June 25, 2007

Well this evening we had the first official “meet the new boyfriend” night at my Mom’s house. It was my Mom, myself, Mike, my sister Audrey, her boyfriend Ben, our kid and Audrey’s kid and then obviously, our new Daddy.

All in all, I would say it went off without a hitch, with the exception of my neice calling the New Daddy by the name of my Mom’s second husband a few times, it was actually pretty ….. normal.

It was mixed emotions for us kids not because we were seeing our Mom with a new man but mostly because it looks as though they are serious enough to figure we will no longer be hearing all the gruesome and gory details of my Mom’s INSANE dating life anymore. Which is quite sad. It’s not unlike a favorite tv show going off the air or knowing the last of the Harry Potter books is upon us. Following the saga of my Mom’s dating life has been a favorite pastime of everyone’s in the family, everyone except my Mom of course.

Really, my Mom should have her own reality tv show. Something similiar to “Sex and the City,” except since she is Mormon, her’s would have to be something along the lines of “Making Out and We’re in Boise.” And she would, in fact, use the term ‘making out’ while starring in her tv show because she uses the term freely already, all the time, while telling us kids about her dates with New Daddy. I keep expecting her to also throw in ‘awesomer’ or ‘dude’ but she really only goes for the ‘making out’ and the ‘like, totally’s” which are just as fun, really, when you think about it.

If she did have her hit tv show, it would be great because then you guys could watch it and see firsthand what I am talking about. Her show would include footage from her dates with a real live millionare who would fly in on his private airplane and then it would pan to her romantic picnic in the park with a gentleman who was just released from PRISON.

And the guy who believed he was Christ, or was it a Prophet, one of the two, but yeah, he even had followers.

And the guy who emailed a picture of himself with his shirt off and his hand down his pants. It was a modeling picture, not like a taken-at-home-picture… eeeewww, he was gross but not THAT gross.

And the guy who, I’m not joking, called my Mom a “Nazi” and told her she was acting like a brutal dictator when she told him she wasn’t interested in seeing him anymore. Every couple has to have a first quarrel right? heh.

Oh and the guy who drove over 7 hours to go on a date with her and within the first 2 hours asked if she would be exclusive with him. When she replied that “No, I just met you, I’m not dating you exclusively” he LEFT and DROVE back home the 7 hours in protest.

And the list goes on and on but those were some of the highlights. NEEDLESS to say, we are a bit dissapointed that she has given ALL THIS up in order to date a nice, frighteningly normal guy named New Daddy. Or as my husband likes to call him, “Boat” - because Mike jokingly pretends that’s all he cares about, is Boat’s Boat. New Daddy has a boat, he can stay.

We quite like him, actually. You wouldn’t guess it though when we, straight out of a Meet the Fockers Scene, gave him the broken badmitton racket, which was not only broken but was missing it’s handle and the player was forced to risk his own life by gripping a spear-like replacement handle. But, we had to see if New Daddy could hack it and sure enough, he sacrificed his body and dove to return the birdie thus saving the game even with a busted racket. Mad props Boat. Mad props.

And I even still liked him when he put his foot in his mouth after telling me that his coworker adopted two girls from China and that they had “unbelievable, pretty serious medical problems once they got home”. Which he quickly realized was probably not the best thing to say to someone who is about to adopt two kids Internationally. But, you know what? Talking about adoption is hard, it’s like walking through landmines really and I don’t fault the guy. No one has a scripted adoption conversation to refer to. The guy was trying and in his world, that’s all he knows about adoption.

New Daddy did well. I can’t imagine trying to walk into a room full of my psychotic, sarcastic, not Mormon family being the shy, NICE and Mormon guy that he is. Good job Boat, ya dun well.

To see a picture of my insanely beautiful Mom, in order to understand why men drive 7 hours to go on a date with her, go here.

June 20, 2007

It’s done.

The paperchase is done.

We are officially going on the waiting list for two Ethiopian children.

Party like a rockstar.

Jamie

June 18, 2007

That’s my Dad with his girlfriend. His actual girlfriend. Something really fun about going places with my Dad is that people always think we are a couple, that I am his girlfriend. I know this because they say “OH MY GOD! That’s your DAD! I thought he was your boyfriend!” and then I’m like “Heh. Nope, he’s my Dad and that’s gross, what you just said.”

And although it is equally as wierd for him, I think he enjoys being told over and over again that “NO WAY IS THAT YOUR DAUGHTER! You are not old enough to have a daughter that age! You silly billy you!” But nevertheless, I am always quick to call him ‘Dad’ in public so I don’t have to deal with questioning gazes. It makes for a much more comfortable lunch if I’m all “Yes, I’m meeting my DAD here” instead of “Yes, I’m meeting someone here.”

Oh and you should hear the responses when he tells them that he is a GRANDFATHER. shock and awe. shock and awe.

My Dad with Delaney when she was 3 weeks old. Me with puffy eyes and pretending I’m not in complete shock as to what is in his arms and that it is MY responsibility to keep it alive:

Not that I wouldn’t hurry to call him ‘Dad’ in public anyhow, even if people DIDN’T assume that I was a gold-digger and he was a putz. My Dad has never been the type to be embarrassed by. I don’t know HOW he does it but teenagers somehow, someway do not liken his presence unto that of a heaping mass of corroded, useless sludge that nearly ALL adults are amounted to in the ever-so gratifying minds of teenagers. My friends, my sister’s friends and now my kid brother’s skater friends all love him.

I think it’s the songs.

My Dad makes up songs. And when I say he makes up songs, I mean that he takes really popular tunes, changes the words to his liking and then sings them on rotation for about 6 months at a time before moving on to the next vocal masterpeice. Oftentimes, he doesn’t even realize he is doing it. In fact, MANY times he is actually trying to sing the REAL words only to have forgotten them and is then forced to resort to his own imaginative powers.

One that was on rotation for quite some time was the TLC song “Don’t Go Chasing Waterfalls,” do you remember that one? Well, at my house, the version went something like this

“Don’t go chasing waterFOWL, please stick to the fishes in the lakes that your used to. I know that your gonna get your gun and chase the birds around mmm mmm mmm, BUT YOU’RE MOVING TOO FAST”

But get this.

I didn’t even realize that I was doing it, but I subconsciously went out looking for a husband that would do the EXACT SAME THING. It’s like I needed that in my head, the constant and continuous tick of bad lyrics and the broken record of the same three lines being sung over and over again throughout my day. It got to where I NEEDED the comfort of it just like the wife of a snoring husband NEEDS the snoring.

So, Mike does this too. And I can’t even begin to list off all of the songs he has butchered over the last 5 years of marriage but the most recent comes to mind. It’s the John Mayer song “Waiting On The World To Change” - You know it? (that’s why were waitin, waitin, waitin on the world to change… it’s hard to beat the system when were standin at a distance, that’s why were waitin, waitin, waitin on the world to change).

Okay so here’s Mike’s version:

“Ya were waitin, waitin, waitin on the world to change. I’m gonna keep on waitin, waitin, waitin on the world to change. There’s nothin I can do, no nothin, nothin I can do. That’s why I don’t vote or recycle or participate in charities, because I’m waitin, waitin, waitin on the world to change. You guys go ahead and change the world and I’ll keep waitin because there is clearly nothin I can do so I’m gonna not shower and sit here for awhile longer…”

Catchy isn’t it?

Happy Father’s Day Dad! Thanks for being my Dad and again, I’m sorry I got married before I was 35 even though I signed your contract stating that I wouldn’t.

Happy Father’s Day Mike! Thanks for being so cute.

June 14, 2007

I stayed up WAY past my bedtime the other night (meaning, like, 12:30) in order to watch a movie. A movie, by myself, uninterrupted, without fruit snacks and juice boxes and where there is a plot and characters and then at the end, there is an ending.

I was REALLY looking forward to it and felt it was worth forfeiting 2.5 hours of sleep in order to feel like a typical 25 year old for awhile. Mike has been gone at some “military training” for two weeks in which they “hardcore train” for hours and hours with laser guns and tactical defense manuevers that seem to be very much NOT UNLIKE a big, glorified game of laser tag. So, again, I was really looking forward to the movie.

In the end, though, I was so immeasurably grossed out and ticked off that I had to stay up for ANOTHER hour just to calm myself down.

I am here to tell you this. If you do not take but ONE THING away from this blog, please go away with the knowledge and forewarning that the movie “Little Children” is not not not not not worth watching.

I wish someone had told me. I wish someone had a blog and told ME that the movie, starring Kate Winslet and Jennifer Connely, would be so sickening and appaling and shocking that I would have to search late night tv for something peppy and happy and light in order to take my mind away from the images I had just seen.

I do this all the time, I get the feeling about half way through a movie that I will hate the movie, it happened during “Lost in Translation” and “White Squall” and nearly all Woody Allen movies, but I STILL finish the movie. I am so optimistic and hopeful that the movie will pull through and will redeem itself in the end that I force myself to watch the entire thing. And then it ends. And then I am mad. And then I wasted my time and my money and my life for nothing.

But not this time! This time I have a blog! And it was NOT for nothing! I have a responsibility now to shout it out to the masses (all 12 of you, hi Mom!) that the movie “Little Children” is foul and horrible and unworthy of your time, money and lives.

You are now forewarned.

Do not tread where I have tread and while your husbands are gone, watch this scary, yucky movie and then have to try to go to sleep with all the yuckiness still swimming through your mind. Yuckiness involving child predators and bad spouses and bad parents and the like.

Yuck.

That’s all for now.

Except wait! We got our Immigration approval back, after only 2 weeks!, to bring home our kiddos from Ethiopia. This is a big step completed.

June 11, 2007

I found this picture about 2 weeks ago and it has been taped to the refrigerator ever since. It needed to be on the refrigerator because I typically migrate to the fridge when I am hungry, when I’m hungry I am typically in a rotten and insufferable mood, thus typically needing a good, hearty slap of reality and perspective. Things really aren’t so bad, look at this picture Jamie. Think of your parents.

I mean, my parents must have been SO dissapointed.

Look at me. I look like a Gremlin, a 70 year old Gremlin becoming increasingly perturbed about wearing a bonnet.

Can you imagine parading your first-born around like that? Showing her off to people and having to be like, no, she’s not pooping, she just always looks like this, we think she may be a Gremlin but aren’t entirely sure. We have named her Jamie. And then people were probably like, “Oh! What a cute .. name!”

To correct my earlier statement, it was actually Mike who found the photo as we were sifting through our crapshoot of unorganized mounds of photographs. Delaney was enamored with the whole thing, processing who was who and what was what and which one was what one and which one was who. And then Mike found it. The rummaging stopped for a minute and when I looked up, Mike had stashed something behind his back and was making a face very similiar to the one he makes when he realizes he heard me pass gas.

I was all “What? What do you have?” And then Mike turns to Delaney and says, “Deeders, do you want to see a picture of when Momma was a baby?” (Delaney raising her eyebrows) “Ya!” Then he REVEALED the image and proceeded to move it closer and closer to Delaney’s face while making the sound, “REE! REE! REE! REE!” like from the Nightmare on Elm Street or something.

Mike finds this utterly amusing and then Delaney, she STARTS CRYING.

For real. I had to console my child after she saw a baby picture of her Mom.

I am thinking of starting an online business, I’m thinking I could sell the above photograph with the intent of initiating a global shift in perspective. Because, I cannot think of anything much worse than having a ugly baby. UGLY BABY SHOP. PURCHASE AN UGLY BABY JAMIE SHOT AND REVEL IN THE FACT THAT YOU DON’T HAVE TO BREASTFEED THIS.

I think I’m on to something.

June 4, 2007

Alright! Alright! Sheesh! Here it is!

See if I promise you guys anything again. Mental note: don’t raise expectations for this blog.

My In-Laws.

Really my only basis of comparison is my own parents and based on that comparison, well, you know, that would make parents in a Nudist Colony seem pre-ty normal. Pre-ty low key.

They don’t, coincidentally, live in a Nudist Colony.

Mike made it fairly easy to join his family simply by being the favorite. I have only been told this by all of Mike’s siblings, Mike’s parents would never agree with this statement outright, but if the topic comes up, all the siblings nod in unison that yes, Mike is the favorite.

Mike protests this by saying this his sister Nina always got the chicken nuggets, so, clearly, SHE was the favorite.

And then, the siblings nod in unison again, that yes, Nina did get the chicken nuggets and that she had a way of getting chicken nuggets. Her chicken nuggetness would caloborate with her being the only girl and then her being very cute on top of that, and well, you get the idea.

BUT NONETHELESS, they all say that Mike was the favorite. And Mike will deny it and his parents will deny it and then while his parents are visiting us here in Boise, his Mom will say something along the lines of, “Mikey always knew how to get his way, he knew how to make me laugh, and well, once you make the Momma laugh, you can pretty much get away with whatever you want and well, Mikey always had a way of making me laugh especially in his teenage years…”

Did you catch that she calls him Mikey? That’s cute, isn’t it?

So, anyway, when the Prodigal Son returned from Ricks College with an angelic little bumpkin that he planned to marry, they, being the hopelessly romantic and idealistic dreamers that they are, welcomed me into their home with smiles and warmth and lots and lots of hugs.

Let’s take a minute to discuss the hugging. Mike’s family hugs. They hug on first meeting and then continue to hug, just kind of spontaneously throughout the day or evening, sometimes it being half hugs with the arms lingering there for awhile and sometimes it being pats and side-hugs but nevertheless, there is hugging.

I am not from a hugging family. And when we do hug, it’s kind of stiff and wierd and will even sometimes inflict arching of the back and neck in an attempt to not ACTUALLY make contact with one another while taking part in the hugging. In fact, I remember one time VERY VIVIDLY in which my 15 year old teenage-angst-self had decided I wanted to give my Dad a big bear hug upon his return from a business trip just as my friend Sadie had done with her Dad when he returned from his business trip. As my Dad got home I inexplicably propelled myself into him for what must have seemed like a frightening display of violence upon which my Dad half-way prepared for self-defense and half-way tried to balance himself to where we both fell to the floor in an agonizing exhibit of unwritten family laws tampered with. We do not hug.

So, Mike’s family welcomed me with hugging and smiling and laughing. And to give you an idea of the type of family Mike comes from, all I REALLY need to do is tell you that they laugh-snort. Seriously, how can you not be instantly comfortable with a family that laugh-snorts?

And I was. For the most part. Except when Dinner would roll around. My stomach would turn into knots and my eyes would start to twitch when we all sat down for dinner. Because…

Because they play the alphabet game at dinner.

The alphabet game (chills). It’s when you go around the table and you have the next letter in the alphabet and you come up with something that begins with that letter and also falls into the category that has been set forth at the beginning of the round.

It sounds like fun right? And I would be excpetionally good at it if it were rounds centered upon the categories of, say, clothing shops or movie titles or characters from Desperate Housewives. BUT IT’S NOT. These people, they pick categories like

‘Prophets From the Old Testemant!’ GO!

or ‘Vice Presidents of America!’ GO!

or ‘Locations of Major Military Battles!’ GO!

I would sit there trying to go down the line to First, figure out what my FREAKIN letter was and then second, think of something remotely close to something that sounds like it could fall under the category of ‘Capitals of Foreign Countries!’!!!! And without fail, it would get to me after ZOOMING down the line of family members all spewing out answers along with quick wikipedia sub-facts and then the rhythm of the game would come to an abrupt halt while I sat there, horrified and dumbfounded at how it could POSSIBLY be my turn again. I would fidget and wrack my brain and glare at Wendy, my exceedingly witty and clever Sister in Law who had joined the family 2 years prior and who I swear was trying to sabotage me by picking categories like ‘Sayings That Have Double Meanings!’ GO!

Mike usually had to bail me out with an answer and then it would wind on down to Wendy wherein she would provide some genious and perfect answer and the whole table would laugh and comment at how good with words she is.

Come to find out, Mike’s family really appreciates and finds amusing a strong, candid, uninhibited woman. So when, a few visits later, someone brought up playing the alphabet game (probably Wendy) it invoked quite the laugh when I all-of-a-sudden blurted out “I kind of hate the alphabet game because Wendy is really good at it and I can only come up with answers like Instanbul and Dick Cheney”.

And so began the actual joining and weaving of the new family dynamic. One in which I would always feel very comfortable and very intelligent. And also one in which I would become very close friends with that exceedingly witty and clever Sister in Law Wendy.

And they still hug me.

June 1, 2007

For those of you who are pretending to be interested in the mundane paper-slave aspect of our adoption process, this one’s for you!

We successfully switched our Domestic Home Study over to an International Home Study and we took the fully executed and notarized documents along with our I600A application down to our local USCIS office today.

“I don’t do adoption-speak, break it down for me please Jamie.”

I surely will.

The home study process includes social workers coming out to your home to make sure your cleaners are not in the toy box and that you put new batteries in the smoke alarms after that ill-fated night last winter when they all simultaneously started beeping, causing their alarm innards to be unjustly ripped out by a crazed undie-wearing madman. They also ask you if you like eachother and if you will be nice to an adopted child, they ask how much money you make and what books you are reading, what you favorite color is and if you tivo SuperNanny. If you perform correctly, they write up a favorable home study for you and give you a stamp of approval.

The other form I mentioned is the I600A application. This you send in to the government (USCIS office, or United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) and ask for permission to bring children back to the US to be American Citizens.

So, after stopping by my bank to get my personal money order for the I600A fees, in which 3 tellers, myself and some dude in line could not remember how to spell Citizenship, we were off to the USCIS office.

I truly hate visiting government offices. Something about the color scheme, the metal detectors and the “no smiling” policy gives me an instant wedgie and makes my hands sweat. I get fidgety and clumsy and really apologetic, sorry I stood in the wrong spot, sorry I dropped my papers, sorry I thought my number was called, sorry I am here, sorry I am wasting your time, sorry. And it’s like they take that and really cuddle it and stroke it and roll around in it, until they feel really super great about themselves, that they made another friendly civilian look like a freakin guilty clumstard.

I totally made that word up just then. That was awesome. It worked too, didn’t it? Clumstard. sweet.

So, anyway, we had the pleasure of visiting the USCIS office and were able to turn in our app, our homestudy and get fingerprinted all within an hour (they’re cold-hearted wenches but they’re smooth operators, I’ll give them that). I was even able to get the fingerprinting guru to crack his outer jerk-wad exterior for a minute and indulge me with some fun fingerprint stories where apparently last week a guy went in who had no fingers. Kinda fun, somewhat interesting, or at least it seemed interesting at the time, while we were in government office warp time mode.

The most interesting part of the whole experience was the one other lady who was in the office at the same time we were there.

She was Hispanic, spoke very little English and was clearly being shuffled from employee to employee. She was dressed extremely nice, with nylons and heels, a nice blouse and long skirt. Her hair was done up with several bows and she looked to be in her late 40’s. She was so quiet and still that you hardly even noticed her.

But I did.

Here we were, straggling in unannounced, Mike with his Cords and unshaven jaw and Me with my flip flops and shorts, not to mention our screaming banshee of a child and there we were, so full of expectancy and there with every intention to complete our task and leave.

And there she was, so opposite. I don’t even know how to explain it. I mean, can you imagine trying to get citizenship in our Country? Really, I cannot. What kind of uphill battle would that be? What kind of disdain and uninterest would you be confronted with on your journey?

I watched her watch the American flag in the room. And then I watched her watch the large picture of President Bush in the room. And just by the way she was holding her posture and her face, you could tell she was still fighting.

I don’t know how long her fight will be, but I hope she wins.

AND.., I didn’t mean to turn this into an open invitation to discuss Immigration Reform, but I guess it happened! That’s how it works here at the Battle Station. You never really know what you’re gonna get, it’s a fly by the seat of your pants type place. Wedgies and Immigration Reform and Adoption all within the same post. I had been meaning to discuss all three of those things, so I’m glad I got that done today.