A Big FAT FAIL!!!

This past week I realized that I had not gone into Zaza’s room since we declined the referral on the 18th.  After mentioning this to my husband, he suggested I venture back into the golden-yellow oasis of flowers and butterflies and tea sets and dress-up clothes.  So I did.  Bravely, kind of.  Can you be sort of brave?

To my surprise, our son Keeve had moved back in during my absence.  His trombone, music stand and he has a bag of his personal items… more commonly referred to as his bag of junk… that scooted back in there and made itself a home.  (Hey, it’s better than a bag of hair… anybody seen Fever Pitch?!?)  It is a remnant of his days when he slept in the purple bed.  It’s a huge lime green with purple polka-dots gift bag that is ripped down one side.  We simply never found a home for that stuff when he moved back into the big bedroom with his brother.  It’s a good collection of stuff too: a photo of his friend Connor’s orange cat from California, an Iron Man mask, a few magic tricks like the disappearing penny and the three red balls that turn into two, and many hockey cards, some pucks, a few cardboard guitars, marbles and twist-tie necklaces that were made while shopping in the produce section of Walmart.  Good stuff!

I’ve never understood the “closing of the nursery door” that so many childless parents go through, until now.  I get it… a teeny bit.  Nora’s picture is still standing on my desk in a pale green frame.  At first, I didn’t even want to look at it, but my husband suggested that we keep it up as a reminder to pray for her and her forever family.  She keeps staring at me.  Reminding me that we said no.  I’ve also come to realize that if we received her referral later in life with none of our kids left at home, we would have accepted it.  That soothed my soul, somehow.  We weren’t saying NO to her.  We were saying NO to right now with these three children still in our care.  That soothed my soul too…. somehow.

In the dark of the night, I admitted to my sweet husband that I feel like we’ve gone through nearly four years of adoption emotions, upheaval, paperwork and disappointment to come out with a big fat FAIL.  F!  I have felt like it’s all over now.  We didn’t win.  We lost.  Game over.  I’ve been avoiding the adoption topic in my mind for two weeks.

In reality, we just hit yet another bump in the road to our little girl.  But I’m not fully back on the bandwagon yet.  I did venture off to a new Bookman’s store in Mesa and found two full shelves of adoption books that I’ve not read yet.  (This is what I do in the adoption low periods… I read tales of successful adoptions… reminding me that orphans do get forever families…. mommies do get to kiss soft cheeks… eventually.)  I narrowed the pile to five and then to three books.  I actually found a book about a family from San Jose, California (where I grew up) that adopted a five-year-old girl from Colombia!  It brought many fears and tears to the surface, but it did prepare me a little bit more for our eventual travel… to our daughter.

I Do Have Other Kids

Austin has been the focus of several blogs lately, but I feel obligated as a mother who teaches fairness and non-favoritism, to mention my three other children.  And for the record, when I kiss each one of them “Good night” I whisper in each one’s ear, “You’re my favorite, don’t tell the others.”  It’s a ritual of motherly love… that they are all well aware of… but each one secretly believes it’s true!

Larisa is my mini-me, except the blonde, blue-eyed version.  People say she looks like me, but the only resemblance I see is our teeth.  She is 16 and has spent all but two years of her life in my 24/7 care.  She went to kindergarten and first grade, but we have homeschooled her all the way to her junior year of high school.  And we still love each other.  Amazing!  Spending so much time with your mother makes you more mature than the other 16-year-old girls who spend 50+ hours per week with their giggly, boy-crazy friends.  It’s a proven fact of life.  She is a joy to be around!

Currently, Larisa is knee-deep in Chemistry and loathes it, unfortunately.  She is taking other classes too, but Chemistry is her ball and chain this year.  She’s not a math lover, to say the least.  I’ve been teaching her Algebra… and math was my favorite subject in high school.  It’s so logical.  It’s right or it’s wrong.  There’s no predicate nominatives or split infinitives to mess with your mind!  However, teaching Larisa Algebra has almost made me not like math anymore.  But we will be victorious.

Keeve is my huggable, thoughtful, slow-paced child and our musician.  Currently he is taking piano lessons for the third year and is playing the trombone in the elementary school band.  That is the only class he has ever taken at a school.  He was 11 the first time he darkened the doorway of a public schooling establishment.  He’s there for 45 minutes, twice a week, and he’s handling all the peer pressure quite well.  Keeve is also the only Crosby child to sport braces so far.  He’s bearing that burden like a champion!  The change in his teeth and jaw shape in a mere four months is nothing less than amazing!  Keeve is also my baby boy.  He’s the one who will be the most displaced when our Colombian princess gets home to stay.  We’ve had many a talk with Keeve about this and he’s OK with the whole deal.  He prays faithfully for his little sister each night for her to have a bed to sleep in and someone to love her and feed her.  It’s precious.

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We have only four more days in our wait for our referral call for our little girl from Cali.  Please see my adoption blog for stress-related information:  www.ZazasMama.wordpress.com.  Here is the extent of what we know about our daughter at this point:  she lives in the Cauca Valley, in Colombia.  She is 5 or 6 years old.  She is an orphan.  She speaks Spanish.  That’s it.  Here are my educated guesses about her at this point:  she has black hair, olive skin and brown eyes.  She is tiny for her age.  That’s it.  Here are my hopes about her at this point:  that she still has all her baby teeth.  She has dimples.  She loves to giggle and snuggle.  Someone has lovingly told her about the love of Jesus. She likes to sing and dance and play with dollies.

TOMORROW I could have all the answers to my questions about my girl!  The suspense is killing me!