Saturday morning, I woke up early to finish the cupcakes I was making for a baby shower. I had everything ready to go when the phone rang. It was Kelly. She didn't have any forks. I told her I would bring her some forks - no problem. I'd stop by right after I dropped off these cupcakes at 11:30. She went on and on about how bad she felt calling me and she's so sorry, blah, blah, blah...
"It's really no problem! I will be there. Is there anything else you guys need?"
"Nah...jus the forks. Oh! An'a bag'a ice?"
I figured since I was in the pantry, I would just grab some more cups, a roll of toilet paper, an 8-pack of toilet paper and a huge Costco box of forks, spoons, and forks. I convinced Ryan to go with me to deliver the cupcakes and then take this stuff over to Kelly's. We found the restaurant for the cupcakes and Ryan (my amazing husband) helped me get all 3 dozen cupcakes out of their special little travel boxes and set up on the buffet table. They were adorable and I was really proud of myself. (not delivered late and not missing any extra pieces! Success!)
Then we headed over to Kelly's. We got to the front door and our key no longer worked. We tried 7 or 8 times before we finally just walked in to the front office and asked for a new key (turns out, I'd set the key next to my phone in my purse and de-activated the card by accident - it later became a careful game of holding the key in one hand and my phone in the other so they did not touch).
We got to Kelly's room and knocked on the door. We could hear shuffling and I heard Sophie yell, "Daddy's here!" Kelly say "No...Jus pud'it down over they-are. C'mon. Go an-ser the door."
There was little Sophie standing at the door. No pants, just an Atlanta Braves t-shirt on and some underpants. Her fat little thighs rubbing together as she shifted her weight and stared at us.
"Hey! We brought you some fun stuff!! Can you give this big bag to your mommy?"
Then I saw Kelly appear around the door - like she was totally not expecting us.
"Oh! uh! (nervously) Hai y'all! We wuz jus cleanin' up. It's such a mess in here. Sophie's been droppin' play-doh in the air con'dishner vent an we got play-doh all over thu place, don't we Soph?"
"Yeah! I wus makin' play-doh babies."
"You were!? That's fun! Well, there are forks in here and spoons and knives and toilet paper and paper towels and some big cups - and look what Ryan has!"
(looking at the muffin tin of extra cupcakes) "Whoah! Cupcakes!"
"Do you want some? There's chocolate, strawberry or almond."
"I want ALL of those!"
"No, bay-bee...less jus take like...one of each. Or jus...here...how bout jus these two chocolate ones. Thas' plenny. Oh...okay...ummmm...did y'all bring any ice, by any chance?"
"OH! SHOOT!!!! I totally forgot the ice!! I'm sorry! We'll be right back. We'll just run down to the gas station and get a bag."
"Oh...(nervously) no...ah mean...it's no big de-hul. Ah jus like it in mah coke n stuff."
"No. I'm so sorry. We'll be right back with a bag of ice."
(Sophie) "Are you comin' in?"
"No, sweetie. We're gonna be right back. We're gonna run down to the gas station real quick."
"Yeah...cuz it's such a mess in here...we gotta clean up. Ah'm so em'bar'sed y'all. Ah can'even vite cha'in, it's so bad."
...and as she closed the door, I got a faint whif of cigarette smoke coming from their room.
As we walked downstairs, I asked Ryan, "did you smell smoke in their room?"
"No...it was probably just the pan full of bacon grease on the stove. Did you see that?"
"No...she never opens the door more than a crack and she always talks about how dirty it is in there, but I swear I smelled smoke."
"Well...I didn't smell it, but that doesn't mean anything. You often smell things way before I can."
We drove as fast as we could to the gas station and Ryan hopped out to get a bag of ice. We were supposed to meet my cousins (in town from Colorado) for lunch at Planet Sub and the last time I talked to them on the phone, the kids were melting down pretty fast. I didn't want to miss them altogether.
When we got back to the extended stay, Kelly and Sophie were in the lobby, headed in to the office to borrow a vacuum cleaner. Sophie still wasn't wearing pants or shoes and Kelly was leading her around (nervously) - unclear about what to do with this bag of ice while she held the door open and asked the office for a vacuum. Ryan completed the exchange and we took off.
The beauty of the extended stay is that it's cheap, but the problem is - they charge for everything. So if Kelly borrowed a vacuum to clean up Sophie's Play-doh babies, our credit card was the one on file to accept the charge. Ryan told me not to worry about it. Surely they don't charge that much to use the vacuum.
We had a great lunch with my Lucas cousins and my uncle Jack. They were all in town for Bryce's birthday party but Ryan and I were going to miss it - previous plans to attend a double-trouble 30th birthday party for our friends, Kyle and Kelly that night. (not to be confused with "Kelly", our birthmom.) We shared the rest of our cupcakes with the Lucas kids and filled them in on the daily baby-mama drama. Mia gave me a sweet little "french flash-card" set and I showed her the photos I took of Kelly and Sophie the week before. By the time lunch was over, I was starting to feel really excited about bringing our little baby to Christmas this year with all of the other Lucas babies. I was also starting to regret going out for drinks the night before and waking up so early that morning. I needed a nap!
We got home and I immediately turned on the box fan and fell asleep. I slept for almost 3 hours and probably could have slept straight through the night. Ryan woke me up and said, "We have about half an hour to get ready for Kyle and Kelly's party." I did my best to wake myself up and I struggled to make decisions for a good 20 minutes. I also started to feel really sick to my stomach. I realized I also hadn't consumed any water all day. Coffee for breakfast, Root beer with lunch, and that was about it. Tonight was going to be another night of drinking and I needed water!!
We got to the party and had a fantastic time. The Fishers are fantastic neighbors - fun people to celebrate - and we've had so much fun getting to know them over the last year. Also at the party were our other awesome neighbors Brad and Elizabeth, who admitted they are avid readers of the blog (Hi, Brad and Elizabeth!). We all sat down at a table together and they were like, "Okay...so we're only up to part two of the story...we're anxious to hear what happens next!" So I filled them in on the midnight Topeka move, the a-hole lawyer, the new apartment, the anxiety of getting a doctor's appointment scheduled for someone without insurance, as well as any advice they had for us - parenting a new baby. And as much as I wanted to just have a night without any drama, I certainly talked about our adoption headaches a lot - to anyone who would listen.
At one point, I was talking to (not our birthmom) Kelly and telling her how much her mom would get along with my mother-in-law when I noticed Ryan in the corner, talking on his phone with an incredibly concerned look on his face.
(I looked at him with the same concerned face and mouthed the words) "What's the matter?"
(he walked past me with his finger over his other ear, on his way outside to hear better) "It's Kelly!"
crap.
I looked in my purse and noticed 5 missed calls on my phone.
crap.
I followed Ryan outside and hovered around while he frantically searched for paper and a pen. Writing some phone number, he repeated it back to Kelly on the other end and said good-bye.
"What's going on?"
"Well...apparently Tony and Amanda are on their way up here right now. They've rented a car and they're in St. Louis and they need directions to the extended stay where Kelly is staying."
"Whaaaaat?"
"Yeah...I thought they weren't coming for some reason."
"I know, I thought after we talked on Friday that she'd changed her mind. She didn't even mention it."
"Well...evidently they're coming. And they're almost here."
"So much for a drama-free evening."
"And they're not sure how to get here so they're just gonna call when they get close. I have Amanda's number so I'm gonna call her real fast to tell her I can get them here once 55 runs in to I-70."
"So we're gonna get a phone call around 3 in the morning?"
"Probably...and just so we both agree now - we are BUSY tomorrow doing family stuff and we can't meet them."
"Oh, I don't WANT to meet them!"
"I don't either. That's why I'm saying - we have a whole bunch of family stuff going on tomorrow and we can't meet them."
"Got it."
The evening went on as well as could be expected, but in the back of my mind I started to think about all of the things that could go wrong with this scenario. Kelly and Sophie were SO close! She said it herself, "Sophie is mah whol'life!" So what if we sign a lease for 3 months and go to all of the trouble of getting her apartment furnished and then she changes her mind and goes back to Georgia anyway??
I guess that's the risk we take, but it sure made sense for Sophie to go back with Tony and Amanda. She was driving Kelly crazy and all she'd been talking about for the last 3 days was how tired she was and how she just could not keep up with Sophie. She kept saying, "Ah dunno what ah wuz thinkin' bringin' her up here. Whaddam ah gonna do when ah have the sussarian an ah'm laid up for fav days. Ah ain't gonna be able da lifter or play wither. Ah dunno what ah wuz thinkin'."
We agreed it was probably a better plan for her mental health, but I was three weeks in to dealing with this woman and I was beginning to understand how her brain worked.
A terrifying thought.
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