$14,000 for Two

To adopt or not to adopt......
That is now the question

The information seminar held our attention for about 3 hours.
Good exposure to what it's all about.

We left with an armload of paperwork and information from various agencies.

We also left with heavy hearts filled with the unknown.

It will cost us nearly $14,000 for a sibling pair.

Unless a miracle happens,
.... we will not be adopting.

Sister Jane

Some days, I'd rather have my friends as sisters.

Some days, I'd choose to have certain friends just be the distant sister.

Sometimes, I wish I was my own sister.

"Jane, your sister called."

I didn't answer.

"Jane....your sister called....you know the one that had the baby?"

She's my only sister.....it's not like I had to clarify which one she was.

It seems the sisters I crave are so far away,

some are busy,

some..impossible to reach.

But when I've reached them , it's like we've never been apart.

Funny now, how it seems when with my sister...

It's like we've never been together.

She's always been quick to shush me,

or carry on with her life while I'm talking...

I don't ever demand her attention,

but she kindly informs me of how her ignoring me is proper ettiquette

when she's made the initial call.

If I'd had called her , it would be different, she says.....

yet , it never is.

"Jane, shouldn't you call her back?"

"No, she'll be busy anyway with, now, two babies to tend to. She's always busy."

I really struggle with all this baby stuff....

...and sister stuff.

Everyone in my world has either 3-5 children or little ones less than 3.

No one has a 13-14 yr old.

"Jane, are you ever going to have more babies?"

I chuckled at that one. Thinking I was already ahead of the game...

but sometimes feeling like I dont fit in.

Our lives don't compare.

Like in school when we played sports and nobody passed me the ball,

or picked me for their team.

For the first time I get to play the role of the birdie in badminton, being tossed around and beat sensless, on what I should do.

I remember the days when I had young ones, and no one was interested in our company.

Pam, Tracy, Andrea, they had all left, then Marc and his family.

...and what seems now, to be my sister.

"Jane your sister called to see if you'd be in town overnight after your event on Saturday?"

"No, I have to go back home, why?" I asked the librarians.

"Well, she will be in town to show her baby to her friends and thought if you were to stay you could see the new baby too."

"Oh", I said.

She'll make a trip to see her friends but not her sister.

I wasn't all that interested anyway....

She just calls to tell me dumb stuff of how she succeeded her second pregnancy with not a stretchmark to show for it.

I have non-baby things to do.

And mine aren't stretch marks...

They're Tiger Bites...

Because they're that big, and their everywhere!!!

Oh how I need my other sisters... and a big bottle of Khaluha.

Baby Jane

While wandering the mall, I am most instantly drawn to the tiny clothing of boys. The safari style shirts, and little rain coats covered in frogs.

My fingers graze the items on hangers incessantly,longing to hold a little one again.

"Jane...what are you doing?"

I immediately let go and turn in another direction.

"Jane...remember what happened last time!

Baby Blues,

Gaining all that weight...

and surgery...

Oh God, How awful."

"I remember." I say out loud. the lady next to me turns to see who I am speaking too and sees no one. She turns giving me a strange look.

"I remember having one of these before loaning it to a good friend who didn't return it." I smiled at the woman, hoping to clear my moment of insanity.

She smiled back, turning into the next isle.

"Jane do you really want to go down that path again?"

The Librarians were good at keeping me on track in some respects.

This issue I have never teetered on though, until lately.

"Jane, do you really want another teen ager when your 60 -something?"

"Yes, Jane,

and you still haven't lost all that weight from the last one

and it's been 13 years since then."

I was thankful there were no mirrors in the children's section. Everyday at home was a reminder of how I struggle with losing that weight.

A lot of it was being in a relationship where I was unloved,

I constantly hear and re-play the things said to me about how I looked to my husband at the time.

Even though he's gone, the comments linger, they float back to my ears now and again.

"Jane. You don't enjoy parenting...

Why would you want to do it again? With a boy, nonetheless?"

I didn't know how to respond.

for so long I had said in my single parent years, that I wanted 3 or 4 more children..

.....now I find myself wanting none of them.

"What are you going to do, Jane?"

"Yes Jane, What now?"

For the first time in a long time, I did not know what to say or feel. To give the librarians the satisfation of them being right, was mind altering for me.

Mentally, I could not find the way out.

Am I being selfish?

What would my husband say?

Can I not grow old happy with only one adult child?

Years ago, a bus driver with City Transit asked me if I would have more.

He cautioned me to not just have one....for it was too much to have her

clean up the mess of an elder parent who was ill or deceased..

that the duties should be shared by siblings.

"Jane, Just think of the freedom you almost have."

"Jane, She's almost out of the house!"

I turn out of the children's wear and search for purses.

A few years from now I'll have money to burn and nothing to hold it in when I have no children to spend it on.

I better make it a big one!

Bah Fucking Humbug!!

I remember , as a child, playing over and over, the song of Oscar the grouch saying how much "I hate Christmas!"

Now I am an adult and I can't stress it enough.

I do hate Christmas.

I enjoy it if it doesn't involve any particular pressured family activity, having to live up to my sister's ideas and plans every year of how it should be. It's always the way she wants it.

After 15 years of never having birthday remembered or acknowledged, mother's day never a big "to-do", anniversaries not matter and Valentines virtually non-existent....to have them suddenly appear on my calendar....I could care less.

My senses have been dulled to these manditory holidays.... and if I could just avoid the malls enough, I wouldn't have to see all the decorations for Thanksgiving, for Easter, for mother's day and father's day......and all the rest....

Just seeing them all reminds me of the feeling of an old boyfriend walking into the room with an New beautiful girlfriend.

And people wonder why I don't like to shop.

My sister says, ."....Well, I love Christmas."

Of course she does...it adds to her "perfect" life of getting flowers and cards, and having the perfect wedding, perfect husband, and having perfect teeth,being the perfect host, and having the perfect job, and the perfect Mother in Law, being the perfect daughter and the perfect dream life.....and always having on hand, the perfect bandaid for everything that goes wrong.....so it can be all better.

Watching and listening to her side of life is like standing in a room where your ex-boyfriend walks in with something always better, always wonderful, always perfect, and she smiles with her perfect teeth while you fade into the paint on the walls. He shows off without realizing you're there. His eyes are stuck on the sight of her....and so are yours....because the new girlfriend is so perfect.

You watch them laugh, and kiss, and you wish sometimes you could pluck your eyes out!...or theirs!

She doesn't know what I've experienced for 15 years regarding holidays.

She has no clue of the things I never told her.

She Loves Christmas........ Then she can have it! It will be perfect anyway.....even without me.

.......Cuz she'll have a band-aid for that too.

I'm slightly Scroogie....

But I Love lights, and candles , wreaths covered in snow, Pointsettias, Nutcracker statues, Silver reindeer, and peppermint candies by the bowlfull.

I will go tobagganing, and hicking through the woods hanging birdseed bagels for the birds on big red ribbons........

No Santa here.....

Just Scroogie and her family....opening stockings and floating in the hot pools at Radium.

Just before Christmas, I will buy myself an Oor Wullie or a Broons book and a gift certificate for Second Cup....The things that dad knew I loved, more than him getting me my white roller skates or my a.m. transistor radio.

Blessings

lately, people have walked through my door wishing to bless me.

Today for instance, I had a client come in telling me that she looked forward to getting her nails done simply for my encouraging hopeful words.

That blessed me beyond measure.

In a world where people don't care to listen....I loved listening to her today..

She has been through much struggle, we share a similar life pattern in some respects. I have been where she's been and she has walked my journey , too. It was great to connect on such a level of comparison while both of us trying to pull each other out of th pits we once stood in.

Nan, You blessed me today..

YOur stories always inspire me to beleive more. I am so glad you and I go to the same section of the library....I find remnants of you there all the time, leaving behind a book I should be reading.

Thanks again.

You made my day!

Justification

Aggghhhhh!!!

For how long will people justify everything.....if you are guilty of something....then admit to it and carry on, either repair the relationship or end it...

Why do you always have to go into a tug-o-war with "he said...She said" crap!!!!!

Good Lord, People. Set some boundaries, and live by them.

I don't want to hear your reasons...just walk it out. stay true to yourself and your values, and what you beleive in.

I don't care who said what about you....I'll listen if you need me too....

But if what they said wasn't true then move on and beleive the truth in your heart. Believe in yourself for once and become all that you were meant to be....

Don't let everyone else drag you down.

Only you can decide who you are.

Only you can create yourself...and only you can destroy yourself by believing what others think of you.

Believe in you!

Believe in what you know to be true of you!

Bullies Beware!

Bullies.

They're everywhere.

In your children's school,

in your workplace,

On TV, the internet,

even on your cell phone.

Who would've guessed they would be buddies with those who mean most to you.

they talk to you most evil,

But pleasant to their face.

They have the balls to bombard you on facebook,

but not to your face.

It's sad.

Too bad!

I don't care.....

because I have a zero tolerance policy.

i'm not mad....

just dissappointed.