Government Stress

So, the acid in my stomach is having quite a moment. Last week I learned that families were receiving emails from the embassy at our country we are adopting from once they have received the information on the families adopting. We haven't gotten an email, and have had our approval since May. Panic overload.

So, I did what any parent would do, and that was start calling all of the numbers that had anything to do with the govt. and adopting. I called the first number I had. oh no, they said, that is the US State Department's division, you will have to call them. This was Friday at about 4:56. Well, that was a huge bummer, becase now I had to wait the whole weekend to call today.

Then I decided that I would just email the embassy in our country we are adopting from. I was pretty proud of myself for thinking of that one. Except when I woke up this morning, there was no reply.

Decided to give the good old State Department a call. The woman there was very helpful, who put me in touch with another woman in charge of our country. Turns out, they don't really do anything with documents being forwarded after your approval. It's more of assistance as you are in the process or over there trying to get back. She did however tell me that the email address I used to contact the embassy in our country was the wrong one. She gave me the correct one, and I quickly re-emailed, hopefully with the time difference I will still get it looked at, probably not, but I am hoping anyway.

Finally I decided to call the first number again. Turns out I wasn't actually talking to the National Visa Center like I thought I was. But they did give me the phone number for that, and tell me that they are the ones who would forward any documents. For some reason, that phone number just beeps at me like it is busy, so I emailed them, and will continue to obsessively stalk their number until I get through.

Yikes. The good news is, now that I know who to talk to, and I feel like I have covered everything by emailing just about everyone in the US govt. related to adoptions, I think it will hopefully be taken care of soon.

I'll keep you posted.

Today is a gorgeous day. Soooo, we kicked our kids outside all morning. They have been outside having a blast, and actually getting along for the most part. Except for the moment when Ava came up behind Owen and shoved him down to the ground for stealing her stick. I am thinking they are getting along so well because it is due to the fact that they are missing each other now that Ava is back in school. Regardless, it has been pretty adorable to look out the window and see them happy to be together. These are the types of moments that lead families to choose to have more children!

On the adoption front, we will be petitioning for a court date at the end of next week. Regardless if we have a referral for a little girl or not. We are waiting for our documents to be translated and then off to court we will go. I am thinking it will take about one month to get our ruling. In the mean time, we are trying to decide if we don't get a referral for a little girl before we apply for court, what we are going to do.

Our options are:
1. only adopt our little boy
2. travel twice

Traveling twice would be hard for us, we could not afford to both go, both times. We have considered my going twice, but then Chris can't see where they are from, and we always imagined we both would be together. The other option is for me to go once, and Chris go once. Ideally, we would love to be able to just go one time, and not have to do it again. It is hard on the kids, and us, and all around. Plus the stability factor of the country makes a play in all of this.

Hopefully, we will get a referral next week. I am truly not counting on it, or holding my breath, but you never know. We will continue to pray and see if perhaps just our son is what we are supposed to have.

Teaching the Alphabet

So I was reading a blog that suggested the DVD: Leap Frog, The Letter Factory. I have been trying to teach Owen his alphabet. It hasn't been going great. The only letter he knows is O. I bought this cute placemat with Sesame Street characters on it and we have been going through and pointing at the letter and trying to get him to memorize them. For each letter there is a picture of something that starts with that letter. He knows the pictures but not the letter. Although some of the pictures are a little challenging for him- like U for unicorn, which he says "U for horse", and I say no, it's actually a unicorn, and he says which is a "horse with a thing on its head". How can I argue with that? I have been a little nervous about this, because by this time, Ava knew all of her letters and what they said, and could write out a fair amount of them. Blame it on second child syndrome (yikes! what will happen with our 3rd and 4th!) but I haven't really been too worried about it until now. He has to take his kindergarten pre-screening in about 6 months (when he is the ripe old age of 4), and I have this fear that he will be the only 4 year old who doesn't know his alphabet. Not to mention this bizarre test where they tap out a rhythm and the child is supposed to tap it back. I never, in all of my parenting Ava, did "tap the rhythm and repeat it" with her. I felt like a ginormous Moron at that test. The teacher tapped out a little pattern, in which Ava responded with a blur of taps on the table with a huge smile on her face. To which the teacher said "Let's try it again with something simpler....." (repeat happy tapping in no pattern at all)

Anyway, saw that this DVD was recommended, so I rushed to Target and bought it. He has seen the video 3 times, and this morning he saw the letter X and told me what noise it made. Hello! My child is a genius!! I am way excited about it. I always thought that I would never be the mom who taught my children with videos- we don't even watch tv (movies yes, tv no). But I think for the alphabet I am going to be "that" mom. The one who uses pre-canned entertainment instead of devising her own plan to introduce him to the letters. Why mess with what works. I will have to come up with my own lesson plan for the "tap the pattern" however...

We got the medical testing results back today. Everything is good and he is healthy. It was such a relief to see that, even though it was in French. Now we really have to consider how long we want to wait for a girl. The longer we wait, the longer our son sits there.

We really don't know how long we want to wait for a second referral. Two trips would be very hard financially for us if we both went. Possibly we could each go alone, or I could go twice by myself. I feel fairly comfortable with that idea since I have already been to Africa, but it is not an ideal situation to go by myself. We just naturally assumed we would go together and experience everything as a couple. The problem is, we really want a daughter as well. Logistically, it is looking harder for us then we first anticipated to bring them both home.

Any thoughts on me traveling by myself?

Today was the first day of school for Ava. Last night she was so excited she didn't think she could sleep. We picked out her outfit down to the type of underwear she wanted to wear, along with the earrings and how she wanted to do her hair. I can't believe she is in second grade already.

It was raining and freezing cold out, so we all had our umbrellas as we walked down to the bus stop. There was a couple of older boys, probably 9th grade, and I could see her watching them closely. She looked a little intimidated. The good news was, their bus forgot to pick them up, so they won't be out there when we go out in the morning. She perked up after they left and it was just us waiting.

After she got onto the bus, I looked at Owen. He looked up at me and said "Are you going to play with me mom?" Giant foreshadowing on his part.

It has been several hours since she went to school, and Owen pretty much has not left my side. I tried to tell him all of the things that he could do. I don't think I realized how much he depended on his sister to play and interact with him. It will be interesting to see how this all shakes out. I can't constantly play with him all day long, but he doesn't seem to want to be alone at all. Right now I can only write this because he is watching a movie!

I think after a few days we will both adjust. Poor kid, he told Ava how much he was going to miss her. Hopefully he will enjoy the semi-quiet the next few months. Once we get our babies home, it may never be quiet again!

I love reading. With a passion. Currently, I am in the middle of 4 books. I normally don't like to read that many books at one time. It is too hard to divide my time between them, and how do I pick which one should be read when? I know. It is slightly pathetic. Espeically considering the books I am reading. They have no connection whatsoever!

Book #1 is Great Expectations. I read this a million years ago in high school. Honestly about the only thing I remeber is the swamp, and something to do with paintings. I have not been great with this book. As an adult, I feel like it is okay, but I am having not much luck with it holding my attention. So as of yet, I have no idea if my "memory" of something to do with paintings actually rings true for this book. I am not that far yet. (I am ashamed to admit that I have been reading this book for over a month. This is the one that gets pushed to the bottom of the pile. I need to bite the bullet and get it over with!)

Book #2 is The Three Musketeers. For some reason that he can't explain, my husband thinks it is absolutely hilarious that I am reading this book. One day in Barnes and Noble, they had their classics buy 1 get 1 free. So I got this one and The Man in the Iron Mask. I love the swashbuckling stuff. I admit, it is a little out of what I normally read, but I am just going to chalk it up to branching out.

Book #3 is Radical. This book is changing my life. Run to the bookstore, or order it off of Amazon. It is an awesome book that will rock your current thoughts on America's version of Christianity and the "American Dream".

Book #4 is The Hard Way. This is one of my CIA type books. For some reason, I am in love with all things CIA/FBI/Covert Ops. I have said this before, but I will repeat it again, this is my dream job. Not going to happen with 2, soon to be 4 kids, and a loving husband, but I would have made an awesome secret agent! The fact that I read these types of books also makes my husband laugh.

It is quite possible that he may actually be laughing at himself. He once made a comment that when we got married he perhaps didn't realize how strong willed I was!

Back in Business!

We learned that the woman who is holding our son in the picture they sent to us is his biological mom. We are thrilled to be able to have a picture of her to show him, but her face is so sad and tired looking. Now that we know who she is, I find myself looking at the picture many times a day wondering what happened to her, what her life has been like. What led to the decision to give up her son. Sometimes I just hold the picture and look at her and cry. Our blessing is her sorrow, our wonderful gain, her huge loss. It is both sides of adoption, staring me right in the face in a single picture.

We have not received our son's medical testing back. Hopefully we should know something early next week. No news on a referral for a little girl either. Crossing our fingers that she doesn't take too much longer to come to us!

The kids are really getting antsy about their new brother and sister. They want then home NOW! Just like their parents. We patiently try to explain for the 975th time why they are not here already, and how long we think it will take until they do come.

They seem to have a lot of pent up energy. Not quite sure where it is coming from. This morning I kept hearing these loud noises coming out of Owen's bedroom. I sneak up to the door to see what they are doing without them seeing me. They are wrestling, both in orange shirts and black shorts, which they coordinated just for the "game". When I asked them what they were doing, they said they were playing "Tarzan". Okay. Unfortunately, I had to put the kabosh on Tarzan, because what usually happens when my kids play wrestling games is that one of them takes it too far and the other gets hurt, and then there is a retaliation.

Other than that, it has been a slooooow week. Probably due to my huge hope that a second referral would come so soon after the first. The anticiaption is driving me nuts! On the other hand, I found an interesting reply on a blog that I was reading yesterday. A woman who is adopting from Africa has been constantly asked why she isn't adopting a child from the US because the need is so huge here and why would she go overseas? I am sure any adopting family has heard that one. We have mulitple times. Anyway, a friend of hers suggested the reply (and I'm kind of summing it up) "You are absolutely right about the need here in the US. And please don't take this the wrong way, but what are you doing about it?" Brilliant, slightly rude, perhaps. But I love it anyways. I am always a little irritated when people feel the need to lecture me on my choice to adopt from Africa. I don't know that I have enough guts to say it the next time I am asked. But I may just have to give it a whirl.