Mitt (not Romney) Redeemed.

One day roughly ten years ago I wasn't feeling quite right. I called in to work and headed to the doc. The doc announced that much to everyone's surprise, I was pregnant. However, it was super high risk and ordered me to take the rest of the week off and stay off my feet until my next appointment a week later. Except this was the biggest news in our married life so I made a quick detour to Target and bought the smallest baseball glove I could find and shoved it in a gift bag. Russ had no idea what would be welcoming him at the door that afternoon. For the rest of the day while watching mindless TV while chillin' on the couch, I kept staring at the bag and listening to every sound from outside, beyond anxious for that slam of the car door.

Like every day, Russ came in the front door after work. I tried not to make eye contact, convinced I would give it away, but told him to open his surprise. I'll never forget his face as he connected the dots. The hugs, the tears, the phone calls...it was a really great day.

A week later there were more hugs, tears and phone calls but it was a really bad day. After the doc confirmed my miscarriage, Russ took the baseball mitt to a box in the basement, far out of sight. We've moved twice since then and it's come along, safely hidden in a box. At some point it ended up in Eliot's sports basket.

This spring was Eliot's first year in T-ball. At one point getting ready for practice he asked Russ who bought him that glove. Russ quietly told him that I bought it years ago, knowing we'd need it for him, the best T-ball player ever.

For me, this tiny seemingly insignificant detail of our fertility struggle was finally redeemed. It took ten years and the biggest fight of my life, but that mitt, dirty from actual time on the field, signified arriving at our dream.

Our family is not what I could have ever pictured but it's perfect beyond anything I could have imagined. I don't know what yours will look like, friends, but I have to, have to, have to believe that it will be perfect. Perfect for you.

(If this post seems out of left field {ha! left field...}, sorry. There's been quite a rise in fertility questions in my inbox lately so I thought I'd just put this out there.) (There might be more on this general topic soon) (Or maybe not) (just keeping you guessing...)

Bump-Its?

I guess if Britney can have multiple come-backs, so can The Bump-it. If you've noticed there's been a serious lack of Bump-It activity on this here blog. I apologize. I'm only as good as your contributions. This is shared guilt, friends.

Well, get ready. According to at least two sources...they're back.

Latest Hairstyles (where I get a lot of ideas and tutorials for my hair stuff) posted this.

And a fan sent me an email showing Cosmo had this in their latest issue:

This.is.real.people.

Get your camera phones ready. I'm counting on you.

Learning curve (or curl as the case may be...)

Remember this post? (the one about keeping Desmond's fro for all you lazies who don't want to click over.)

Well, it's still growing. A lot. In fact, on days I need to comb it out, it's super amazing but holy wow. It's grown so much that it's getting more difficult to manage. More hair, especially this curly, means more tangles means more fights (means more wine?)

So, we have a choice. We can shave it and keep up with it that way, or we (I?) can learn to manage it better. I've been regularly popping into a salon in our neighborhood owned by a mom at E's school. She's encouraging and always tells me what I need to do differently or that I'm doing okay. She recommends products, etc. She offered to try to add a "style" to it if I wanted her to so a few weeks ago we tried.

When we arrived for our appointment, she was finishing up with a customer so handed me a large comb and asked me to comb Dez's hair out before she started with him.

This, my friends, was the pop quiz of transracial adoptive moms. So.much.pressure.

Dez was beyond squirmy once she was ready for us. After we gave up one style, she showed me how to do a two strand twist (see example pic below), leaving three in his hair for me to reference when I got home and practiced on the rest of his head. (He was getting way fussy and there were lots of other clients waiting)

I finished his hair by the end of the evening. Some strands I was kinda proud of, the rest were a disaster. I asked Russ if it looked decent enough for me to run to the store with him and he quickly said, "Um...no." Ouch.

(this pic is so awful, but I'm posting it anyway to remind myself of how far I've already come...)

(doesn't his hair look just like the girls up above? I mean...)

That day I spent over an hour looking through a blog I should have started following months ago. It's called Chocolate Hair, Vanilla Care. I'd looked at it once before, right when Dez came home but hadn't been back. I also was pointed toward The Fro Show for other ideas (especially more boy appropriate styles).

After reading and reading I made a plan. I researched what "type" of hair Dez might have so that I could buy the right products. I'd been using It's a Curl! for about six months but his hair has changed. I've switched to Kinky Curly products for now. His hair will change again so I just need to pay attention to when those won't work any longer.

So, I strapped Dez into a table booster seat (with a tray for snacks) in front of a cartoon, got my spray bottle, combs, products, etc all set and tried my second attempt at a style. I decided to try coils and was BEYOND proud of my first attempt (other than the Fro crime scene evidence all over the floor...):

He wasn't super excited to sit still for so long, it took about 40 minutes. Then a couple days ago I tried my first attempt at corn rows:

They're not great up close but at this point it's more about protecting his cute curls and training him to sit still while I work on it.

Then the awesome ladies at the local salon encouraged me to get Dez used to sleeping with a sleeping cap to protect the styles I'm spending so much time and energy on. So we gave it a shot and I honestly can't believe it but he's keeping it on every nap and bed time now!

Overall, it's a process. I'm educating myself via blogs and taking risks. I can't tell you how vulnerable I felt walking into the local salon for the first time but just being honest with the fact that his hair is so very different from anything I have experience with has made for an open relationship with the ladies there. It's around the corner from our house so as soon as I try something new, I walk over there and ask for feedback. The more I work with Dez's hair the more amazing I find it. Not to mention the whole "natural hair" debate, I just hope Russ doesn't embrace it...