Wishes...

I'm feeling kind of disconnected from the adoption these days with nothing adoption related to "do" except wait.

Life has just kind of been rolling forward via its natural tendency to do so.

Work, eat, watch tv, Facebook, blog, ignore the basement, sleep, repeat.

Yesterday, we spend the afternoon and evening with our little sister-in-law S while her parents attend a concert. We take her to see How to Train Your Dragon (we've all seen the movie already, but enjoy it just as much this time, especially S who sucks down a slushy and a good portion of a medium popcorn) and then out to our favorite Mexican food place (where 11 year-old S kicks my butt in our favorite card game and laughs at me when I sweat profusely through my enjoyment of a very spicy bowl of chili.)

Arriving back at her house, S and I take her little dog J out for a walk. Despite J's petite size, he pulls crazily at the leash and we hurry to keep up with him in his quest to smell all of the new and also the familiar and apparently tantalizing smells along his regular walk.

S tells me about some of the dogs that live in the neighborhood and a few of the cats. Finding the huge inflatable ball that had escaped from their yard earlier in the week, she spends the rest of the walk bouncing it off of her face soccer style and then when we're on a grassy path rolling over the top of the ball onto the ground. All of this startles J out of his mad sniffing, but he continues in the forward motion of a dog on a mission.

On our return walk home S asks me, "How old are you?"

"How old do you think I am?"

She shrugs. Face bounce.

"I am one year older than your mom."

She looks intently at me for a minute and then asks as she rolls over the top of her giant ball, "Are you ever going to have a kid?"

Hmmm.

Where'd this come from?

I could have sworn that we had talked to S about the adoption. I proceed as if we've never mentioned it.

"Well, Chris and I are actually going to be a adopting a baby soon."

"When?" she asks as she bounces the ball off of her face again.

"We're not sure about that yet. Right now we're just waiting to hear back. We've done everything that we're supposed to do and now we're just waiting. Hopefully it'll just be a few more months because we've already been waiting for a few months."

She looks thoughtful for a minute and then asks between face ball bounces, "So, it could be months?"

"Yup."

"But you don't know for sure?" Rolling over the ball on the ground again.

"Nope."

"So then maybe it could even be weeks!" she says happily with another face ball bounce.

"Well, that would surely be nice," I reply, "but-"

"Or maybe even days!!!" she says with the gleeful enthusiasm of an 11 year-old who is warming up to her subject. "It could just be days!!!"

"I don't know about that, S," I say with a smile. "That might be a miracle if it was just days."

She stops and looks at me, "But it COULD be, right?"

"Probably not, but it's nice to think that."

"Are you going to get a boy or a girl?" S asks with yet another face bounce of her ball.

"We'd like to get a girl."

"Why?" Bounce. Bounce.

"I guess I think girls are kind of easier than boys. I'm not sure I'd know what to do with a boy."

She looks at me once again, thoughtful, "Sometimes girls are easier than boys, but not always. I did a lot of bad stuff like staying out too late and I wasn't easy, but I also do all the stuff that boys do so I guess my mom and dad kind of got both."

The wisdom of an 11 year-old.

We get to the end of the grassy path and S points to a giant flat grey boulder that is bisected by an almost perfectly straight white line. "Do you see this white line?" S asks me. I nod. "This means that this is a LUCKY rock. So if you roll around on top of it and make a wish your wish will come true."

I must look a little dubious because she adds, "Well, you don't have to roll around on top of it. You can just rub it if you want to. I'm going to make a wish!"

She closes her eyes, lays down on top of the boulder and rubs it with her hands. Her eyes squinch shut tighter. Looks like she is wishing very hard. Finally after a full minute of wishing she jumps up and says, "You can make a wish if you want to."

"What'd you wish for?" I ask. She looks at me like I've lost my mind. "Or can you not tell me because then your wish won't come true."

She nods vigorously.

"Oh, of course. I should have realized that. Guess I better make a wish, too."

I opt not to lie down on the boulder, but instead rub it gently as I make my wish.

"What did you wish for?" S asks me when I open my eyes.

"I thought I wasn't supposed to tell or else my wish won't come true."

"Oh, right," she says in all seriousness.

We continue on our walk home, but before we get more than 20 paces S says, "Wait, I have to go make another wish!" and races back to the boulder where she again lays on top of it. J strains at the leash looking in the direction that S has gone. He watches her intently as she makes her wish and then visibly relaxes as she returns to us.

"All set?" I ask.

S gives me a single firm nod and we head back to the house for some bedtime stories with Chris. J is in the lead his little legs pumping hard and his nose firmly pointed downward smelling all of the smells he can get in before then end of our walk.

I don't know what S wished for on the lucky boulder.

But I know what I wished for...