Diversionary tactics.

Since we decided to delay the adoption process until we could qualify for the Waiting Child program, I've been feeling antsy. On the one hand, six months isn't really that long to wait. On the other hand, I have friends who are having babies now, and it is so difficult to voluntarily put the brakes on our adoption process. Sometimes I feel like we could be almost done with the home study, so why did we decide to wait?! It's really frustrating, even though we chose this path for many good reasons. My impatience stems not only from wanting to be a parent now, and from already making the decision, but also from that damn ticking clock in my head. Let's face it. I'm not old, but I'm certainly not getting any younger. And waiting at least two solid years to finally bring home our child is so. Damn. Hard.

Enter diversionary tactic Number One. Language classes. There are several resources in our area for learning a foreign language. Adult education classes is one, but then a friend mentioned the Graduate School. This school is apparently run by the USDA (I have no idea why...), and has relatively inexpensive courses - for college credit if you want - in all sorts of subject areas. Including Chinese. Mandarin Chinese, specifically. It looks like I can still sign up for the Winter/Spring semester and take class starting this week.

So every Saturday, from January 26 through April 9, I'll be taking Introductory Mandarin. I love learning foreign languages, so this is already something I'm excited about. But more than that, it gives me a way to feel like I am being proactive in my quest to adopt. This, in turn, makes me less likely to obsess about every detail of the process, and avoids driving both me and Allen crazy in the next six months. Win-win, all around.

The only down-side is that I'm eating into my already precious free time. But, hey. I won't have any of that left once our child arrives, so I might as well get used to it, right? And, as an added bonus, the classes are at L'Enfant, which means knitting on the metro. Score.