In over my head.

I am here to tell you: Mandarin is hard!

I tend to have a "it's no big deal, I can do it!" attitude about stuff like this. It's brazen, I know, maybe to the point of hubris. It usually serves me well, but five minutes into my Chinese class I thought, "Uh oh." The real bad news is that there are a few people in the class who have taken it before... And they are still in the first intro class! This spells bad news, all around. I'm really interested in the language and culture, luckily, so I'll persevere, but it's going to be a looooong ten weeks.

I'm still pretty antsy to start the adoption paperwork, but we have another round of tests coming up with the fertility clinic next week, and that will inform our choices in the next few months on exactly how far we want to go with this whole thing. Probably not far, but gathering the information is at least doing something. The waiting is killing me.

There are so many days that I wonder if we made the right decision, but the reality is there isn't a right or wrong in this case. In a perfect world, we'd already have a child and would be deciding what to do about having a second. Sadly, this is not a perfect world. The issue, for me, is that I can hear that ticking clock like a freaking marching band drum line in my head. Wait, I don't think that's loud enough. Maybe it's more like 100 taiko drums beaten on the same rhythm. It's frustrating and every day older I get, the more I feel like I'm missing something. I don't know if I feel like I'm missing experiences or just losing my youth, but it's aggravating and driving me to distraction.

I've even joined a gym to help distract myself.

Yes. It really has gotten that bad. (Though joining the gym has a second purpose. I need to lose weight because China requires both parents to be under a certain BMI. I have no idea what it is or how close I am to it, but better safe than sorry. I needed to lose the weight a long time ago anyway.) I am trying to fill every waking second with stuff, things, activities, so that I don't dwell and obsess. It's not really working, but I am really tired at the end of each day. I'm staying up later and later and getting up earlier and earlier, but the only result is that I am super busy and super tired at the same time. Maybe I need a new tactic.

I'm also feeling like I need to do all the "fun, young married couple with no kids" things now, so I am daydreaming about trips to Europe and a new mattress. (We already got the ridiculous new TV.) We're refinancing our mortgage and tying up loose ends on debt, all in an effort to be as financially prepared as possible when the time comes. I guess it's a good thing we're waiting a few more months. It would be really tough to be working full time, refinancing the mortgage, doing all of our other "adult stuff" and trying to get adoption paperwork done.

But still, June can not come fast enough.