My fryendra til the endrya.

This blog post is dedicated to my friend Kyndra.

Kyndra and her husband have 2 gorgeous kids who also happened to be adopted. I mention they're adopted because she's walked this very path before me. Kyndra has been - as so many people have - amazingly supportive in our journey. (But that's another blog post...)

I met Kyndra at a Nepal potluck more than two years ago and liked her immediately. And in that time, she has: talked me through the ups and downs of Nepal, helped me through the closure of Nepal, helped me come back from kind of losing my mind when we lost our child in Nepal, talked me through the ups and downs of Ethiopia, suggested our international adoption doctor, shopped multiple garage sales for me, found me a tripp trapp high-chair (new for a used price), found me other used baby items, talked me through travel questions, helped with nursery decisions (she's an awesome interior designer if you need one!), offered to host a baby shower, been available for questions at any hour - the list goes on!

OK. I will mention here that I'm a pretty productive person. (I'd even say in the 90th percentile in terms of what I can get done when I put my mind to it.) But today, I was put in my place. I was humbled.

Kyndra did one of the most helpful things a friend could do today. She took me to Babies R Us, and walked me through every single aisle. In less than one hour, we registered for 69 items.

I will admit that, prior to today, I had tried to register on my own, and came up with 4 things I thought we probably needed. Yup. 4. I did learn that of those 4 well-thought out items I worked so freaking hard to register for, we only need 3. Oh, yeah, I also learned this weekend that babies don't use "sheet sets". They have only a bottom fitted sheet. This, after searching in vain for sheets sets and being confused as to why I couldn't just buy the fitted sheet, the top sheet and the pillow cases in one package! And - there is no "6-9 months" size. It doesn't exist. 0-3, 3-6, some 6-12, 12-18, 18-24. No 6-9. Whatever. I think these things are to make people like me feel unfit to be a parent. And it's working.

Anyway. Kyndra knows what one needs when bringing home a close-to-one year-old. She knows the layout of the store. She knows I want mostly natural and BPA-free stuff. She knows my nursery colors and, mostly, she knows that I know nothing about any of this. We had a tight timeline, and we were practically a tornado in that store. We checked in, I was handed a scanner gun, and off we went. (There are seriously very few people who could have handled the pace physically or emotionally.) At one point, I started to ask a question about an item. Kyndra didn't stop what she was doing, held up the item in question with one hand while reaching for the next necessary item with the other, and said: "Point and shoot, Anne. Point and shoot."

So, that's our mantra for the next phase of our life. "Point and shoot. Point and shoot."