Like Beating Laundry on the Rocks

So I've been kind of a wreck lately, in my own way, which does not mean I've been hitting the crack pipe or doing some promiscuous sex thing. My "being a wreck" means overthinking things until I induce an ulcer or sleep disorder. Very boring wreckage, I am.

Part of this comes from reading other people's blogs that rage against CPS, including one where a child was removed from his parents' home after his baby brother died of a skull fracture. Call me self-flaggelating, but if I dropped my baby on his head and he died a few days later, I'd want someone to investigate me, cause, ya know, shit, a baby's dead. Lets make sure I don't do that again, okay? And I suppose I will never know the inhumanity of CPS until I am under their scrutiny, as all these sorts of sites say, but isn't it better to investigate a case than brush it aside? Remind me of this statement when I have a son that likes to bruise himself mercilessly by putting a trash can on his head and run headlong into our stone fence... and remind me to capture it on video so I can replay it at his wedding, or for his children. Ya, I'm totally gonna be the type of mom who says stuff like, "I hope you have children just like you someday."

Another reflux-inducing thing I've been doing is reading articles and blogs by families dealing with cancer. Yes, tumor diaries occupied a few hours of my days last week, well written ones at least. I came across this vein by accident, as I was blog jumping and found CancerBaby's a few days before it was taken down by her family, per her wishes. I've been reading a lot of adoption blogs lately, even those that have nothing to do with foster-adopt and are instead focused on international or domestic infant adoption, just because I want to be informed on those things, even though I had no interest in pursuing those avenues. That's how I came across CancerBaby, and even though I never read anything by her until weeks after she'd passed, I miss her. I'm so sorry she never got to be a mom.

Mini-disaster: For anyone who has ever thought about using the "home remedy" of using vinegar solution on carpet to remove dog pee, um, just don't do it. I'm thinking I'll now have to take a boxcutter to a patch of carpet and pad and replace it entirely. The pee stain is still there, the carpet stinks days later, is sticky and grainy feeling, and just YUCKY. I feel like a total twat. Perhaps I'll keep after it with the carpet shampooer a few more days, see how well it redries, and call a pro before I start my own special little demolition. I hate carpet, always have. I'm so pissed.

Since there is no one out there reading this blog aside from family and friends, I'll also talk about a decision The Hub and I have come to regarding our first placement. We've decided we'd prefer our first fost-adopt/straight adopt placement to be Hispanic or Anglo, if the child is under the age of 15. Why we've decided for those races: we live where the population is split nearly half and half between the two, and where the culture is very blended, and we feel comfortable with our level of knowledge. Were we to adopt an Asian, Afrian American, or Native American child, we'd have to hit the ground running, as it were, and because we are lacking in the "how to not commit racial genocide" department at this time, we feel we're not ready to do it right now. If we weren't planning on adopting soon, or if we had more time to increase our knowledge base, we'd be okay with it. If we lived in an area with racial proportions different than our current area, we'd be going with those races. I think it all boils down to our being scared enough about screwing up an already-hurt kid without adding our total lack of knowledge regarding how to raise a culturally-isolated child to the mix. I think it is a total mindfuck to any kid to be told, "meet your new mommy and daddy," and I want to minimize my chances of blowing it.

So we went to the outlet mall today to go a-shoppin'. We need things like; a kitchen table that seats more than 4, bedding appropriate for a child, an easy chair, a bookshelf, a desk, a toy storage area, DVDs and books, toys. Most of this we can't get until we have a better handle on the age of the child we're matched with, and some might not be needed (not getting a computer desk for a 5 year old, sorry), so for now we got 1.child-appropriate bedding, 2. curtains to match child-appropriate bedding. And I'm watching a table on ebay, yay.

The room we're planning on moving little Mr. X into was, until today, furnished with Vargas Girl prints, silk duvet and shams, art glass lamps with feathered shades, a mohair teddy bear, and a 19th century rosewood-inlaid desk. Good guest room, yup. Shitty kid's room. We bought a machine washable and cotton bedding set, including sheets, shams, duvet, body pillow, bedskirt, and waterproof matress pad (but not a crinkly vinyl one -- this one you can't tell is waterproof). While our future kid might not like it, at least it is something kid-friendly and kid-welcoming, whereas yellow silk embroidered with dragonflies and sequins... not so much. And it was inexpensive enough (marked down to $80 total from $400-ish, yay for it being a 2 year-discontinued pattern) that I won't feel guilty about replacing it with whatever my future-schnookum's heart desires. Anyhow, we were paying for it at the counter, and I said to The Hub, "We're buying stuff for our kid," as if he wasn't aware of that, and then I promptly burst into tears. The two kids manning the counters were very nice about it as The Hub explained our odd situation to them, and they got all excited. I pulled my shit together, and we continued on our way.

That's all for now. Too strange to wonder about what my future child had for dinner tonight, who put him to bed, what his favorite color is. That's the easiest way for me to lose my cool this week.