Couple 'Tings

Today is my brother-in-law's birthday. I'm kinda in love with the guy. I love birthdays. I love calling people and leaving birthday songs on their answering machines. I also REALLY love going out to eat at a great local restaurant (Woodfire Grill) to celebrate said bro-in-law's birthday with great company, terrific food and yummy loads of love.

Secondly, Leslie called today with the fantastic news that as of tomorrow they will be officially dossier approved waiters for my niece in Ethiopia. All that's standing in their way is about 200 other people and 12(ish) months and we'll have a picture to go with the person we've been dreaming of. These kinds of days get me all nostalgic. Ironically, (or not) we turned our in dossier almost exactly 1 year ago (October 30th to be exact) and this is what I wrote:

"So we mailed it. It's no longer staring at me, by tomorrow at noon, it will be staring at Jan our Ethiopian Program Coordinator. By tomorrow at noon, we should get an email saying we are officially on the waiting list. This email might make me cry. It represents a beginning of sorts, as well as an end. An end to paper chasing, an end to me being able to have any bit of illusion of control. Even more remarkable is the beginnings it represents. The beginning of being a family of 5. A multi-racial/multi-cultural family. We will go from a one-on-one defensive strategy with our kids to a zone defense, which I was never as good at. This is the beginning of our continual emergence in Ethiopian culture. The beginning of wearing my heart outside of my body for another child. The beginning of a new sibling for my children, a new son for my husband and a new baby for me. :) I am excited about it all. The challenges but more importantly the joys, however few and far between they might be in the early months."

Man I am one well written woman.

No seriously, hard to believe that was just a year ago; I remember those feelings so vividly it's amazing.

And P.S. zone defense is not nearly as bad as I remember.

But the joys, the joys are even better than I could've dreamed of.