumor in Africa?

Was there a growth?

Was there a cyst?

Something with her large intestines?

Was it inside her stomach or outside her stomach?

Why is she still in pain?

Any guesses?

WELL, if you guessed an enlarged spleen due to a bad case of malaria and that she has a hernia now - YOU ARE CORRECT! I’ll let you use your imaginations as to how we finally figured all of this out….. except to say that it involved Mike’s nursing books and lots of pictures of body parts.

It’s like playing pictionary for hours and not being able to take a nachos break.

Boy, they flocked to those nursing books like white on rice. They love medical books, we have learned. They had another Fugee couple over at their house last night also from the Congo who are newbie Fugees, only in America 2 weeks! They. looked. so. scared. My heart went out to them. They were pregnant with their first baby and she was either 6 or 7 or 8 months along. The four of them were carefully examining the medical books and came across a naked picture of a white man. They stopped. Silence. I wondered “Did they think Whiteys had different genitalia?” but then the Fugee Man Friend muttered something and all four of them BUSTED UP LAUGHING while Pregnant Fugee Friend WHACKED her husband over the head, still laughing. Mike and I make that face that you make when you don’t get the joke, kind of a half smile with “huh?” eyes. Finally, our Mama Fugee between laughs points at the naked white man and says “baby Fada - Fada of baby!”

Sense of humor, they have a sense of humor. Yes! Then Mama Fugee ran to the back room and came back out flailing birth control pills. “Look! No baby!” (Enter maniachal laughter while she processes that fact that if she takes this little teeny pill once a day, she would not get pregnant).

We took their baby Fugee for the day so they could have a break. We taught the little man how to say HELLO! and HELP ME! (instead of making whining noises) and how to say MY NAME IS BABY FUGEE (not really, we didn’t have him say baby fugee, come on people). Then we bought him that blue jacket that we have been meaning to buy instead of his pink and purple care bears jacket. Had to go.

Here is Baby Fugee:

We are taking the entire Fugee family to the zoo today. This oughtta be interesting. Mike was all “Do you think it will be like us paying to see cows in a cage in New York City?” Hmmmm.

Delaney: boobies! boobies! boobies!

Me: ……. huh?

Delaney: poop! poop! poop!

Me: Delaney, I know you probably learned those words from Mommy and Daddy but we actually aren’t really supposed to talk about those words, okay?

Delaney: But, what about rainbows…. Can we talk about rainbows?

Me: Yes. Good question.