Commencing to Begin to Get Ready

The holidays came and went. The tree came down and all the other Christmas trappings with it (such a lie, its all piled up in the library still waiting to be put in bins and taken to the basement). My mid-winter malaise has set in, so we may as well address the next step in child procurement: adoption.

My best friend got me a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle for Christmas (Doctor Who themed, of course!). So I scattered the pieces on our giant dining room table and set up Video 1 of the Adoption Academy for M to watch, listen to, whatever. He paid the most attention to the discussion about expenses, which I suppose makes sense. He asked me exactly one question throughout (What age range are you considering? Answer: infant only) and that was about it. At least I got him to watch it. And we got, like, 40 pieces of this stupid puzzle put together. I really suck at puzzles, but this was a sweet gift from my friend so I'm going to finish it, dammit!

Hopefully we will watch the second video sometime soon. Right now I feel like, even if we did decide to pursue adoption, I wouldn't want to get the ball rolling for another year or so. I'm enjoying not being immersed in a world of high-strung anticipation and horrible, crushing disappointments. My family and I are still recovering from the Series of Unfortunate Events that was 2013. In one year, my mother lost the ability to walk, M and I lost out on the dream of biological children, my family lost my grandmother, I lost my job (but got a new one, admittedly), and the cherry on the sundae was having to put down one of my mom's dogs right after Christmas (he was a ripe 16.5 years old, though). I don't feel like volunteering for further let-downs any time soon.

I want to go into the next chapter of my life (be it adoption or child-free) with hopeful determination, not with teeth gritted and loins girded for certain doom. I know for sure I'm not in that good mind set yet, so we will continue to wait and educate ourselves and prayerfully consider what the hell we are meant to be doing with our lives.