Laundry Detergent

I can imagine what you're thinking.  I don't share a new post in forever and now I'm writing about laundry detergent?  

What? 

Let me try to explain.  Though this post does have a lot to do with a specific bottle of soap, it also will hopefully explain the lack of posting.  
(I will try to make up for that.) 

I need to back up a bit, really, quite a few months....well, actually, almost a year.  At the end of last summer, sometime in August 2012, I needed to buy more laundry detergent.  While running errands, I went to grab my usual little bottle of detergent and thought for a minute.....

I had a coupon and it was on sale. I should buy the big bottle.  

96 loads.  Average 2 loads per week and that should last me about 48 weeks. (remember it's just me right now and I live in a climate that I wear shorts and t-shirts for 90% of the year) This bottle of detergent should last until the next summer! Great, I'm set for awhile.  But as I thought more about it, (I know this is an awful lot of thinking over a bottle of detergent....but what can I say, I'm a planner.)  I realized that this bottle of detergent would last until Lizzy came home.  And that feeling of happy, giddy, butterflies occurred as I put back the normal bottle and purchased the free and gentle baby version.  
This detergent would need to wash baby girl clothes.  
48 weeks from purchasing that detergent and my girl would be home.  It may seem silly to have been excited about a bottle of detergent but in the adoption world it's little things that can cause excitement, and in that moment, 
it was detergent.  
Free and gentle baby laundry detergent.

Fast forward many, many loads of laundry.... I used the last of that detergent this week.  And I didn't wash any baby girl clothes.  My girl didn't come home.  I can't tell you how hard it was to use that last bit, to drop that bottle into the recycle bin.  It's just a silly bottle of laundry detergent, but it's the idea that over this past year I have spent so many occasions thinking...next time this happens Lizzy will be here, the next time we go here, Lizzy will go too.  The next Mother's day, next summer at the pool, next first day of school, next birthday, next Christmas, next time...  

But those next times have come and gone.  

And Lizzy is not here.  Lizzy is stuck indefinitely.

I smiled at everyone on my birthday in April, on Mother's day, on the first day of summer, as they congratulated me on my switch to a new country and how exciting it was to be adding Josie to my life and how different those events were going to be....next time.  But inside I was thinking, "no, don't get too excited, you've been down this road before and next time never happened."

This week, as I used up the last of the detergent. I realized that I have been afraid to truly be excited about all those tiny details leading up to Josie's homecoming.  Believe me, I am truly.in.love with this little button and my heart aches to be able to just pick her up and hold her.  To squeeze her squishy thighs and kiss her chunky cheeks.  But I realized I've been holding back on letting myself feel those emotions.  

I've been so worried about loosing out on the idea of next time, 

about next time never happening, 

that I'm missing those giddy feelings of right now.

Right now, I have most of my paperwork complete for the step after the next step. (Yep, that's a lot of paperwork.)  Right now, there is a crib set up in the next room, complete with bedding and lovies, just waiting for it's resident.  Right now, there are pink shoes, hair bows and little dresses all waiting to be tried on and shown off.  Right now, there are baby dolls in a shopping cart, books on a bookshelf and a tiny pink trike, all waiting for little hands to play and explore.  Right now, my daughter is waking up in an orphanage in a different part of the world, but the next time we experience the morning of June 15, she will be waking up in her very own bed, with her Mama there to pick her up and love her.  
Right now, I have so much to share about the process of getting  
this girl home.  

Right now, you get to see the smile that I've absolutely fallen head over heels in love with....

I bought new laundry detergent...just the regular little bottle (because it wasn't on sale!) but I will be buying the special kind,
 the free and gentle baby version....next time.