My Overthinking

Philly Area mom, Life forever changed by adoption

Archives for September 2013

Decaffeinated

decaf coffee

A 4-cup pot each morning with 1/4 of it caffeinated. Some cream and splenda, and I’m happy wife and mommy.

But, I’m going to China in less than 9 days, and my “luxury” hotel room there is not going to have a Bunn coffeemaker. I know, I know, I can take instant coffee packets (that cost a small fortune mind you…but worth every penny if they’d do the trick for me). But, those instant packets are either full decaf or fully not and still need creamer, and I’m so not a fan of nondairy powdered creamer. Rather than make my hotel room a science lab, trying to mix the instant grinds to get the perfect 3/4 and 1/4 balance of decaffeinated and caffeinated, and then having to stomach come white powdery stuff in there, I’m doing it. I’m ridding myself of caffeine. Yeah, it’s only a 1/4 caffeinated so laugh if you will. But, I gotta tell you, my head is killing me, and I’m not so cheerful. That caffeine is my happy drug of choice, apparently, even if there’s only a smidgeon of it in there.

Here’s to 4/4 decaffeinated coffee in the morning in preparation for the tasty hot water or, better yet, hot water with autumn leaves or something floating in it that I will enjoy in no time. Wonder if leaves are caffeinated. What am I saying? I’m sure they are.

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Besides the cake and the pictures

first email

It all started with this. Just an email, followed by lots of long phone conversations before we had unlimited long distance on cell phones. 109 days later, we were engaged.

Gazing down at my diamond and band below it as I helped our 11 year old with long division this afternoon, I thought to myself that I wouldn’t change a thing. The way we met, our first real date, his proposal, the season of engagement, the beautiful warm sunshine we had on September 26, 1998.

wedding04

I wouldn’t change the look we exchanged when we first saw each other a long aisle apart and the feeling I had that at that moment, I was the most beautiful woman in the world.

wedding05

I wouldn’t change the long veil in front and behind me that gathered in a big poof on the floor as we knelt to pray,

wedding06

I wouldn’t change the vows we exchanged in front of a couple hundred people feeling like we were the only ones there.

wedding07

I wouldn’t change the butterflies I felt when we first kissed as husband and wife while he held my hands tightly.

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I wouldn’t change that feeling I had that nothing else mattered but us, that I didn’t care at all about linen colors and buffet lines, just knowing that we would be leaving that place together and would never be without each other again.

I wouldn’t change a thing.

Except that Winnie-the-Pooh colored cake that should have been ivory. I’d change that. And, maybe the scrapbook I put together to hold our mediocre photographs. That too.

wedding10

But, besides the cake and the cheesy album, 15 years later, I wouldn’t change a thing.

Very much in love with the man who still gives me butterflies…

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Why you may hear me singing daily

I love shiny. Shiny is pretty. I love shiny….

She’s the finder of pennies. Everywhere she goes, she manages to find a penny. Today’s found treasure led to a song.

Your turn to sing a song, Mommy. You make up a song.

Not feeling particularly like a Maria this morning,

Oh, I don’t know what to sing about, honey.

Which warranted this reply,

I have an idea! Why don’t you sing this, ‘I love Lydia. I love Lydia. I love Lydia…’ [put to her own version of music]

At that point, I couldn’t help but be all in. I belted out my own rendition, adding a bridge about how cute she is.

september 253

I watched her making funny faces wearing her “I love Mom” shirt, and it struck me how secure she can be as my child while insecurities live right beneath the surface. She can tell me to sing a song about my love for her because she knows I do. She can ask me to push her on the swing and tease me about her getting growing bigger when I’ve told her I want her to stay small forever because she knows she’s mine and I’m hers.

And yet…

She walks a bit ahead of me in the store and loses sight of me for a second then runs to me, “I thought I was lost. I thought you left me.” It’s time to take the kids to school, and she sees us all putting on our shoes as we do every morning, and she panics to grab hers quickly, “Don’t leave me! Don’t leave without me!” She yells for me from her room, and I don’t hear her right away or respond right away, “You didn’t hear me. You forgot me!”

It’s the juxtaposition she lives with all the time—knowing she belongs and she’s loved and yet experiencing something very hard called abandonment followed by a year of missing the earthly relationship she needed most of all.

I’ll keep singing, “I love Lydia, I love Lydia, I love Lydia…” It won’t make the hard stuff go away, but I pray that all our love songs will make her journey through it all a little easier.

september 254

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