23,000...Who Would Have Ever Guessed It??

I have been unable to blog much lately as we had a laptop explosion. Well, not literally but our screen is shot on our laptop. We carefully shopped for a replacement we could afford, bought it and had to exchange it because the wireless card in it was not working, then the exchanged unit had a defective touch pad...so we gave up and did what we should have done in the first place, and ordered another Dell laptop. While we do have an ancient desktop (it must be 24 in dog years...I mean computer years), Dominick and Matthew have developed a keen interest in playing a game on the Lego web site, and I don't have the heart to kick them off just so I can blab to the world, thus my internet time has been severely limited.

And I guess honesty is called for here, and I am struggling to keep my spirits up a bit. The issues that have arisen with our possible adoption have got me in a bit of a funk which I am trying hard not to let affect me but that can sometimes be easier said than done. Don't get me wrong, I am not in a "Oh my goodness life is horrible" funk, but there are moments when I forget who is in control of all of this and I want to try and force it, knowing all the while that would be hopeless anyway.

We received word last week that one of the objects of our affection asked if they could speak to the judge and commented "...I just say I want only Cindy.". That made a deep impact on me, the trust implied there is enormous...and the connection felt was obviously mutual. It also saddened me, I feel very helpless at the moment and want only to hold a certain couple of someone's close to me, and know that might never happen.

But, on a much happier and surprising note, I happened to check my counter and lo and behold, found that we just surpassed 23,000 hits on the blog since the blog's inception in October 2006. Because of this blog I have reconnected with old adoption friends in Germany, have a regular reader in France who has emailed me privately and who I am enjoying getting to know, and I have hopefully been able to offer you a little insight into what life is like as an international adoptive family, a transracial adoptive family, a multi-cultural family. There are moments when I have seriously contemplated whether this blog was a good idea or not, or at least if publishing it openly was wise...and then I get an email from someone who has the courage to ask me a question they are afraid to ask anyone else, and I can ease their minds about an issue and I know it is worth it.

But the sheer numbers just floors me, as I can't for the life of me figure out what is so fascinating about us that would bring that many people to visit. I know a lot of it has been people searching for information on adopting from a Kyrgyzstan which is so new to international adoptions, but so many of you have lingered and returned over and over again as your comments and emails attest to. Whatever the reason, I hope you have found something here that you can take away with you, and I am grateful for your warm comments.

So hopefully I will be breaking in a new laptop by blogging next week. After all, gotta get that keyboard loosened up, right?