Coffee TimeMachine (tm)

This morning I walked into work, after having not a great night (mostly because someone woke up with night terrors again, and I wound up sleeping in an Ikea POÄNG chair - and not even one of the NICE POÄNG chairs, no, we're talking the 79$ POÄNG wonder chair), and a rather disappointing morning, I was thrilled to find a nice, hot, steaming cup of Tim Hortons coffee sitting on my desk.

Image from:  http://www.timhortons.com/

 But my thrill and excitement came to a screeching halt... Who put a coffee on my desk?  Why is it there?  Who wants something?  Nat is off on vacation, and Mike only drinks tea... there isn't anyone else at work who likes me enough to give me a coffee.

I was perplexed to say the least.

Don't get me wrong, I love coffee!  I would drink almost any coffee, and then that's when a horrible thought entered my mind.  What if, someone, was using my coffee obsession to kill me?  They knew that I would drink any coffee left on my desk, and they could have poisoned the cup!  To be honest, they could have put a package of nails in a coffee cup and I would have probably drank it.  Unfortunately, the number of people wanting to "do away" with me at work out numbers the people who want to be nice and simply buy me a cup of coffee.

So now I'm conflicted.  I don't know where the coffee came from, who gave it to me, why, or even if it's safe to drink!

So I did the only sensible thing I could do... I picked up the possibly life ending cup of coffee, and went to have my morning coffee with the guys.

Me:  Mike, hey, thanks for the coffee.
Mike:  It wasn't me.  You know I don't go to Tim Hortons.
Me:  Yea, I know.  Nat is on vacation, and no one else likes me enough to buy me a coffee.  So I was hoping it was from you.
Mike:  So you don't know who left it at your desk?
Me:  Nope.
Mike:  Maybe Nat left it for you.  He came in early, while on vacation, snuck into your cubical and left you a coffee.
Me:  Hmmmmm, I don't think so.
Mike:  Maybe Nat used the time machine.  On Monday, you did mention that you forgot your change for the coffee machine.  So Nat probably came back in time, and left you a coffee.
Me:  So we finally built the time machine!
Mike:  Looks like it!
Me:  Well then, I'm outta here... hold on... I'm sure my future self will be here any second... waaaaaait for it... dang.
Mike:  Okay, so not future Nat?
Me:  Maybe we got the cloaking device working!  Nat could be sitting right here beside us, cloaked!  We would never know.
*Mike and I both start swinging our arms wildly around trying to find cloaked Nat*
Mike:  Nope, I don't think he is here.
Me:  So time machine is still the best explanation as to how this coffee magically appeared at my desk this morning.
Mike:  Yea, I guess so.  But why, if we built a time machine in the future, didn't future us come back and make us all rich?
Me:  Hmmm, good question.  But I think the answer is pretty obvious.  If I was in on the design of the time machine, you know I would have designed it to only send Coffee back though time... not people.  Why would I want to come back in time, I've already been there.  BUT, maybe while I was there, I didn't have a coffee!  Ahhhh, see.  That would be useful.  Then, even in the past, when I forgot my coffee money, my future self could send my past self coffee!  247 coffee cup holders in the time machine, no room for a person.
*thinking*
Me:  You know what, don't let me design the time machine.
Mike:  *to Andrew*  You know, we could all start freaking him out by randomly putting coffee cups for him all over the place at random times.
Andrew:  Ummmm, yeeees.  Uh, I hate to talk about work, but did you see my email?  Because your message this morning didn't make any sense.
Me:  Yea, but that was pre-coffee.
Andrew:  Ah, I figured.
Me:  Let me drink the future coffee here, and I'll get back to you with a more intelligent answer.
Mike:  So you are going to actually drink that coffee?  Even though you don't know where it came from?
Me:  Well, I figure, if it's going to kill me, then my future self could not have sent it back to me... since I'd have been dead.
Mike:  We really need to figure out this space time continuum thing, because this is getting confusing.

Aaaaanyway, the coffee was great, I'm not dead.  So I'm assuming it was safe.  How is this pertaining to adoption?  Well, I guess metaphorically, our love is the coffee to our adopted children.  Something they need, something they crave, want, dream about, long for... or at least that's how I feel about coffee... but they don't know if they can trust it yet.

While I was lost in the confusion of how the coffee came to be, I was unable to enjoy the coffee.  It wasn't until I decided that fate be danged, poisoned or not, I was going to drink my coffee, and I was going to enjoy it!  Then and only then, once I let go of my fears, was I able to enjoy the coffee.

Maybe our adopted children can't trust the coffee offered to them, because they have so many things they have to let go of, before they can embrace the coffee.

And if I am my child's coffee, then Lord help me, I want to be something better than Tim Hortons.

Every Mom Needs a Tree

NOTE:  I had posted this originally on No Hands But Ours, sorry if it is a repeat for some readers.

If you happen to want to adopt internationally, and you live in Ontario Canada, there is a certain course you have to take.  It's called the PRIDE course.  And it covers many wonderful topics.

The PRIDE curriculum provides information to help prepare all adoptive parents for the responsibilities involved in raising their children and incorporates information about the following:

• Adoption and child welfare systems, processes and laws

• Attachment as a central issue in all adoptions

• Loss issues in adoption

• Impact of adoption on your own family

• Child development, child management and an overview of issues specific to the needs of adopted children

• The effects of neglect, lack of stimulation, abuse, institutionalization on children

• Identity formation and the importance of cultural and racial awareness

• The importance of connections and continuity for children

(source: https://secure.adoptontario.ca/pride.main.aspx)

These are all wonderful topics to be educated on.

Ummmm, for example, I know I could not have survived the adoption process without the keen insights into the Canadian Income Tax Laws and how they pertain to adoption.   Or, equally riveting, the importance of having a double lock on the medicine box, and then taking that box and locking it inside a bigger box, and then burying that box in the back yard under the Pine tree to make sure the children don't accidentally get into it.

Some of the other topics were a little more eye opening, like the loss issues, or attachment issues...

I loved the parts where they brain washe... er, educated us on the importance of race and cultural awareness, really, I think those were excellent and very very useful.

However, there was a whole section they missed entirely...  Tree Climbing.

Yes, Tree Climbing.

Yes, that is my lovely wife... in the tree.  Presumably, hiding from the children. See, my wife used to brag about her Tree Climbing abilities.  When she was a little girl, she used to climb everything.  I mean, if there was a tree with low hanging branches, apparently she was climbing it.  I didn't really see the importance of this... until recently.  Let me draw a couple of things to your attention here with the picture...

1)  You can see the children frantically trying to get to their mother.  There must be something horrible happening that all the children would be clamoring around the tree to try to get her down.  You can see that Seniour K has managed to wrangle up a ladder to help... so resourceful my children are...

2)  So why are they trying so desperately to get her down?  Well, this is why.  We were in the middle of a Level 3 Melt Down.  Why were we at a Level 3 Melt Down?  Probably because someone we ran out of Bubbles for him to play with.  If you look closely though, he is grabbing his feet.  He cries about his feet often, which is something the Spinabifida clinic keeps asking about... numbness in his hands or feet is apparently common(ish) with spinabifida.  So that is something the doctors are still watching.  But really, he was crying over the bubbles.  We know there are attachment issues with Bing, and we're glad we had the PRIDE training.  It's amazing how much comes back from the class room when you have dye-cast cars being thrown at your head...

 3)  Oh, what's this?  A coffee!  How did my wife manage to climb into a tree, with a coffee?!

4)  Ooooh, look how happy she is up there!  Smiling away, drinking coffee.  Look how happy she looks up there!  So happy.  So peaceful.  So beautiful.  Without a care in the world it would seem.

*siiiiiigh*  See, unfortunately, I did not take the Tree Climbing course offered by the Ontario Child and Family Services... so I was left dealing with the children on the ground.  And the Level 3 Melt Down... while my wife... sat in the tree, smiling away... drinking coffee... safe...

... I think I may take up Competitive Hide and Seek, I'm thinking that might be a useful parenting skill to have.