My Mother, My Sanity, My Wife's Toilet and My iPod

I consider myself a pretty technically savvy person. While I’m not a tech geek or anything, I know how to reset my ipod every time it freezes up on me. I now have programmed one remote to handle my whole entertainment system and turn everything on that I need at the push of a button. I can zoom around Windows Explorer and the endless files and folders on my computer like I’m deep among the clothes racks at Old Navy trying to keep up with my wife and I know which handle to turn to keep my her toilet from overflowing because I threw wadded up paper towels in it (yes, this happened last night and Nicole was actually impressed at how fast I moved when she screamed “my toilet’s about to overflow!”). So you can imagine my consternation when last night, after three hours of formatting then loading songs then syncing then formatting again then rearranging mp3 files then reloading then formatting then syncing and so on and so on and so on, I finally had loaded my mom’s latest mp3 player with the songs she wanted. I had no idea which songs actually uploaded to her player and how I even got them on there but there were songs I recognized on there and the player was working. Never mind that the ear buds wouldn’t have fit in Goliath’s ears or that you had to push three different buttons 17 times to adjust the volume or that she paid $50 for it (most likely at Aldi’s where you can buy two week old bread for a quarter) when I probably couldn’t have sold it at a garage sale for $10. It was transmitting sound and that was literally music to my ears. About the easiest aspect of the whole process was naming the mp3 player which I promptly labeled “Mom’s cheap crap”. My iPod took about five minutes to set up and Nicole’s took about two minutes. Remember how good I am with Windows Explorer? The iTunes music store is a stroll through strawberry fields compared to Explorer. So guess what my mother is getting as a gift out of the blue and as a gift to my sanity? Yes, an iPod. Now it’s up to my brothers (one who swears it’s all about the marketing – he owns one – and the other who is anti-iPod) to determine how nice the one she gets is going to be. I’m aiming for a refurbished 2 GB nano if they chip in with some money. If not, she gets a refurbished shuffle. Either way, I get my sanity back and the price will be well worth it.

Baby Making Update

The quest for a child continues. It’s now nearing three and a half years since Nicole and I started trying to have a baby and sometimes you can’t help but ask yourself if it’s all worth it. Month after month of trying, getting tested, taking pills, paying lab bills and stressing out while you wait starts to grind on you. At this point, I think Nicole’s the only reason we’re still trying. I think it’s more a “woman” thing that keeps her going. I’m ambivalent to the situation. On one hand, I would love to have a baby with Nicole. It would be a representation of the two of us and how much we mean to each other. It would be something we created together – our own blood. On the other hand, it’s not something that I need. I know how I feel about Nicole and how she feels about me and people see that in the way we treat each other every day. While I would love to have a baby with Nicole, I also wouldn’t mind adopting. It’s a viable option that we’ve both talked about recently and will probably start looking at a little more seriously if nothing happens by late summer. And who knows - maybe if we adopt, it’ll take the pressure off having our own baby and Nicole will get pregnant. It’s in God’s hands at this point. Only He can tell what the future holds for the two of us.

Playing Brangelina

While in Viet Nam, we were able to visit a couple orphanages. The first orphanage we visited was for children considered unadobtable. These were mostly school age boys and girls and a lot of them were either deaf, mute, or for a few very unlucky ones, both. Once these children reached the age of 18, they were either taught a trade or sent to college which the government paid for. The next orphanage we visited was for newborns up to toddlers and these children were adoptable. According to one of the ladies working there, the average time for the adoption process in Viet Nam was 1-2 years. Angelina Jolie's took four months and they want to try and tell us she was treated like everybody else. Uh huh. I'm not complaining, though. At least she's over there adopting and trying to make a difference. At the rate his daughter's-in-law are currently going, this picture may be the only chance my dad gets to see all three of them holding babies. Nicole and I actually discussed the adoption process while on the trip and set a quasi-deadline for trying it. It looks like we may wait until mid to late summer and see what, if anything, happens by then. If there's still no baby on the horizon, we'll most likely start looking at adopting a baby from Viet Nam. It'll probably be a girl so Nicole can stop playing dress up with Hazer.