Just before someone gets nervous do they experience cocoons in their stomachs?

Wow, so I am officially starting to flip out. The first word I could think of to describe my brain right now was "tweaking." However, I looked that word up and probably not the best term to use in relation to "pre-travel jitters relating to meeting your son for the first time." Instead, I thought it was appropriate to create my own term, or better yet, I will define my newly discovered mental illness. (Newly discovered by me, but experienced by adopting parents everywhere for years past and many years to come). So, let me introduce you to my mental disorder (this particular one, not the other ones that we do not mention on this blog):

Anticipation Induced Psychosis with Pre-Parental Anxiety:
-Also referred to as AIP with PPA.

Defined as any anxiety that is specifically induced by the shortening of time span before an adoptive parent meets his or her child. This disorder becomes progressively worse as the days go on, often clearing up without intervention after the all-important "gotcha day."
Symptoms include, but are not limited to:

1. Lack of sleep. Nights are usually spent staring at the ceiling wondering if the child will like his or her new parents, whether all the items that need to be brought will fit into a suitcase, whether there is enough time to clean the house before the house sitter arrives, etc. If sleep is attained, dreams will usually surround the very same questions that were being pondered before falling asleep, but may also include dreams of: leaving baby places, plane crashes, plane delays, laundry, weird clowns, etc.

2. Quickening of the heart beat when thinking about luggage and packing.

3. Scrubbing the floors with a brush, on your knees, at 3am.

4. Rewashing, re-drying, refolding, all the clothes in baby's new nursery.

5. Obsessively counting the days and hours until take-off.

6. Approaching parents with children and starting the conversation with, "He looks like he might weight around 19 lbs..." Then taking that child and "taking him for trial run."

7. Making list, after list, after list, after list.

8. Going to a baby shower and picturing every baby outfit that is opened on your child.

9. Not finishing sentences because your mind is .............................

So, as you can see, I suffer from AIP with PPA.

I do have a pretty cool video to share with you. We had a local parade this weekend and I do not want to brag or anything, but I personally think one of the color guard girls in the local band are pretty awesome (front one, closest to the camera). Sorry about the quality, it was recorded on my digital camera.



By the way, I think I am just going to pretend it is midnight (it is around 11:25pm) and tell you that WE ONLY HAVE 16 MORE DAYS!!!!!