Using random.org, I selected a winner of the $20 Amazon gift card. Of the 19 commenters (two of the 21 comments were repeaters who had an addendum to their first comment, so I didn’t count those), the winner is number 3, my dear friend…

WILLIKAT!!!

Congratulations girl. I’ll email you your prize today. Thanks all for helping me celebrate four years of blogging.

If you haven’t already, don’t forget to join in celebrating four years of me blogging by entering to win a $20 Amazon gift card. Dude, you can buy whatever you want! That leopard-print camera strap you’ve been eyeing? Go for it. I’ll randomly select a winner tomorrow.

It promises to be a relaxing weekend for me, which I love because much of next week is going to be crazy busy with work stuff. The calm before the storm, as they say. Hope your weekend is lovely as well.

I’m obsessed. With a baby. A baby named Brady. I babysat last night, and he was such a sweet boy. Last time I babysat he screamed and screamed till he wore himself out and slept, but this time he ate, slept, slept some more, stirred a little, gave me a smile, and fell back asleep. I mostly stared at him and stroked his hair and baby soft skin.

I’ve also been helping my sister out with getting him to and from daycare. Andrea went back to work this week, and though my mom is providing daycare, she can’t drive. And her house is 25 minutes in the opposite direction of Ann’s work. BUT! I drive right past Mom’s exit on my way to work, so a couple times now I’ve gotten up early, swung by Ann’s to pick up Brady, and dropped him at mom’s before work. And then I usually pick him up on the way home too. It feels nice to be able to help, and the extra driving and abbreviated sleep feels like nothing because it’s all for little Brady boy.

Lord, this is gonna turn into a frickin’ auntie blog. Like a mommy blog but worse because all I’ll do is gush. And it might only get worse because I think I can now officially announce that my sister Kelli is pregnant! She had a rough first trimester, so we were keeping in on the downlow, as they say, but things look ok and she’s started spreading the word. She’ll find out in exactly two weeks if I’m getting another nephew or another niece. We’ve been calling it a girl since the first positive pregnancy test, so it would be hilarious if she’s in fact a he.

I’ll try to keep the gushing to a minimum though because until I have my own kids, y’all probably don’t give a crap. But even if you skipped over the reading of this post because baby gushing is lame, hopefully you scrolled down far enough to see these:

His little grumper face.

Smiles for Aunt Nana. And also showing off his chunkittude.

Working out some gas on his tummy.

I missed my blogiversary! It was last week on the 24th. Four years since I moved over here from LiveJournal (Lord, remember that?). I suppose it’s appropriate that I’m seeking out a fresh look for this blog right around its fourth year. Even though I had a big redesign about a year and a half ago, I’m ready for another change. I think I’ve found someone to do it, too, if all goes well.

I don’t know that I’ve ever done a giveaway here before, but suddenly as I was writing this post, I thought, “Hey, I should celebrate by giving something away!” And then suddenly I was writing about it. So I guess I’m doing a giveaway.

Let’s say a $20 Amazon gift card. Because that’s something just about anyone can use and appreciate.

All you have to do to enter is leave a comment and tell me who you are, where you blog, and how long you’ve been doing it. If you don’t blog, tell me why. I’ll pick a random winner on Sunday.

It’s been suggested (by someone who’s pretty in tune with web trends) that I redesign my site.* Brad, the ex (ok fine, he’s the one that suggested a new look), has offered to work on the behind-the-scenes stuff, but I need help with the visual design. I have no talents in this area. I know what I think looks good, and I believe I have good taste, but I don’t know how to actually create it.

For this space, I don’t want to use a template, and I also don’t really want to buy a design that is available to anyone. I’d like something original.

So I ask you, dear readers, do you know anyone who could do this? And who won’t cost a fortune of course. If you have any suggestions, please let me know. Maybe a new design would inspire me to write more than thrice** a month.

*For the record, I still rather like the look of this blog, but I admit, it doesn’t feel fresh anymore.

**Such a great word!

Thanks for all the comments on yesterday’s post. If you haven’t read them, you should. There’s some good stuff there. It meant a lot to read what you all had to say about an issue that has been on my mind for some time.

What I thought was interesting was how much of the conversation gravitated toward the issue of love for the child. I see now that I did set it up that way, but that just proves that I’m not as effective a writer as I’d like to be. The love issue is certainly an important one, but what was in my head was more about the excitement and acceptance of my adoption desires. Maybe it’s naive, but I’ve never really doubted that I’d love my children more than I can imagine, no matter how they came into my life. I accept and embrace that adoption is different than procreation, but love has never really been a concern for me.

I even believe that most of my family will love adopted kids as much as biological ones because my family is full of big-hearted people with lots of love to give. And if they don’t, well maybe they’re not the kind of people I want in my children’s lives anyway.

Once the kids are here, they’ll be loved. I’m pretty confident about that. But why is there so much excitement around pregnancy that doesn’t exist so much around adoption? Why is everyone cool with the idea of adoption but THRILLED when they think for a second I might procreate? It feels like procreation is this exciting milestone that everyone wants to be involved in, and adoption is just…something else. Maybe it has something to do with what Kt said:

“I think unless someone has witnessed a family adopting a child, that hearing about adopting is new. They know what it’s like to witness someone pregnant and have the child.”

Just about everyone knows someone who’s had a baby biologically, so they know how it goes, what to expect, how fun and exciting it can be. They know how and when to throw the showers, they know what questions to ask, they know what things should look like and how things should happen. It’s familiar and they know it’s exciting, so they can get behind the idea of others giving birth.

But adoption, for many, is new and foreign. What does it look like? How does it happen? What should we expect? How will we be involved? How will we feel about this new child? How will the parents feel about the new child? Will it be as exciting as all those times someone I know has had a baby?

So I guess what I’m saying is maybe I need to cut people some slack, not let everything I wrote about yesterday get to me, and trust that if/when adoption becomes real for us, everything will be as it should. You guys helped me come to that conclusion, so thanks.

Emily [while handing Brady over to me]: Doesn’t he just make you want to have one?
Me: Actually, yes.

But of course I didn’t mean that I actually wanted to have a baby. I’ve always wanted to adopt, and I still do if circumstances allow someday. What I meant was that it seems more realistic than it ever has (which isn’t saying much) that someday I might actually be ready to be a mother. As much as Brady has stolen my heart, my uterus is still not calling to me.

Later when I recalled the conversation, without context, to someone else, that person commented how until Brady was born, Andrea never thought she’d love being a mom. There’s just something about carrying a child for 9 months and giving birth to it that creates a deep instinctual love.

“Don’t you think it could be the same with an adopted child?” I asked.

“You can still feel that, but it’s not quite the same. Andrea can’t stand to be away from Brady for long.”

“But don’t you think I’d feel the same way with a child I adopted?”

“Maybe…”

I think what that conversation proved to me was that no matter what, some people just won’t be as excited about me adopting children as they would be about my birthing them. I’ve noticed this before. Little glimpses of pure joy when someone thinks it’s possible I might procreate.

One relative’s unfettered joy when I said future pregnancies are not entirely ruled out.

Another’s comments about how they’re sure I’m going to change my mind about having babies after seeing me with Brady.

They always try to backtrack when I remind them that adoption is my first and most likely choice, assuring me that they’re just as excited about that idea, and they’ll of course love my children exactly the same. But I can tell there’s a difference.

I’m not sure yet if this is a bad thing, an acceptable thing, or just a complete non-issue. Do I care that they’re eyes light up when they think for a second that I’ve given up on the whole adoption dream and replaced it with the possibility of pregnancy? Does it bother me that they can’t muster the same genuine thrill when I talk about adoption? I don’t quite know.

Part of it might be that I’ve talked about adoption for sooo looong, that the idea of changing my mind shocks them into excitement. In fact, I bet that’s a lot of it. Yet, still. Still, there’s something else there. I just have to decide what that means to me.

(Just to be clear, I’m not at all talking about the Giraffe here. After re-reading, I worried maybe someone would think that.)

Last night I had a dream that Brad, my ex-boyfriend, was breaking up with me all over again. It was a wretched feeling, and I remember feeling this overwhelming dread that I was going to have to go through it all again. The depression, the sadness, the lonliness, the emptiness, the deep dark dread of every day.

I woke up with the remnants of those feelings still lingering. And then I remembered where I was. I rememberd Mike and how happy he makes me and how we’re getting married in five months. And how I feel really happy with life right now.

And holy shit was I relieved!

Somehow I got involved in this Biggest Loser thing at work. I got the original email asking for participants, I asked for more information, I never officially signed up, and then yesterday I got the list of “official participants” and there was my name. Rather than go through the effort of extracting myself from the list, I took it as a sign that, despite my indecision, I should participate.

So now I have until April to lose some weight. I’m not really in it to win. I rather like the way I look, but I could lose a few pounds to feel a little healthier, a little lighter on my feet. Plus I would probably fit into my wedding dress like I did when I first purchased it. Which would be nice since alterations are NOT in the budget!

Here’s the thing. I’m not going to diet, and I’m not going to start working out. My plan is to pay better attention to portions and to eat less junk. And to not sit on my ass all day. I’m not joining a gym and I’m not going to pretend to start running or anything. But maybe while watching TV in the evening I could do some stretching or crunches. Maybe I can get up from my desk every hour and stroll through the building or something. And when this god awful weather dissipates, I can do more. I’ll want to do more because I love a long walk outside in the spring.

It’s not much, but it’s what I’ve got right now.

If you have any simple tips on how to eat less, eat better or move a little more, I’d love to hear them. But if you tell me to start training for a marathon because eh, it’s nothing! anyone can do it! I’ll be tempted to break bones. Your bones.

On Christmas day, my dad said we should all go around and answer two questions:

1. What was your biggest accomplishment of 2009?
2. What is one thing you plan to accomplish in the future?

We never actually got to this activity because we waited for my sister and her husband to get there, who had another party and got there just about the time my Christmas Cold was kicking in and I had to go home to bed. But I thought I’d do it here.

1. My biggest accomplishment of 2009.
I hate to measure my successes through education and career, but I think this year I have to say my biggest accomplishment was getting a Master’s degree and finding a good job as a result.

2. My plans for accomplishment in the future.
In the next year, I hope to learn how to be a great partner in a marriage. I know it’ll take a lifetime of learning, and I still might never get it right, but next year will bring my first attempt.

Hope you all had a great 2009, and if you didn’t so much, I hope your 2010 is rockin’. I hope EVERYONE has a spectacular year, in fact.

A little craft update since I can’t sleep (again). As you know, my nephew Brady was born a couple weeks ago, and I embroidered his name on a (decorative, not functional) bib. I’ve done this for many of the special kids in my life. Here’s Brady’s:

Not my best work, but those bibs are hard to work with.

Also, I finished my dad’s christmas gift, and now that he’s opened it, I can share:

I think he liked it. The idea was to spend no more than $4.44 on a gift, and since I had all the materials for this on hand – fabric, embroidery floss, frame – it was basically free.

Next I’m working on some gifts and some decorative stuff for the wedding. And eventually the “Unity Quilt” of course.

I’d love it if you contributed to my and the Giraffe’s “Unity Quilt.” Get the details at S&M.

I just got home from my second ever professional massage. The Giraffe’s mom generously gave me a gift card to a spa for my birthday, and I used it to get an 80-minute massage today. It. Was. Heaven. I want one every single day. If I ever hit it rich, that is one thing I’ll splurge on – daily (ok, maybe weekly) massages. Here are some of my thoughts on this massage compared to the last one:

- Thirty minutes are awesome, but 80 minutes are spectacular!

- This masseuse didn’t talk to me at all during the massage. I think I liked it that way.

- The music, though meant to be soothing, was distracting. I would have preferred ocean sounds or something.

- There were a few parts of my lower back that actually hurt when she massaged them. I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not, so I just gritted my teeth and waited for her to move on.

- I couldn’t shut my mind up. I didn’t do any productive thinking, but my mind was turning the whole time. I tried to internally yell at myself to SHUT UP AND RELAX! but it didn’t work. Next time I get a massage, I need to figure out how to quiet my mind.

- She massaged almost every inch of my body. Including my butt. Very tastefully, of course.

Overall, it was an incredible experience and I can’t wait until I can go again.

I’ve been reading Kirtsy for awhile now. It’s a good way to see what’s new and interesting on the internet. So a long time ago (I’m not sure how long anymore…), when the editors announced they were creating a book and asked for book title suggestions, I threw out an idea.

Kirtsy: Take a Bow

And then I forgot about the whole thing. That is, until they announced the decision they’d made some time later. They had combined a few different suggestions and came up with: kirtsy takes a bow. a celebration of women’s favorites online.

As you can probably tell, one of the ideas they used was mine, and as a result I would receive a free copy of the book AND I got to contribute a piece to be published in it.

I submitted a few pieces from my blog and included the URL in case they saw something else they’d like to use instead. I had no idea what they were looking for. None at all. So I submitted a variety of pieces, from heavy to humorous. But, it was so long ago that I honestly don’t remember what exactly I sent. When the book showed up in the mail last week, I started sweating because I had no idea what I was going to find.

I mean I was being published. In print. And I had no idea, out of all the things I’ve written on this blog in the last five years, what I was going to find when I opened the book.

Turns out they selected a post called “Insignificance” that I had written in the wake of my breakup with my ex, Brad.

(That is not a picture of me.)

As I reread the piece, it seemed so strange. I’m so far from that time and those emotions now, so it’s almost surreal to see those words somewhere other than my blog archives. I guess this is one good thing that came out of that hard time (along with the obvious, as the Giraffe pointed out: “You had to go through all that to find me”). It got me published! Ok actually the fact that I came up with a witty title suggestion got me published because Lord knows I would never have made it into this book on my own merit, but the experience of feeling that heart-broken and insignificant gave me something to write that Laura Mayes (the editor) was able to stomach including.

And as much as I am being self-deprecating here, when I reread those words from the book, it so aptly expressed how I was feeling when I wrote it, and really, that’s a sign of good writing. Right?

Even though, I gotta say, this was the coolest part to see…

…it was also pretty awesome to be listed amongst some incredible writers.

Thanks Kirtsy!

Dear Brady,

You were born into love. Not all babies are. Many are born into hatred, neglect, abuse or loneliness. But you, lucky boy, were loved by so many before you were even born. We whispered to you through your mom’s belly, we felt you kick and imaged what you’d look like. We waited eagerly as you spent 19 hours pushing your way into the world, and we lined up to meet you when you were only minutes and hours old.

We love your mop of dark hair and your little button nose. We love your tiny toes and fingers, your fragile limbs, your baby soft skin. We love the child you are now and the man you will become.

When you were just three days old, I tucked you in my arms and watched as you woke from a long sleep. Your brand new eyes of the deepest grey struggled to focus, and then finally settled on mine. You studied my face and I studied yours. And in that moment I loved you so fiercely, my nephew, my sister’s son, the newest member of our family.

We may be strangers to you still, but we promise to protect and love you always. You will never be alone. Not as a tiny baby or a curious child or a stubborn teenager, not even as the well-adjusted adult I’m sure you’ll someday be. You were born into love, swells and mountains of love, and you’ll never have to go without. We love you not just because you’re an adorable sweet baby, we love you because you’re Brady.

Love (always),
Your Aunt Nana