I Betcha'

A funny thing has happened to me in the last year or so – I’ve become a betting woman. I don’t know if it started as a boredom filler during the long waits, or a way to put some kind of date to look forward to in a process that had no specific times or dates… but the words ‘wanna bet on it?’ tumbles out of my mouth with more and more frequency these days. The current wager going in our house? When we will receive the nearly sanctified, can’t-bring-her-to-the-U.S.-without-it birth certificate, of course. I’m trying to be on the slightly conservative side, and said Thursday. Brad’s anteing up on Friday. We held Fischer up to the wall calendar so he could pick his own day (yes, we have gone just crazy enough to involve the cat, too) but he kept putting his paw on absurd days like the first of March – impossible, Fischer! Time travel is not yet a reality, and besides, watching the Discovery channel has taught me that even if it was invented today, you will only be able to go back into the past as far as when the time machine was invented. So anyway, we settled on Wednesday for him. The winner gets to pick the dessert to have after dinner on that lucky day to celebrate their sweet sweet victory – I mean to celebrate receiving Tes’ bc. See how betting has changed me?

In the ‘getting prepared to pack but not really pack yet’ news, we’ve bought enough over the counter meds to last our little family a year or so. But, being the part hypochondriac / part just like to be prepared kind of person I am, I just couldn’t imagine going to Africa without upset stomach medicine, heart-burn medicine (by the way, I have never experienced heart-burn in my 30 years of life – why I think I am going to get it for the first time while away from home, I have no idea…), a decongestant, a ‘stop you from crapping your pants’ pills, an allergy med, a pain reliever, a pain reliever PM, a children’s strength pain reliever, a ‘help you from getting a cold on the plane’ tablets, motion sickness drugs… is that it? I’d have to riffle through my plastic bags strewn across Tes’ bedroom floor to see… Oh – and we haven’t even filled the scripts yet for our ‘prescription strength keep you from crapping your pants’ pills nor the anti-malaria drugs yet. Honestly, the only ones we will probably end up using are the motion sickness for me on the plane trip there (helps me sleep) and possibly the pain reliever PM while there for the same reason. We plan on being careful what we eat, use only bottled water, neither of us have allergies we can’t handle… I am sure we will be fine. Well, pretty sure. Almost pretty sure. Well… it doesn’t hurt to pack the pharmacy – I mean, we’ve already bought it all. Right?