run, baby, run

i think alena is trying to change her sleeping pattern...and daylight savings has nothing to do with it. on monday, she refused to nap at all...until we were on the way to the grocery store an hour before her bedtime. she's been sleeping restlessly at night, waking up several times with no real need. this morning, i needed stamps. so we walked (alena ran the whole way) to the post office and back. this is .8 miles round trip. i was prepared for a slow, meandering walk...stopping to look at flowers and rocks and bugs and talk to puppies along the way. nope, not for my girl. running so fast that i also had to jog a bit to keep up with her. she's now sleeping peacefully. a mile run is all the girl needs.

we bought alena a headboard and bed frame. we are on the look out for a mattress and box springs. i'm not above, and actually prefer, a gently used set. i am not interested in paying $400 for a new set. or even $200. it can be done. we've found a few, but we were too slow on the draw. so we're just waiting for the right set to be posted on craigslist. i'm sure this is probably a disgusting idea to some of you, but i'm ok with that... as long as it's clean and in good shape and comes from a decent house, i don't see any difference between that and sleeping in a hotel bed (which, by the way, holds a variety of people's germs, not just those of one or two people.)

we're interested to see how the change to a "big girl bed" will go. will she take it in stride? she has, afterall, slept on a regular bed plenty of times when people have babysat her and put her to bed or nap, and that worked out just fine. or will she, in the comfort of her own surroundings, feel free to hop down and play late at night and way early in the morning. will nap time become even more difficult when she can get down? oh well, it's a rite of passage we must go through.

on the same note, jared is ready for her to give up her paci. i say, as long as she only uses it for sleeping and no one ever sees her with it, what's the harm. i don't fully buy that it will mess up her teeth..i've read that a) any damage done will correct itself in a matter of months if the paci is given up before age 5, and b) sippy cups actually mess up the jaw more than pacis do. so do we tell her the paci can't come with her to the big bed (double major transition) or let her have it a bit longer? stay tuned, folks. there may be sleepless nights ahead in the throneberry household.

in other news, we're really chomping at the bit to start on this foster/adoption thing. the office, aka "the mystery room" b/c the door is always tightly SHUT whenever company comes over, is actually the tiny 3rd bedroom of our house. it doesn't have a closet. the previous owners painted it a super dark masculine tone of brown and the exposed brick from the old fireplace goes through it. a very cool office space, indeed. it was a main selling point of the house for jared. but..for 4 years, it's been the junk room. it's never been fully organized and presentable, though several attempts have been made. so now... we (yes, even jared) are ready to move the office stuff to a corner of the basement, move alena's crib and changing table into that tiny 3rd bedroom and await a child under the age of 2 to come join our family. granted, doing that means our days in this house are numbered. alena's closet isn't deep enough for adult sized hangers. and it won't be very many years before child #2 will have to have a closet, but we can get by for a while. that's ok, i have bigger plans anyway, though i DO love this house.

but you know what i love more? the idea of our family growing, changing, following my dream to adopt a child. i'm trying to get a start on this, to sign us up for the PATH classes soon...but they're making it difficult. "they" being the many adoption/foster agencies here in town. i've contacted 2 with no reply. a 3rd is giving classes at our church (hurray!) but they're an agency that only works with 12-18 year olds (boo!) i would think they'd be clamoring for people wanting to be foster parents, but..maybe they're busy. i don't know. but i can't tell you how excited it makes me when i think about it. which tells me that the timing is right for us. now we just wait for God to open the doors. i can't wait to see how this story will unfold. it will be nothing short of amazing for us, i'm sure.

to answer any questions that you may not already know...

~we want to adopt out of the foster care system..for many reasons, not the least of all being financial. we were first really turned on to adoption by the many foster families in our FL church family. all adoption is wonderful, i just feel a calling to do it domestically.

~the color of the child's skin matters not to us. in fact, our child probably will not be white. we really want to adopt at this point, but are willing to foster a while b/c it's logistically and financially easier to do that way than to just walk in and say "i want to adopt."

~ we don't have a preference for a girl or a boy. either would be great. the child must be younger than alena. i'm not going to mess up her "birth order" with this. the younger, the better, but the child must be at least a year younger than alena. so right now, that means an 18 month old baby is the oldest we would take right now. i know most kids in the system are older, but i know there are even newborns in need of a home. but if we have to wait a while b/c the child we're supposed to have will come to us at 5 years old or something, that's fine too.

~my true, deepest reason for wanting to adopt is this: i believe every person on this earth has an everlasting soul that will either spend it in heaven or hell. this is serious to me. there are so many children brought into this world. they didn't ask to be born, and, in most cases, their parents didn't expect to have them. if they grow up without good parents, or in a foster care/group home setting throughout their childhood, their life is going to be tough. i was blessed to have wonderful parents and a wonderful life now. i can do something to help. i can birth another child, bring another eternal soul into the world, or i can help the ones that are already here. i choose B. i believe this with everything in me. using this logic, i can't explain to you why we decided to have our own child. in fact, we discussed not having a biological child. but we wanted to experience it and we're SO glad we did. maybe the biggest reason is, i know so much more about mothering and even can have empathy/sympathy for the birth mothers now that i am one. maybe alena will prove to be an amazing sibling to this child and is just what this child will need. anyway, i don't share that reasoning very often with people. but that is the heart of my passion for adoption.

~when alena and this other child are older, maybe even out of the house, i would like to then help the older kids. i don't feel equipped to work with older kids right now, and i have no experience with anyone over the age of alena. but when i do, when i have the teenage years under my belt and don't have a little girl in my house anymore, i'd like to bring home the teenagers. maybe just one or two at a time. help them out through the toughest years of their lives. help them transition into adulthood and give them a good boost to being a responsible person. maybe most of all, just give them a place to call home when they need to talk to a mom on the phone or a dad to come help them buy a car, or a table to come home to during the holidays.

i'm under no illusion that any of this will be easy. but then again, raising your own flesh and blood isn't exactly easy either, is it? that's ok. i'm ready to run. let's go!