Me+Bordom=Too Much Shopping

So, I've said it a few time, and I'll say it again. I am a Shopaholic when it comes to buying stuff for Sabah. Now, for myself, I can easily control my spending. But when it comes to my daughter, it's Spend Spend Spend.
Tina and the boys met me this morning for some Sabah shopping. Ethan only made it half way before he had a melt down and I drove him straight home and dumped him with Dad.
Our first stop was the fabric store. This actually was NOT for Sabah....well not really. I am participating in a quilt swap with 10 other women from the Ethiopia Chat boards. We each choose two African fabrics and send each person an 8x8 square of each one. In the end you end up with 22 squares (for those of you doing the math, I count my OWN squares too) along with a good wish for the child. You then make a quilt from all the different fabrics. I think it is going to turn out great. Here are the two fabrics I chose...It's a terrible picture, but I'm too lazy to go take another one. The top is an African Scene, and the 2nd fabric is multi colored stripes.After the fabric store, we headed over to Babies'RUs (this is guaranteed to be a big mistake each and every time). Here I purchased Sabah a Feeding Chair (I decided not to get a highchair as it takes up too much room), and a small umbrella stroller for the car. It's orange. I LOVE it.
Then it was off to a second hand baby store where I proceeded to buy her clothes that she absolutely doesn't need. I tell you, I HAVE A PROBLEM.
Then to Target, where I bought her some fuzzy pajamas (ok, these I can justify...she does need them).
Check out her Christmas dress I bought her last time I was bored:
Boy, I sure hope I pass court the first time around and she actually is home for Christmas to wear this.

After a day of shopping, I came home and redid her toy box. I had put the name "MALIA" on the box months ago, so I had to change the name.
So, Saturday was all about Sabah. I guess I probably should get use to that. :)

Beautiful Morning

My alarm went off this morning and I actually cried. I did NOT want to get up. But, I pulled myself out of bed, jumped in the shower, and proceeded to get myself ready for work. Each task this morning was difficult and I so wanted to crawl back into bed.

I made it out the door (just 5 minutes later than usual) and drove into work. I booted up the computer, said my good mornings to those that are actually here at 7am, grabbed some water, and then logged onto my e-mail. As I was doing this, I thought to myself, "wouldn't it be nice if there were some pictures of Sabah waiting for me". I quickly put that thought out of my mind because I didn't think I would have received them overnight.

In one second, my morning went from BLAH to AHHHHHHH. Yep, there were two pictures of Sabah waiting for me. Wow, she is getting so big. She looks really really healthy, has lots of hair, beautiful eyes and lips, and is just absolutely perfect. Less than two months to go!!!! And only one week and 5 days till my court date.....not that I'm counting or anything. :)

On another note........I'll be saying tons of prayers tonight for a family from my agency who has court tomorrow (which will be held while we are sleeping since Ethiopia is ahead of us). Good luck D. family.....I hope you pass and those two beautiful boys are yours at last.

I've Been Tagged

Well, I knew my time would come. I’ve been tagged (thanks Tiffany), and the rules state that I must reveal 7 random things about myself, and then tag 7 others, so here goes:

7 Random things about Tania B.

1. About 12 years ago, I packed up all my belongings and moved, by MYSELF, to Hawaii. It was something that I always wanted to do, so I did it. It didn’t last very long, as I missed my sister horribly (and had a hard time finding a decent job). The adventure cost a fortune but I never once regretted moving, because NOW I KNOW. If I hadn’t have done it, I would always wonder about it.
2. I’m kind of a picky eater. I’m one of THOSE people who doesn’t like their food to touch. I’m not overly anal about it…..I mean, if it does touch, then so be it. I will still eat it. BUT, if you ever eat with me, you will notice that I am always pushing the different foods away from each other. My sister always teases me about it and says she is going to buy me those baby plates….the ones with the food dividers, only in adult size. To that I say ‘make them blue to match my other dishes”.
3. My sister and I had a very hard time pronouncing our “r’s” in elementary school. Apparently it was such a problem that we had to go to speech therapy once a week. At first we were mortified, but we LOVED our speech therapist, and by the time she released us we were very sad.
4. Even though we had a hard time pronouncing our “r’s” we were still very intelligent, and were asked to take a test to join the TAG (talented and gifted) program. We didn’t really want to be in TAG, so we failed the test on purpose. I don’t know for sure, but if I recall, we missed the exact same questions. Not just the same number of questions, but the exact SAME questions. Sometimes I think we have the same brain.
5. I was born breech (feet first), and was born 7 minutes after my sister. I like to tell the story of our birth like this: Apparently I got mad at her for coming over to my side of the womb (I made a chalk line down the middle…she wasn’t allowed to cross it...she did), so I started kicking her out. Well, she said to me “I ain’t goin out there by myself”, so she grabbed my leg and pulled me out along with her. That’s why I was feet first. HAHA.
6. I LOVE to travel. I’ve been to Thailand, Tahiti, The Philippines (twice), Mexico (several times), Hawaii (more times than I can count), and several states right here in the good ‘ol USA. All my trips are sun, sand and sea destinations. Ethiopia will be my first trip that isn’t tropical. I hope to continue to travel, just with a baby strapped to my back.
7. I bite my nails. It is a terrible habit, and I don’t like it, but it’s something I haven’t been able to stop. I don’t get down to the nubbins or anything, I just trim them with my teeth instead of clippers. I’m on a path to self improvement, so maybe I’ll put this on my list of things to work on. Maybe. :)

OK, here are the people I tag (usually others will link to their blog address, but I don't know how to do that, so I'll just give the names).

1. Rebecca F. (when you are feeling better of course)
2. Rebecca B. (rejotoblog)
3. Leah L.
4. Mona D.
5. Amber B.
6. Joy D.
7. Jeanne O.

My Little Peanut is Growing

It's so funny....when you are waiting to go pick up your child, you get so excited over the littlest things. I was pleasantly surprised this morning by an e-mail from my agency director giving me an updated medical on little Sabah. She has actually put on about a pound and a half since the last update. She now weighs 13.6 pound, is 24.4 inches long (up almost two inches) and is doing very well. This is what the doctor's note said:
"Besides the previous history, Saba is drinking 180 ml formula milk every 3 hours. She rolls back to front, reaches for objects, laughs loud, excites and breathes heavily and orients to voice. She is fit for adoption."

Oh, how happy I am to hear this, and yet so sad that I am not witnessing her "firsts". I can't believe she is rolling over on her own and I'm not there to witness it.

Stay healthy little one, but don't grow up too fast without me. I'm coming sweetpea, I'm coming.

2nd Best

The best thing about waiting for a referral is when you finally get "the call" (or in my case...."the e-mail"). Nothing can compare to that feeling. The 2ND BEST thing is watching your friends recieve THEIR referrals. I am so happy for my friends, the F family. They received their referrals for the most precious baby boy and baby girl. As I talked to my friend, I couldn't help but feel the same way I felt when I got Sabah's referral. I am truly truly happy and excited for them. Just as excited as when I saw Sabah for the first time. The friends we adoptive parents make while going through this journey is one of the best perks of adoption (2nd only to bringing home your babies). CONGRATULATIONS F. Family. I can't wait for our children to play together.

Sabah should be home by Christmas

I am so excited. I FINALLY have a court date. Tuesday, November 4th, Sabah should legally become my daughter. It is not uncommon for people to NOT pass court the first time, so I pray that all my paperwork and all Sabah's paperwork is in order and we will fly through the court process.

My tentative travel dates are December 12th through Dec 20th (home on Dec 21st). So, she will be home for Christmas!!!!!!!! My mom and my sister will be traveling with me, and we are all three super excited. It will be a whirlwind of a trip.

TWO MONTHS! ONLY TWO MONTHS TO GO!!!!! UNBELIEVABLE.

FINALLY....I'm back on-line

Wow, I so thought I would be back on-line posting and e-mailing on Thursday, just one day after my surgery. How wrong I was. But, I'm finally feeling pretty decent and ready to get back into my blogging and stalking other people's blogs.

The surgery went well. The only "complication" was a little trauma to the bladder from the the catheter. That made the first couple of days of recovery a bit more difficult than I anticipated. Also, the Vicoden I found out makes me very ill, so I ditched that yesterday and am now on Ibuprofen and Tylenol. The two together help control my pain to an acceptable level. And now that I'm off the narcotics, I can think straight. Wow, it was all I could do to READ e-mails. There was no way I could concentrate long enough to actually reply to anything.

Thank you everyone who e-mailed me, left comments, offered help, phoned me, prayed for me and thought good thoughts. I really appreciate all the care and concern from you all.

One good thing that came out of this surgery, besides getting rid of that pesky tenant, is that my recovery room nurse was Ethiopian. I was actually supposed to spend the night in the hospital, but because the surgery went so well, they decided to have me recover in the day surgery area, and release me that night. So, in reality, this nurse was not supposed to be my nurse. Anyway, she comes in and introduces herself and starts taking my vitals. I thought she LOOKED Ethiopian, and after a few minutes I got up enough nerves to ask her. She looked at me funny and hesitantly said Yes, why do you ask?. I then told her I was adopting from Ethiopia, and well, a new friendship blossomed. By the time my doctor release me (at 10:30 that night), I had her e-mail and phone number and she told me to keep in touch and to call if I had any questions or if there was anything she could help me with. Thanks E, for taking such good care of me....even if I was puking all over. :)

Well, my brother-in-law made me some Filipino chicken soup, so I'm going to go have some of that and then take a nap. My sister and nephews came by earlier and took me to the book store (I'm going to read "the secret life of bees" before the movie comes out. It's supposed to be a really good book). Then we went to the grocery store to get more pain reliever and grapes (which aren't a pain reliever, but man are they yummy). That two hours pretty much wore me out, so some soup and a nap sounds really really good right now.

Oh, and on the adoption front.....Courts opened last week, so we are waiting on our court date. Some people have already been assigned dates as late as October 29th!!!! Yikes, it looks like we might not get a court date until November. Ugh....the wait is so hard.