14 months

Our little guy is 14 months old this month and today we received his update and pictures.  I was checking my email at the stoplight (shhh..don't tell) and was so excited to see an email with the header as such.  So happy I was right around the corner from school and could access the pics asap. 

He's a cutie.  I will say I wish we could have a few photos from foster mom.  All the ones we have received recently are from the agency in Korea and I am assuming do not capture his everyday, comfortable expressions (which we saw more of from the first set of photos we received from foster mom).  But I am happy to see him.  I guess these were from last month's checkup and the notes say they will send updated ones next month.

Hi Baby Boy!

Loved reading that he sings and dances along to music, feeds baby dolls and makes a scary face when putting a toy bug on his leg! =0)
I will be posting on our adoption blog with more detail. Building Blocks to Forever  Please stop by sometime if you are curious.

Oh man has life been busy.  Survived the first week of school (full week....who's brilliant idea was that?!? ugh!) and it was my first week of first grade.  I have many of my old students and love it. I also have one boy who is already giving me a run for my money.  Thankful to have some supportive staff members.

Life with my new team is a breath of fresh air.  No bitchy comments, undermining or arguing.  So collegiate, I love it.  What I do not love is their obscene use of paper.  I think I have copied more worksheets, etc in the first week than all of the first three months for my kiddos.  This will take some getting used to.  I am not trying to make any waves, and to some degree we have no choice but to make copies.  But still.  Dear Mother Earth, I am so sorry. 

So, so far so good.

And I must say, after countless hours moving and setting up in a new classroom...my room looks pretty darn good.  I chose a "camping/forest" theme.  My Aunty just brought me some trees and Hubby helped me put up a whole wall of fadeless star background paper.  I can also say I do not want to move any time soon in the near future.  yikes.

Congrats to those brand new mommies....so happy for you ladies!

My favorite P word

Today was my cousin's baby shower and I am not going to lie and tell you I was fine the entire time because I wasn't.  I haven't had too much to write about as of late.  A few updates here and there and some cool things like our awesome trip but I haven't had the energy to finish my posts. The last few weeks have been hard.  I feel like I shouldn't complain but I have to say it somewhere and I know I have your ears and I thank you for that.

I was and am so very fortunate to be matched with our little guy so quickly back in January.  I knew then we had a long wait ahead of us.  What I didn't realize was how difficult the wait was going to be.  Maybe all the years of waiting from IF treatments "spoiled" me.  Even though the outcome was (almost) always the same and horrible, the wait was relatively short in the scheme of things even though we all know how hellish the TWW is.  I can honestly say, in many ways, the wait has gone by quickly, I am busy and like to be that way. But my emotions have been running high as of late.  After receiving our son's first birthday pictures from June last week (which I love) I think of how much older he looks.  So many changes and I wish I was there to see him he was home.  I have said so many times in the last week, that I wish he was here.  I am trying to tell myself to be patient.  Hopefully, when we start his nursery/room things will again feel like they are moving.

This time last year I was preparing my mind and body for our last round of IVF.  I was so happy and hopeful and just knew in my heart something felt different about it.  I was right and sadly that feeling did not stick around for too long.  I still have my positive pregnancy tests, one in my medicine cabinet and one on the side of my refrigerator (gross..yes..but not to worry they are in bags!).  I know I need to get rid of them in some way, but can't seem to remember to do it.  What do I do with them? Throw them out? They are one of my happiest moments, what do I do?

Today I had to go to the bathroom and allowed myself to have a moment at the shower.  I am so happy for this cousin. She is older and has waited for this moment.  She even did a round of IVF last year that was unsuccessful but was able to conceive naturally.  As I watched her today I could feel the part of me wishing I was her. I want it to stop. 

Right now I feel bitter and angry towards my body.  And right now I look at my son's photo and feel so much love for him I think my heart may burst.  Someday soon I will hold him and kiss him.  Someday I will tell him how he was my biggest lesson in patience.  Right now I am still learning how to do it. 

Wow....Life at Neck Breaking Speed

So it appears I have completely disappeared! The last few MONTHS since my last post have been practically overwhelming and wonderful but that is my life and I suppose I wouldn't have it any other way.  No sense in going through a bunch of words and the fact I have been awake for just over 24 hours is not helping.
Here I go with some bullets (not necessarily in order, but I will try!):
-school year starts winding down
**Celebrated our son's first birthday with some close friends, some close family, dinner and cupcakes!**

Happy Birthday Little One!

-I decide to try to return back to my old school as the changes on my team over the past 1.5 years has been a little less charming. 
-Was offered a position at my current school but with first grade.  (and to make a very long and emotionally difficult 48 hours in one short sentence...) I took the job!
-Which made the end of the year psychotically CRAZY!! Holy moly! I had already planned on the end of the year being more busy than normal but this added a huge amount of crazy.
-Packing, boxes, packing, boxes, trying to sort 6+ years of accumulated "teacher stuff" into things I thought I needed or wouldn't need next year..yikes.  Thank goodness for my family and my good friend for their help. phew.
-All the "regular" end of the year stuff for school.
-Helped my bestie mentioned in previous posts move out of her apartment to go down south. Sad day.
-Finished up in the classroom the rest of the week. (done Friday morning)
-Family reunion (left Friday afternoon, come back Sunday)
-Home and packed for our grand Korea and Japan adventure and leave on Tuesday.
***********Spent just over 2.5 weeks in Korea and Japan with my Hubby**********************
~Among many fantastic things, I met my foster mom in Korea and hung out with my friend in Japan.

One of the best moments of my life!!!!!!! Amazing!

-Now trying to adjust back to the time, but so far not doing so well.  So I will give sleep another shot tonight! 

Hope you are well!

Clubs

Apologizing in advance, this post is going to be a little all over the place!

Thanks to the ladies who left some words of advice for my dear friend.  In the past few weeks I have seen so much from her, pain and happiness and sadness.  She is such a dear friend, my best friend and I do not know what I would do without her in my life.  She has put in a letter of resignation at our school and as sad as I am to see her go, I am every step behind her as she makes some huge changes in her life.  Changes are happening all around. I am there to support as she has me.

In other news, there is a new post up on our adoption blog.  Please check it out there if you haven't already! Building Blocks to Forever . We received a huge surprise on Monday.  Three new photos of our son.  I think he looks so much bigger than the photos from last month.  Crazy. Adorable. We were so lucky to get some new pictures.  I will post some photos on the adoption blog. =0)

I hope you all had a nice weekend and survived Mother's Day. Congrats to the new Mommies and to the Mommies to be.  And to those of us who are waiting and wishing, I thought of you.  I felt like I was in limbo this year.  Not quite part of the still dreaming because I do have a son now, but I can still dream of what's to come.  But definitely still in the waiting club.  And most definitely in the wanting club.  I so want to meet him and snuggle him.  Maybe he will be here next year for Mother's Day. Maybe not, I don't know.  So even though this was my technically my first Mother's Day, I will wait to officially celebrate it when our little guy is home. The last few weeks have been extremely hard for me.  I felt sad knowing I would have had a baby in my arms this Mother's Day.  I would have been due sometime last week.  It makes me cry still. I feel slightly guilty because I feel as though I am not fully embracing my son over in Korea.  But I was and still am overjoyed but life has thrown me a curve ball with my emotions.  I knew this would be hard, just didn't know what to expect.

My dear friend sent me flowers for Mother's Day.  I cried really, really hard.

beautiful roses

love this. My friend is truly wonderful, such a loving heart.

Spring Crazies

Life has been busy as always.  And even though I love being busy, I still need at least a few more hours every day to get my shit done.

Three weeks since my last post....I guess it's a little harder when there isn't as much stuff going on with the adoption as there was with IVF.  But the great news is we got our second update on our little guy last week so my plan is to make my post on the adoption blog tomorrow night. He is getting so big and he has received our first gift. And his hair grew...a lot! Hopefully he receives our second gift soon, as multiple families just traveled to Korea from our placing agency to pick up their little ones.Here's a picture. I will post more on my adoption blog. love, love!

Our guy. getting so big!!!!

I had a glorious week off from school for spring break....spent most of it in Las Vegas with my girls.  So nice to get away from pretty much everything.  I am at a point of trying to figure EVERYTHING out and it's a little frustrating at times.  So good to relax, meet some new folks, get some sun and dance, dance, dance!

Right before I left I finally decided to apply for graduate school.  I was such a spaz trying to fill out the damn application I don't think I even want to know what I would be like in class.  But this is something I have wanted to do for a long time now. And damn it, had I actually started it when I "wanted" to and had the first peeping thoughts I would have been done already...years ago. BUT, of course I didn't because "what if I get pregnant? I don't want to try to go back to school and juggle being a new mommy." HAH, what a fucking joke.  So over the week in Vegas, I talked myself out of it, with some advice from my friends, but mostly with the voice of our social worker in my head. "Don't start anything big." Well, if that's not big I don't know what is. But what about my teacher friend at school who says..."do it now, before your baby comes." Except that he won't be a baby, he'll be a toddler.  I feel so upset. Damn IF, you messed all that up. Or maybe I did because I was waiting for the miracle to happen that always eluded us and I should have just gone for it.  But for now, I will wait. I just turned in a bunch of units, so that helps a bit and I will just try to get more in the coming year.

Feeling like I am in a slump with Hubby. Enough said.  I can't wait for our trip to Korea and Japan this summer. Hopefully it gives us the time together and the recharge we need.  But...we need to book our tickets and that hasn't happened yet.  We are not world travelers so booking a multi-destination trip is trickier than I think we both expected.  So our attempts have been fun so far.  Next step is calling the airlines...help!

School is good. Conferences are over and they went great overall. So proud of my kiddos.  Tomorrow we will start our classroom garden.  Today my kids picked which types of seeds they will plant.  This is my favorite time of year, they love it and so do I!

I try to follow along with your blogs, but realized tonight I have some big holes, especially after being gone for a few days.  Thinking of you.

Leprechauns

We didn't catch any of the tricksters, but boy oh boy....did they have fun! The traps left by my kids were turned into one giant structure with their "bait" hidden inside! Our classroom was quite a mess (mixed up calendar, knocked over/stacked chairs, spilled caddies, etc.) and they left us notes throughout the morning which eventually led us to some edible gold coins! Funny, I have never had a group of kids so convinced they were really here.....loved it! They were looking at things all day with a different eye and seeing things (that have been there all along) but never noticed....which of course meant the leprechauns did it! This is my favorite day of all with my kids.  And this year topped them all. oxo

little boot prints

Believe it or not...I teared up a little telling my kids how happy I was they were there to help me clean. I think it only added to their excitement and how real it must be!!

New structure courtesy of Hubby

Some of the traps as of Thursday after school...

Leprechauns like shiny objects...we used gold coins and treasure tub pieces as bait.

Those Funny Feelings....

I was struck with a bout of sadness the other night.  Guess I felt sorry for myself.  I know it is normal and probably is to be expected.  Seeing pictures of my good friend who was just in front of me in her pregnancy has been hard.  I had tears last night for a commercial for a credit card (I think!) where the lady finds out she is having triplets. I think I will be happier once my friend's baby is born.  As much as I miss her since she now lives out of state, I am secretly glad I won't be able to make it to her shower and instead can just send my gift.  It's funny because as happy as I am about our son in Korea, I am still surprised at my (sometimes) jealous feelings and sadness about what could have been.  I think its getting better.  It just still stinks.

I am excited about tomorrow morning in my classroom....the leprechauns paid a visit over the weekend and the traps my kids set up on Thursday (we had a work day) on Friday have been transformed by my terrific Hubby into a grand structure with their bait hidden inside.  Green bootprints and gold glitter all around and a pot of gold coins to be found later on in the morning.  I'll have to add pictures later since I left my phone at home while we were at school today.  Our celebration will be a little less than normal because our days at school are so squished for time, but I am looking forward to seeing my kids' faces in the morning. 

In other news, I do believe my body is back to normal.  For months, I have not experienced my normal PMS symptoms and last month I did. Sore, busty boobs and cramping a week plus before AF's appearance.  So I am happy things are back to "normal"...took long enough. 

I posted a new post about our wonderful trip to Arizona to our placing agency.  If you are interested, check it out here, if you aren't following along yet.

Hope you all had a great weekend! I am off to try to catch up some more on your worlds.