Walk With Me

We could sit inside during this cold wet spring break.  I could alternate tea and coffee, constantly sitting with a steaming cup between my paws for warmth, and read book after book beneath an afghan wide enough for three.  We could watch movies and have popcorn for lunch and it would be fine, perhaps even lovely. 
Or, we could choose to thumb our noses at Mother Nature’s joke of a spring break and we could get out there.  We could take that trail that I’ve driven past one hundred times and never stopped to walk.  We could wander beneath the trees and in between the tall grasses, listening to the red-winged blackbirds’ and chickadees’ calls against the lilt of the brook and the swish of the wind.
Guess which we chose this chilly morning?

It was grand!  We walked slowly, absorbing the textures and variety, allowing the wind to brighten our cheeks, and stopping not only to breathe deeply the rich scent of the awakening earth, but also to feel the bark, lichens, and soft, soft mosses. 


We explored; none of us had ever been there before and so we were travellers together and it was a relief not to be the adult in charge, just a companion out for a stroll.


We got chased by a pair of nesting Canadian Geese, got rained on just a little, and found a random teapot in the woods. 

We stood on stumps,


and stopped to wonder what kinds of creatures populate the tiniest of worlds:


Despite weather that was dubious at best, we discovered a few signs of spring:


And so I challenge you: do not let spring - no matter how chilly or wet or disappointing it is - do not let spring pass you by.  Bundle them up, put on their rain boots and yours, and get out there. 



 


Delight in the bizarre:



Wonder at the destinations of unknown paths:

Feast your eyes on the small things, the ones we drive past and speed beyond without seeing.  Stop and look when your little ones call to you with their discoveries; see things from their perspective.  Have an adventure!

And when you arrive home, do not forget to perform the obligatory tick check; we found one after our adventure.
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Today’s pictures from the Bog Meadow Brook Nature Trail. 

Eye Contact

“…a most useless place.  The Waiting Place…for people just waiting.  Waiting for a train to go or a bus to come, or a plane to go or the mail to come, or the rain to go or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow or  waiting around for a Yes or No or waiting for their hair to grow.  Everyone is just waiting…

…Somehow you’ll escape all that waiting and staying.  You’ll find the bright places where Boom Bands are playing.  With banner flip-flapping once more you’ll ride high!  Ready for anything under the sky!”                                                  -Dr. Seuss, from oh, the places you’ll go!

We’re one month into this Very Long Wait that might be ten months or twelve, or more if we are very unlucky, or less if the hands of fate are kind.  This is a familiar place; we’ve been here before but it all looks different now, like going home for the first time after being away at university and finding your hometown smaller and changed.  We know how to get through this, but knowledge of the road does not equal ease of passage.  Already I feel myself toeing the line of avoidance, trying not to think about him constantly while at the same time I can think of nothing else. 

Who are you, baby Joon?

With our previous adoptions I have found solace in action.  Keeping my hands busy keeps my heart from breaking and this third time is no different: sewing, knitting, painting, upholstery, and other projects are all underway at once and every corner I look to holds some sort of busy work waiting for me.  My quieter hours are filled with books…not the adoption books about attachment and bonding or memoirs of adoptees and adoptive parents that I was devouring at the beginning of the year, but stories that take me away for an hour or two, to someplace far away where lives are filled with other sorts of complications, not the waiting for a child sort.  I have them stashed all over the house and in the car, too.  Keep busy, keep busy, keep busy.  Just don’t think too much.

Have you learned to crawl yet, Joon-ah?

Harrison and Emma make the wait easier, except when they don’t.  When they ask about him or wonder when he is coming, or decry in outright frustration: “Mama, I just wish I knew exactly when he was coming home so I could get myself ready!” (Emma) or “If he doesn’t hurry up he’ll be bigger than me by the time he gets here!” (Harry), at these times my heart lurches because the waiting is hard for them, too.   While I love that they are old enough to understand this process, which in turn helps them understand how they each came to join our family, I struggle with having to witness their sadness and longing.  Waiting for someone as exciting as a new sibling, one who is already born and growing on the other side of the world, is tough.  Impatience gets the best of them, and me, at times.

Do your eyes crinkle when you laugh?  Do you squeal with delight?

I am so impatient to meet our new little guy, not only because I want to get started on all of those important attachment/bonding moments, but also because if there is one thing I know about adoption it is this:  You cannot bond with a baby in a photograph.  You can find him cute, adorable.  You can think to yourself: Yes, this is my child!  You can stare for hours at his chin and his hair and his tiny little fingers, and you can read his social history until you’ve memorized every word, but you cannot get to know that child, the person that child actually is in real life, until you make eye contact.  You cannot know his voice, his temperament, or the softness of his skin until he is in the same room, breathing the same air.  With half a world between Joon and us, my curiosity is killing me.  A million questions linger in the air and the answers can only come some far off day, early next year and most likely not sooner.  The other thing I know about adoption is this: it is entirely possible to miss, with complete heartache, a person you have never met and know next to nothing about.

It is nearly dawn in Korea.  Sleep on, little Joon.  We’re here, waiting for you.

Oh this Waiting Place is a tough place, but with one month down and perhaps (roughly estimating here) nine months to go, we do know how to get through it.  One foot in front of the other, one project following the next, crossing days and weeks and months off the calendar. 

And enjoying life in the meantime, of course, because there is so very much to enjoy, already. 

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I’m playing along with Madhouse this week, another way to keep busy!  See the others who are playing along:

Allison – Allimonster Speaks
Barb – Spencer Hill Spinning & Dyeing
Batty – Batty’s Adventures in Spooky Knitting
Dave – Notes from the Field
Eileen - Art Deco Diva Knits
Evil Twin’s Wife – The Glamorous Life of a Hausfrau
G – Not-A-Box
Haley - Aimless Tangents
Jennifer – Ask Poops, Please
JMLC – Daydreams and Ruminations
Kate – One More Thing
LC – LC in Sunny So Cal
LeeAnne - This is the life...
Lisa - As If You Care
Louise – Child of Grace
Marcy – Mittentime
Melanie – usually, things happen
Nikki – Land of the Free, Home of the Depressed
Peri - knitandnatter
Sara – yoyu mama