The baby the baby the baby the baby

I wrote in my last post how ... oh, something about how I "can't let myself go there" (to the love love LOVE phase) with this newest little one quite yet, how the next few months would be just unbearable if I did. How I'm really not that type of person, anyway. Etc.

Nonetheless. Somewhere around last week, I fell off the end of the earth for that little being, and I am still in freefall. What happened, mostly, is that we received three new pictures, and something about those pictures, her eyes, the sad bags under her eyes, reminded me of Dessi's first pictures, her scared little 2-month-old face, and somehow that little girl became so real to me, and so OURS to me. And so now I'm in this impossible position of scheming of ways to get this child home sooner (there are none) or speculating on court dates (we have none) or how our family can relocate to Addis between Ethiopian court and Embassy appointments (which is a loooonng shot, but at least it's not based on total and complete fantasy, so I spend a lot of time with it).

So, so strange. How can a heart just open like this? How can I be so in LOVE with just a few pixels' worth of a baby?

Dessi, at any rate, remains mostly unmoved by the concept. We thought she'd be THRILLED! A baby sister! (She'll be so great at this!) Yet the first time I brought it up, so excited to finally be speaking about it with her, I asked, "Would you like to have a baby sister?" I didn't really think she'd understand the concept or know what it would mean, but in fact her response was: No. I just want it to be you and me and daddy.

Being slow learners we asked and were turned down a few more times until Eric suggested that I stop asking. That was last month (before the referral, actually). We instead started talking about it obliquely -- reading books on big sisters and baby sisters and how cool it is to have a sister without mentioning (or asking) any specifics. She started warming up to it, and we started talking about it as a fact, like, "You are going to be such a great big sister!" and "Your baby sister is going to poo in her pants, but you can show her how to use the potty!" Etc.

This morning, she referenced "when I'm a big sister," and so I told her. The whole story. (!) A baby sister! I showed her the referral pictures and I said, "We are going to go to Ethiopia and adopt this baby." And my sweetest most amazing child said, very quietly so as to not dash my big plans, "But I think she might need to stay with her mama."

We printed a picture for her to keep. She was so happy. She talked all morning about it. She went to school this morning and told all the kids and the teachers that SHE was going to have a baby sister!!

Then she peed her pants twice in three hours.

These are, admittedly, confusing times for all of us.