Anxiety down...check

Okay - after 3 whirlwind days, I was immeasurably pleased to wake up this morning at 7:00 feeling, as Fronk Egelhoffer would say in Father of the Bride Part 2, "refreshed, replenished, and raaaahring to go."

The emotional toll of the past 3 days was larger than I'd expected. The extreme excitement over going to get our girl combined with the anxiety of trying to book flights, trying to figure out how to PAY for flights, identifying exactly what I need and don't need, etc. created a bit of a monster. But I now hopefully have 8 days to just sort of chill.

For those of you who are awaiting referrals or travel, here are my latest tips on preparing:

1. Begin to assemble a packing list now. At some point here shortly, I hope to post a .pdf of my packing list that folks can download and print and modify as needed. I had a starting point (thank you Kristin Gresham!) and it saved me. To start with a blank canvas was more than a little daunting. Underwear...deoderant...water...THEN what?

2. Once you have your packing list assembled, start purchasing supplies and laying them out either in your nursery or, as I had to do because of 4 kids and 2 dogs (one of which likes to eat large things in full and then throw them up whole), keep them in their shopping bags in a closet or something. Check them off your list as you purchase them, but don't cross them off. You cross them off as they go into your suitcase.

3. Start thinking about suitcases. On Ethiopian Air, you can have two checked bags. The dimensions (l + w + h) cannot be greater than 64 inches and the bags themselves cannot weigh more than 50 pounds. I recently heard that another family whose bags all measured 65 inches (of course) went to Walmart and got duffle bags for $19.99 each that worked beautifully.

4. Start making a to-do list of things that will need to be done when the travel call comes in. I'm a pretty level-headed individual (I think; David would likely disagree), and I was so overwhelmed with excitement that I truly was like a poor headless chicken. Start the list with: reserve plane tickets, shop for supplies, photocopy passports and other important documents and keep a copy at home (or with someone) and also scan them in and keep an electronic copy on file so that, if necessary, someone can e-mail you a copy of these documents. I'll also hopefully post a to-do list for folks to modify.

Okay - I'm off to get ready for the travel conference call and to have a do-nothing day. I just wrote a blog for MomLogic on the beauty of do-nothing days that likely won't post for a month or so, but I have truly come to appreciate them.

Speaking of MomLogic, my new blog entry posted yesterday. Check it out! They took some grammatical editing liberties that were just plain incorrect, but whatever.