A few months ago we decided to take an overt step to foster more excitement within ourselves about our choice to adopt. We decided that with each significant adoption milestone to purchase something for our future family/child.
To celebrate our home study, our first purchase was a beautiful original piece of art that is now hanging in the nursery. This was the very first thing we ever bought for our child, and has so much meaning to us as it signifies our choice to adopt and our future child coming into our lives.
Then we bought a used pack n’ play so that at minimum we have a safe space for our child to sleep. As we are adopting internationally, something we could travel with seemed like a really good idea. And as an added bonus, the lovely people we bought it from gave us a diaper bag and a mobile for the crib.
Next I bought some books. As I adore books, children books are a must for our future child. So, I pulled out the few books I have from my childhood and bought some our of favourite ones as well. The book collection is already growing and I love it!
And most recently, with all the excitement of moving to the USA side of our adoption, we bought something that might seem extravagant considering the cost. In order to afford it I have been selling unwanted used things from our house for the last few months, so the pain wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been. We bought my dream camera lens. The lens, while not practical at all for baby photos, will be amazing for photos as our child starts to grow. And it’s the type of thing we will be very unlikely to buy when we actually have children as we will be choosing to spend our money on our child’s basic needs and wants. So, we used all the cash I had been saving up (specifically for camera equipment), added a bit more to it to get the necessary accessories (i.e. UV filter, monopod, etc), and we bought it!! And as an added bonus it will be tonnes of fun to use the camera lens as I finish up my 365 Happy Days.
And now, I’m looking forward to our next milestone – finishing our profile book and actually being shown to birth mothers. I have no idea what to do to celebrate that milestone, but I do know we don’t want to spend tonnes of money right now. I’m thinking practical needs like a bouncy chair or maybe a baby wrap / carrier. Or maybe something fun and useless, but I’m not sure what that would be. Does anyone have any suggestions or ideas, practical or not?
And, with this, I’ve also realized this will be one of the last milestones!! All we will have left is the milestones of being matched, being placed and coming home!! I doubt we will celebrate being matched, as a match can fall through. But we will definitely be celebrating the actual placement and coming home! It’s hard to believe these are the next steps…
With the steps forward recently, it feels like it is getting just a little bit more real and a lot closer to our dream of having children to complete our family!
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We have no food in our house.
And I’m totally okay with it. Or at least I was until I couldn’t even find enough food to make a decent lunch yesterday.
I have a few pieces of bread, but no butter or jam or even peanut butter. And seriously, who wants to eat plain whole wheat bread, toasted or not? (Evidently Mr. MPB, he was starving).
Normally I keep sandwich meat in our freezer for days like this. It turns out, we’ve used it all up and we are out.
I even searched for popcorn, while not ideal, at least it would have satisfied my hunger. Turns out, we don’t have any of that either. But I did find a few packages of seaweed, which although taste yummy, are more like eating air and do nothing to fill a person up.
And then, last night, we were going to have steak until I realized we had none in the freezer. The same thing happened when I thought about making chicken ramen. Then I decided on pork ribs, until I realized I only have half a red onion and 3 baby bok choy to go with it. Nothing about the combination sounded good to me. So, ultimately I resorted to pasta, which neither of us really like. I added some frozen scallops from our freezer, half a red onion and 3 baby bok choy in a homemade spicy basil pesto sauce (literally chili flakes, olive oil and basil pesto). It was surprisingly good and we survived another night.
Seriously, I’m now completely out of vegetables! This never happens. We love vegetables.
My list of pathetic food options could go on. But, that’s really not the point.
Mr. MPB and I started to notice this trend in our house over a week ago. I honestly just haven’t had time to get to Costco or even just a local grocery store. So we’ve been using up what we do have in our pantry and being slightly creative with our meals. And definitely not eating the way we normal do, with delicious homemade meals like these:
And you know what’s awesome about this, asides from being slightly hungry and maybe a little malnourished for my middle-class Canadian liking, I’m actually okay with it.
I’m not stressing about it! There has been no anxiety, and no panic attacks and no second thoughts even. This is pretty awesome for me.
We had priorities, and grocery shopping simply hasn’t made it to the top of this.
Instead, I got stuff together for our adoption profile book. We’ve managed to pay some required adoption bills. I’ve been working, which will absolutely help us continue to pay the adoption bills with less stress. Oh, and we’ve been running and/or cycling every evening. Mr. MPB and I have spent some time putting together an actual office space for me. Mr. MPB has been working like mad (this is his busy season). We’ve been walking with the dog. We’ve also been managing construction crews and estimated timelines thanks to our basement flood. I’ve been writing because I want to. We’ve gone out with friends on the weekend to enjoy ourselves. We’ve really just been happily getting on with all kinds of business, which has mostly been good.
Seriously, for me, not being stressed about it all is pretty darn great. Rather than trying to do everything imaginable, instead I’m doing what I can and leaving the rest for tomorrow. And, I’m not stressing about it! This is major progress for me.
A year ago, I would have been stressed out. And today I am not.
Instead, I’m spending my time just how I see fit and I’m happy about it! And, while pretty quickly my need to go grocery shopping is going to outpace something else on my list, I’m not panicking about doing everything right this second. To me, this is a sign that I’m not trying to cram 30 hours of life into 24 hour days. Instead, I might actually just be letting go and accepting more normal standards for myself.
And on that note, I think it’s time for me to go to the grocery store.
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My Perfect Breakdown 