On your mark, get set, Soap!

Behold, the first fruits of the soap harvest! On the left are items donated by John and Bonnie, soon-to-be proud owners of one package of Haitian coffee. John and Bonnie, we'll drop the coffee off at your casa sometime before Jan. 2.

For the record, the first-soap-of-Soapfest contest came down to a photo finish. John and Bonnie brought their soap to church at 8 a.m., and Lucy posted her comment at 9:30 a.m. OK, so it wasn't exactly Talladega, but I still think Lucy's showing is worthy of a second-place prize. She will receive a Haitian Christmas ornament. Lu, have your dad e-mail me your snail-mail address so I can send you the ornament.

The right side of today's photo shows a few items I picked up at Target this afternoon. That brings the Soapfest total to 25 items, 5 percent of my total goal of 500 items. (Note to self: scan thesaurus for alternate words for "item." Things? Deals? Doo-hickeys?) For those of you working on your Soapfest stash, I have to adjust my original shopping list. I learned last night that the House of Hope hygiene kits do not include deodorant, but they do include a washcloth. Also, trial- or hotel-sized bars of soap are preferable to full-sized bars of soap.

I'm off to go think up some good soap puns. With six weeks until Valentine's Day, I'm going to have to get creative to keep the blog bubbling with interesting soap news! (That's just a training pun to get the wheels turning. Don't hold it against me.)

Got soap?

Many friends and acquaintances have offered their assistance to PC and me during the adoption process. "If there's anything I can do..." they say. As far as the adoption goes, prayer is really the only thing anyone can do to speed the process along. But I recently learned of a simple way we can help the people in Haiti who live and work close to our daughter-to-be.

House of Hope, the home where Vivine lives, provides hygiene kits to its residents and their neighbors in Port-Au-Prince. The kits contain travel-sized soap, shampoo, conditioner, lotion, deoderant and toothpaste. Volunteers in St. Louis will assemble kits in mid-February, but they need more items to put in the kits. You can buy the items at the store, mooch free samples from the Avon lady, collect them from hotels when you travel, whatever. Then you have to give them to me in one of the following ways:

• Mail them to my house via normal delivery (no airmail or overnight because the soaps might 'splode). E-mail me if you want my address.
• Hand them to me in-person at work, church, school, CBS, whatever.
• Leave them with PC at the church office. Make sure you put my name on your package.
  

My goal is to get 500 items together by Valentine's Day. I'll keep you posted about my progress on the blog. Until I get a better idea, I'm calling this effort Soapfest 2008. To start the festivities, I am offering a free pack of Haitian coffee to the first person who gets me two hygiene items (unopened, duh).



Haitian coffee. From Haiti.

The way wii roll

Can it be?


Wiiiiiiii!

PC and I have figured out a way to make the time pass more quickly until our adoption is final. Mom sent us a Nintendo Wii via UPS just after Thanksgiving. We let it sit unopened under the tree until Dec. 18 before the suspense got to us. That was a week ago. Never in the history of goofing off has a week passed so quickly. (For a brief history of goofing off, click here.)

There are regular minutes, and then there are Wii minutes. They are the opposite of football minutes, which take hours to actually pass. The Wii speeds up time so fast that what feels like five minutes ago when you started playing virtual air hockey was actually two hours ago. A conversation much like this one took place in our house on Christmas Eve.

WG: Do I have time to play a quick game of tennis before we leave for church? (Now that we have the Wii, all references to sports are assumed to be virtual unless otherwise noted.)
PC: Sure. I want to leave in 20 minutes.
Two Wii minutes later...
PC: Lynde, if I'm late for church on Christmas Eve because you were playing Wii...
WG: I just started! Besides, I'm in the middle of my fitness test.
PC: It's been a half-hour.
WG: Holy moly! OK, just one more minute... (I said "Holy moly," really.)

And so it goes. I must mention that this massive loss of time was brought to us by my very own hip and contemporary mother, who managed a Christmas miracle the likes of which has not been seen since the 1994 Rollerblade affair. This MFM (Most Fabulous Mom) procured four Nintendo Wiis in a year when Wiis were more scarce than jack-a-lopes on the West Texas prairie. I'm sure my three siblings join me in saying, "Mom, we don't know what kind of favors you had to do for Santa, but we thank you very much! We'll win a game of virtual ping-pong just for you!"

Urban cowgirl

This is the way we go to work, go to work, go to work.

When you work full-time and go to school full-time, squeezing every last drop of efficiency out of your day turns into a compulsion. I have evaluated almost every activity in my life to figure out whether there is a way to do it while studying. Watching TV? Reruns are better because they require less attention. Cooking dinner? Noodles are the best because you can read while the water boils. A hamburger or pizza is even better because you can eat with one hand and type with the other.

Still, one activity was entirely wasted mono-tasking: driving to work. So I decided to try taking the bus instead. Yes, it doubles the time of my commute (buses go slow, y'all), but I gain two hours of uninterrupted study time each day. Taking the bus was a big step for a conservative MBA student from West Texas, where it is one's civic duty to drive an eight-cylinder vehicle. Still, I was prepared to sacrifice image for the sake of harvesting previously non-productive time.

Change is hard for me, so I planned my first day on the bus very carefully. Last night I wrote down the bus numbers, packed my backpack with lightweight school materials and even laid out my $4.50 exact change. I picked an outfit that would travel well: a wool pant suit with flat loafers. When I left the house at 6:45 this morning, I felt like a sixth-grader on the first day of middle school. Would I know where to go? Did I have the right gear? Would the other people on the bus think I was dumb?

The first half of my ride went smoothly. I had a window seat, where I sat grinning with pride as we rolled down Ashby Street. I sang "The Wheels on the Bus" in my head. Then I pulled out my marketing textbook and started to take notes on chapter two. I got off the bus as the transfer station around 7:20 a.m. and called PC to tell him things were going great. The second bus, No. 2 WUSTL Red, should arrive in 20 minutes, I told him. The weather was cloudy but not too cold. I hung up the phone and pulled out my book again.

At 7:35 a.m., the No. 2 WUSTL Red bus pulled up early. I rushed to put my book away and hopped on board. As soon as it pulled out of the transfer station, I realized it was going the wrong way. I pulled the cord for the driver to stop. Luckily, the first stop was only about 50 yards from the transfer station. I got off and walked back to the station, thinking, "Phew, I dodged a bullet there." It started sprinkling.

*Note to readers, you might want to pause and go to bathroom. This is a lengthy post, but it gets really good from here on out. You might not want to get up once you start reading it.*

At 7:50 a.m., the other No. 2 WUSTL Red bus pulled up to the station. After riding it for a minute, it turned and started driving away from the hospital where I worked. I moved to the front of the bus and asked the driver whether this bus went down Clayton Road in front of the hospital. "No, this is going the other way. You need to be on the other bus," he said. He let me off and told me to cross the road and wait for the other bus. (That's right, the bus I was originally on but got off of because I thought it was the wrong one.)

I got out and stood in front of the entrance to a coffee shop, pondering my options. In the one minute I rode the wrong bus (the real wrong bus, not the one I thought was wrong), it started raining. I knew it could be forty minutes before the right bus came. I figured I was about a half-mile from the hospital where I work. I could probably get there more quickly by walking. Sure, it was raining, but I had a good coat, a scarf to cover my head and comfortable shoes. So I set out going south down Skinker Avenue from Forest Park Parkway, for those of you who know St. Louis. I figured I would follow the bus route so that if the bus did come by I could hop on and ride the rest of the way to the hospital.

(By now you have probably figured out the absurdity of the line of logic that led to that last decision. My best explanation is that I think much more clearly indoors than I do out-of-doors, especially when it's raining.)

The last leg of the commute started at about 8 a.m. I trotted along for about 10 minutes before I saw the right bus (yes!) pulling up behind me. I reached in my pocket for my multi-use transfer pass, but it was gone. I must have dropped it outside the coffee shop. I now realize I could have just bought another bus ticket, but, again, I was logic-impaired. No ticket meant no bus ride. I pressed on down the road, but with a growing sense of desperation. Here is how the rest of the walk went:

8:11 a.m. I try to calculate how long it will take the lower half of my pants legs to dry when I get to work.

8:14 a.m. I see a girl walking toward me. She has an iPod and an umbrella. I visualize myself mugging her and stealing both items.

8:15 a.m. I realize it is much farther than half a mile to the hospital. I realize how stupid I was to think, "Well, I can drive here in five minutes, so I could probably walk it in ten." Only if I never drove more than 10 miles per hour. Sheesh.

8:16 a.m. I start to hate people in cars.

8:17 a.m. I consider hitchhiking.

8:18 a.m. I think, "What moron invented walking? It is soooooooo slow!" (Note: these thoughts have been censored for content.)

8:20 a.m. I think, "Man, my legs are tired. So this is why people exercise."

8:21 a.m. An ambulance drives by with its lights on. I realize that if I had pretended I had a heart attack back at Skinker and Forest Park, I could have gotten a really quick ride to the hospital. I question whether I should go ahead and call 9-1-1 now, but I can already see the hospital.

8:25 a.m. I wonder whether the hospital is actually moving farther away. I also realize I need to reconsider my definition of "comfortable shoes."


These shoes have been through a lot today.

8:28 a.m. I arrive at my office drenched and tired. I pause inside the door to contemplate how much I love walls and ceilings. Then I go straight to my office to Mapquest the distance I walked. Turns out it was 1.4 miles. I also recheck the Metrobus Web site to verify my route home so this doesn't happen again.

This incident, while unfortunate, only strengthened my resolve to ride the bus. I have been a straight-A student my whole life. I speak Russian. I won the Walter Spearman Award for being the best young writer in North Carolina, damnit. I am not about to let public transportation beat me. I will be back tomorrow, No. 2 WUSTL Red Southbound bus. You better be ready.

Sister, sister

Last weekend PC and I flew to Texas to visit my sister, Peapod. (Oh, yeah, the people who gave birth to her were there, too, somewhere in the shadow cast by her formidable 13-year-old aura.) Peapod is a treasure and a mystery. For me, the best part of hanging out with her is discovering ways in which we are alike in spite of eight years' separation. Consider exhibit A:


Two peas in a pod?

Note our similar hair colors, stances, powder-white skin and love of really long jeans. The layers of clothing give away a tell-tale Hedgpeth characteristic: being cold everywhere. We both have perio-pedo-megaly, a.k.a. teeth and feet that are too big for our bodies. But, wait, what is that we're holding? Let's have a closer look:



I'll give you a hint: the logo on the bags includes a horse and Coach. Like our father before us, we both have a weakness for high-dollar apparel items with horses in the logo. For Dad it was Polo. He has three dozen button-down shirts to prove it. He was content to let his children run around in clearance-rack Gap hoodies while he searched Foleys until he could utter those magic words: "I don't have one like this."

Peapod and I are on our way to a similar obsession with Coach accessories. I still play in the Coach baby pool, where the kids only get purses. But Peapod dove into the deep end this weekend by getting a pair of shoes. To keep this little fetish from getting out of hand, we have implemented a safeguard to protect our checkbooks and our sanity (though probably not our reputations): we only indulge when Dad (or Mom) is buying.

Update: I should add that I recently learned that, after 10 years of unprecedented brand loyalty, Dad has switched to a shirt that *gasp* has no logo whatsoever on it. I guess it proves he was right all those years when he said, "I could quit whenever I want to." This should give you hope, PC.

Good waiters

"That's just how long it takes."

PC and I have repeated this phrase to numerous friends and family members, all of whom feel a natural indignation at the two years we must wait to adopt Vivine. When we first decided to adopt back in July, we told only our closest relatives and friends. The activities of starting the adoption consumed our spare time. We had sessions with a social worker, interviews with doctors and appointments to collect our vital records. Then, at night, we had long conversations with each other about all the "what ifs" of becoming a family through adoption.

Finally, we felt like we had held the secret in as long as we could. It became strange to experience such a major life event without sharing it with our church and extended family. That was in September, two months after we made our decision. When I think about what a small fraction of the process that two months represents, all I can do is laugh and ask the same question everyone else asks: "Why?"

That's just how long it takes.

Then PC told me the most beautiful thing. He reminded me that we dated long-distance for four years before we got married. I knew by our second date that I would marry him, but he had just started seminary halfway across the country. I was only 19. At the time, it seemed like an eternity before we would be together. But we made it.

"We didn't love each other any less because we had to wait," he said.

I know this will be true with Vivine, whether she becomes our daughter at age 3, 5 or 25. So I guess the full answer to the question "Why?" is: "Because that's how long it takes, and we are willing to wait."

This kid can act

Tom Graser was a great boss, but he is an even better dad. Check out the Christmas movie my old, er, former editor at the Asheville Citizen-Times made with his daughter, Lucy. It will have you wishing Rudolph got lost in your town.

Emily Woods and the Missing Reindeer

Better than fiction

I didn't realize what wonderful, loyal blog readers I have. So many people have called or e-mailed in the last few days and asked, "Are you OK? I read about your meltdown."

I said: "I'm fine. It really wasn't that bad."

They said: "Really? Because your blog made it sound like Chernobyl or something."

Busted. I guess I have to confess that I am prone to exaggeration, especially when I want attention. And, let's face it, this blog is at its core an attention-getting instrument.

Still, I promise that everything I write actually happened, minus a bit of tone and emotion. Let's face it, life just isn't that exciting. Sometimes you have to talk yourself into it.

Orange alert

Our house today was ground zero for my annual Christmas Meltdown. Early warning signs included furious vacuuming and sporadic yelling, followed by a full eruption of tears. I have come to accept this ritual as an inevitable part of the holiday preparations in our house. I'm just glad to get it over with early this year.

Disaster recovery from the Christmas Meltdown includes prolonged exposure to a mixture of Brad Pitt on AMC and home videos from our trip to Haiti. If your home is on high-alert for a similar incident, I recommend watching this clip to improve your disaster-readiness:

How we met

Several people have asked me what it was like when I first saw Vivine. I do not know whether my description of the event fits their expectations, but, as my editor at the Columbia Daily Tribune always said, "It is what it is."

Angelo, the Haitian director of the orphanage, picked up us Americans at the airport around 4:30 p.m. The six of us, plus Carole (the American director of the orphanage), Angelo and 12 suitcases (tall the size of small refrigerators) piled into a 12-passenger van and drove to House of Hope, about 10-minutes away. As the van pulled up to the house, we could hear girls inside squealing with excitement. It sounded like 25 furious little bells ringing as hard as they could. The house has a 10-foot brick wall around it with a huge iron sliding gate. Someone inside pushed open the gate, and Angelo rolled the van into the courtyard. I was already searching the dimly sunlit courtyard for Vivine.

The older girls mobbed the van's sliding passenger door. They knew that Americans brought presents and attention. When the door opened, I tasted the dust that the girls kicked up as they milled around the van. From inside the van, I saw Vivine standing apart to the left with some of the new, younger girls. Her friend Lovia, who was maybe 9, was with her. Lovia brought Vivine over to the back of the crowd, where she just sort of watched the commotion. I didn't want to scare her, so I tried to simply smile at her from a few feet away. They say adrenaline has a bad memory. My adrenaline must have been pumping hard because I really don't remember everything that happened next. I just know she somehow ended up in my arms.

We don't have any photos from that exact moment. It all happened so fast. But about an hour later, Chad snapped this photo, which I have already posted once.



Someday I will show her this and say, "That was the day we met."

In which PC gets peed on

The big event during our trip to Haiti was taking about 25 of the girls from House of Hope to the beach. Much preparation and fund-raising went into the event, which was the biggest field trip House of Hope had ever taken. My mom got in on the fun and bought Vivine a precious red swimsuit with little pineapples embroidered on it. When we got to Haiti, though, Vivine had her own ideas. She started digging through the boxes of swimsuits we brought from the United States and immediately picked this one:



What 3-year-old could resist a swimsuit with a tutu? She kept tugging on the tutu with the tips of her fingers. Such a little lady!

When we got to the beach, all Vivine wanted to do was drink watermelon juice and sit in PC's lap. After Vivine had drank 1 1/2 cups of watermelon juice and sat on PC's lap for 30 minutes, PC, surprised, but calm, looked at her and said, "Hey!" Then he looked across the table and said, "I just got peed on."

I smiled at him, shrugged my shoulders, and said, "Well, you might as well go get in the pool and rinse her off." So, that's what he did. Is this what normal parents do?

Sicko

I always think I can do more than in reality is humanly possible. As I review my schedule for the past two weeks, it is little wonder that I now feel like crap. I am taking my temperature every hour to make sure I didn't catch malaria, bird flu or any other exotic illness in Haiti. But it appears that I just have 98.6 degrees of pooped-out-ness.

I'm staying home from everything today. I'm trying to relax and avoid feeling: a) guilty for not cleaning the house (it looks like the Christmas tree is actually growing out of the dirt on our floor) or b) guilty for missing church (occupational hazard of being a pastor's wife). The latter is helped by the knowledge that many parishioners in St. Charles County also stayed home because of a walloping ice storm that hit last night. I turned on TV to find out that churches around the area had canceled services because of the slick roads. As many of you know, PC and I have a track record of losing power in our house every time it rains in St. Louis. Pray for electricity today ... I'd prefer to get well in the glow of the TV!

What we did in Haiti

In the past, I said that our trip to Haiti was "for administrative purposes only." Once we got there, "administrative purposes" turned into "hanging-out-and-having-fun" purposes. We spent most of the time loving on and bonding with the little girls in the orphanage, and one little girl in particular.



Richecardine (Reesh-cahr-DEEN, with a French accent), a.k.a. "Vivine," did just about everything with us for the 4 1/2 days we were in Haiti.

We went to the beach.


We made silly faces.


We had a party for Jesus' birthday.


We had a party for Vivine's birthday. (She turned 3 on Dec. 2. She got a teddy bear and a dress-up set with a necklace that lit up when you pushed it.)


We played with toys.


And when we got tired of all that, we took a nap.


Vivine is everything you would expect from an imaginative, inquisitive, energetic three-year-old. We are confident that House of Hope will keep her very happy and safe until she can join our family.

There's more where that came from, but since we got home at 10:30 p.m. Tuesday night, I have been busy working and getting ready for school this weekend. I still have many cute stories to share, so stay tuned!

We're back

Luke 2:19 says: "But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart." On returning from Haiti (we arrived home at 11 p.m. last night), I have many things I need to ponder in my heart. Our six days there produced hundreds of memories, photos and video clips that we now have to sort through. We also have to sort through all of our emotions about seeing Richecardine (that's her name) and our new hope for her as our daughter.

The good news is that we, the staff of the orphanage and her birth family are all working together to do what is best for this very precious little girl. The so-so news is that it really is going to take two years to get her to the United States. But all of us are confident that God will work this change out in his time so that Richecardine gets exactly what she needs. Stay tuned for more stories and photos!