This caused me to have a small breakdown at Target last night:

http://www.target.com/gp/detail.html/ref=br_1_2/601-7933463-8200139?ie=UTF8&frombrowse=1&asin=B000I7X1F6

I am not normally the type to get teared up over a pink toddler girl's dress, but, honestly, it was in a display of "holiday dresses" and I just felt like I would come undone. (I'm not suggesting that I cried or freaked or called attention to myself in anyway - it was just inside that I was completely dying and I had to leave the girl's clothing for fear that the tears welling up in my eyes would spill out and ruin my mascara.)

My mini-meltdown at Target was followed by another mini-meltdown at home - regarding, of all things, our tea kettle. Which I hate. The funny/stupid thing about our tea kettle is that I bought it four years ago to give as a wedding gift to my friend Anya, and then I decided that it was not nice enough to give to Anya, so, I decided to take it back, and I chose something else to give to her and her husband for their wedding (forgive me, Anya, I cannot at this moment remember what it was. I hope it was nicer than this stupid tea kettle). For two years, I kept the tea kettle in a cupboard still in the package with the intention of taking it back to Kohl's, until it got too late to do that, and then my red-tomato-shaped tea kettle wore out and got some rust on the bottom, so, Husband threw it away. Which was fine until I wanted some tea (which was probably less than 24 hours after the red tomato tea kettle got thrown away, because I am a tea-drinker, I must confess), so I opened the plain black tea kettle and used it, thinking I would just get a new tea kettle that I liked, and in the meantime, I would use the one I hadn't liked enough to give to someone I care about. And two years later, I have yet to replace it.

Anyway, when we got home from Target, I made some tea because we had baklava - (and really, who can eat baklava without tea?) - and as I was making the tea I got teary eyed about the damn tea kettle, and I cannot really express what my precise sadness was, but, I kept thinking that for two years I have not cared enough about myself to buy a tea kettle that I liked, and continued to use a tea kettle that I didn't like enough to give to my friend, and shouldn't my own needs be important enough to me that I would care enough about myself to buy a damn tea kettle that doesn't make me feel sad and at the same time inadequate because I have clearly procrastinated the whole tea kettle matter? Or something along those lines. I'm not sure that anything happening in my head makes a huge amount of sense right now, because all I seem to be able to think about is this child who is not coming home this month. And evidently not next month either.

It's incredibly hard, as each hour slips away without our hearing a word from our agency, to know this child will not be home for Christmas. It's incredibly hard to know that I have a closet full of frilly holiday dresses (thank you Beth, for having a daughter 2 years older than Lana and for loving to lavish her with beautiful clothing and for subsequently turning those dresses over to me) with no little girl to wear them.

I broke down and emailed my agency this afternoon, but, they still have no news about our situation and tell me "no news is good news" and "we will call as soon as the paperwork has final approval."

I just want to beat my head against a wall. Or possibly against the plain-jane mediocre tea kettle.

LM