It was one year ago that Heather and Nina made their way across the continent and brought the wee boy back from Guatemala.

He’s not so wee any more. Here’s our first annual, commemorative family portrait:

It was my objective to take this photo from the least flattering angle I could find. I like to make myself look as chunky and pear shaped as possible. Actually, I’m surprised that any of the photos turned out half decent. It was about 87 degrees in the house and I thought we’d all look like melted butter.

The second parent adoption was finalized this morning. I’m now an official parent.

Photo taken moments after the adoption with our lawyer.

Everyone is home—yeah!!!

So far this is the only photo with me in it, I guess that’s what happens when you’re always the photographer.

Big changes have been made to the house in a little over a week.

Here are my before and after shots:

I had wanted to paint it and spackle all the cracks so it was all perfect and new, but alas there was no time. I settled for painting the baseboards yesterday since they were in hideous shape. The important part is that he’s got a place to sleep, I’ll get to everything else later (someday).

6 1/2 hours to go:)

They called last night and it turns out that nobody there was even aware that there was an earthquake. It would seem that the news created a big sensationalized drama out of nothing which was what I was hoping was the case.

I guess they were playing in the pool when someone came and told people that there had been an earthquake earlier—they just shrugged it off and had no idea that the news was making it out to be a really big deal back here.

So that’s that. I’m grateful it was essentially B.S.

Front page news I found on Yahoo:

GUATEMALA CITY - A powerful earthquake shook Guatemala on Wednesday, U.S. seismologists said, but there were no immediate reports of damage or injuries in the capital. 
 
The magnitude 6.8 earthquake struck at 1:29 p.m. local time (3:29 p.m. EDT) and was centered 70 miles southwest of Guatemala City off the Pacific coast, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

I haven’t heard from them since finding this out, this makes me want to puke.

Well shave my head an call me Baldy! The wee boy is real and he is now with my associate and Nina. From what I understand, it was a real tear jerker. The foster mother really loved him. I can’t imagine spending a year with a baby and having to hand him over. I spent two days fostering my Piglet and would have killed someone who tried to take him away, I had to keep him, I can only imagine how sad she must be. This was her first foster baby.

I’m told he’s cute and giggles at everything.

I spent all day cleaning, fixing up his room, rearranging the kitchen cabinets to make room for his food etc. and organizing the attic/studio/office. I took a drawer out of the very old dresser in his room to fix it, set it on the floor and promptly forgot about it. Two seconds later I stepped back right into it and broke it even more. IDIOT. I love causing myself even more work. What a dolt. I guess I have my first task lined up for tomorrow.

On a different note, did anyone watch the Sopranos finale? What a pitiful pile of crap that was. It may be the worst final episode I’ve ever seen. The last five minutes of tension were good but the other 55 were useless. If it were just any old episode it would have been fine, but come on, it was the very last one. Eh, whatever.

Today is the big day. Well, for my associate and Nina anyway. They will be given the wee boy at 10:00 a.m. (I think that’s what they told me). I suppose it’s a big day for me too as I’ll be glued to the computer waiting for any chance of an instant message describing the day’s events and what it was like to actually meet him. They’ll also be meeting his foster mother who we’ve seen in numerous pictures for a year so that will be very interesting too. With my luck, I’ll be out scooping Chihuahua poop off of someone’s lawn when she tries to contact me.

I spent a good portion of Monday cleaning the house and trying to get the attic/studio/office in better shape. Somehow it still looks like a dump truck dropped it’s load up there. I doubt I’ll be seeing much of the outdoors for a few days. (Next week’s photo will be very, very different!)

I may have a friend coming over tonight to help me baby-proof the house. I’m sure this is a good idea since I think it’s probably a deathtrap right now.

I’m so tired I think I could sleep for a solid week.

See what others are doing this week - more SPCs.

Well, the last few days have been jam packed with a flurry of activity as we prepared for the big trip to Guatemala. I haven’t been this exhausted for a long time.

We picked Nina up last night and then divided the baby clothes and misc. items between their carry-on bags and the rest of the luggage. The dogs paced around wondering what the hell was going on and not liking it one bit. Poor Josie is a mama’s dog, and her mama is the associate. Josie gets herself all sick every time mama leaves on a trip. She’ll usually throw up numerous times a day and pant and drool like a nervous wreck until her safe return. This could be a long week for us.

Piglet isn’t such a basket case. He’s disturbed by all the changes in the house and you can definitely tell he misses the associate when she’s gone, but at least he doesn’t get sick about it. He may just mope around a bit and look forlorn, much easier to handle than Miss Jo.

We all got up around 3:30 a.m. this morning and left for the airport around 4:00. I think I got about one hour of sleep, looks like I’ll be getting a nap today. They’ll arrive in Guatemala around noon (their time). We’re so incredibly grateful Nina was able to go on the trip, I hope everything goes smoothly and that they’ll have a good time.

The stress and anxiety of trying to get everything ready for my associate and Nina (her traveling compañera) to fly to Guatemala on Monday is really taking a toll. There are so many things to gather up, purchase, pack, remember, research, plan and wash that we are totally spent. Don’t even get me started on the emotional and mental exhaustion that accompanies this process. And that’s just the stuff we have to do for her trip, once she’s gone I’m going to have to get more of my office moved to the attic, make the baby’s room more baby-like and somehow clear enough space in the attic (which currently looks like Sanford & Son’s backyard) for the air conditioning contractors to do their thing.

As a result of this stress, I can barely move now. It started with my knee, a nuisance when trying to climb stairs, then my shoulder started to go and it became painful to lift my left arm, yesterday I woke up and could hardly walk as it felt like my hip had dislodged itself from the socket and now it would seem that rigor mortis is setting into my neck.

I wouldn’t be surprised if by Sunday my gal pal and I want to choke the life out of each other. I must admit I was a bit too testy today at times and I noticed that she too looked as if she could take a sledge hammer to the coffee table at any moment just to release some tension.

Crap, we’re out of wine again—stick a fork in me, I’m done.