Waiting for Bubbles

One of my earliest cooking memories is when I was around 10 years old.   I was really hungry and I was making mac & cheese.  I stood by the stove, staring at the pot, wondering if the water would ever come to a boil.  My mom asked me,  "Have you ever heard the saying, "watched water never boils?" 

Every time I have been in a hurry for my water to boil, I remember that saying.  I don't know if my mom made it up, or if she heard it from her mom, or where it came from.  But for some reason, that saying keeps popping back into my head right now! 

Any day, we will receive an e-mail telling us our first travel date.   We were told we would receive it approximately ten days from the when the registration dossier was submitted. It could take longer because the people on the Committee of Education and the orphanage officials are just returning from their vacations.

It's been eight days.  And I've been watching that pot of water (my e-mail inbox,) like a hawk, waiting for those magic bubbles to appear. 

So, if I turn off the computer and just check it once a day, instead of 20 do you think it will happen?  Hmm...maybe I'll give it a try.  Who knows?

A Big Week for Us!

We have three exciting things happening this week!

First, Anna will be returning to her orphanage after spending the summer in a "datcha" or summer camp in the woods near the shore of Finland Bay on the Baltic Sea.  Apparently, all the kids in the orphanages in her city spend the summers here.  Looks like a beautiful place.

Secondly, after a month of WAITING for her orphanage officals to return to their post, our coordinator in Anna's country is finally submiting our registration dossier to the committee.  TODAY!  So,  they officially know of our intent to adopt her.  Wow.  It's really happening. Now we wait for approximately 10 days to hear of our first travel date. 

Third, our kids will start school on Wednesday.  We are all excited.  Last night, we  put together a daily schedule with the kids.  Can I tell you how excited I am to have a schedule?  We need some order in this place!  Order is good and makes everyone happier.  I'm not good at running a tight ship during the summer.  Something I need to work on.

Anyway,  I'm excited.  Things are moving now and I feel some change in the air. Yeah!!

Good Things to Come

Once again, I've been uplifted by the words of Elder Holland today. This is so great.

Observing and Reflecting

Yesterday, we spent the day at Lagoon, a local amusement park.  It was Down Syndrome Foundation day there.  They reserved a pavilion and provided soda and cookies for families who wanted to come eat their dinner in the shade.  Lots of families came.  We didn't know anyone, but we were so glad we went.

We got soaked by this ride just before dark.  Brrr...

(Landon was off wandering the park with his cousin.)

Throughout the evening as we wandered through the park, we observed many kids, a few teens and even a couple adults with Ds.  I felt like a stalker in a way, watching their every move, trying to soak in whatever I could while I had the chance.  Jeremy kept commenting on how cute they were. Even the teenagers melt his heart. He kept saying, "They are just so awesome."

That evening, I sat on a bench waiting for my son to do a kiddie ride and watched a couple of kids with Ds giggle as they felt butterflies in their tummies going up and down.  I wanted to talk to one of the moms, but I was too shy.  One of the girls I observed was probably a year or two older than Anna.  (Not the one in this picture.) While I sat on the bench, I pictured her being Anna, and me as her mom, watching her wait in line with her siblings. I loved how it felt!  I'm so excited. This little girl's legs were a little tired from waiting in line, so she had herself a seat right there on the concrete, put her elbows on her knees and rested her chin on her hands.  So cute.  I noticed that her siblings and mom didn't even notice.  I'm sure it was just "her."    Anyway, I sat there and thought about Down Syndrome itself and what a blessing it is.  The very things that make people with Ds different, are the things that we love because they make them who they are--just plain awesome.

It's really incredible what has been and is taking place in our hearts right now. The spirit is preparing us while we wait. What once felt burdensome, maybe overwhelming, now feels "normal," if there is such a thing as that.  It kinda feels like we've known all along that a child with Down Syndrome would eventually join us, but it wasn't time yet, so we didn't give it a thought.  Now it's like, "Oh yeah...this is us."  It feels familiar, in a way.  I wonder if this was part of God's plan when we found each other on this big earth nearly 17 years ago.

Besides the fact that it was fun...I loved yesterday because it gave us the chance to picture our lives with Anna a little more, and make it feel more real. We're getting more and more excited to meet her.  Hang on Anna girl.  We'll be there soon.

Our First Bumps in the Road

Bump #1: My fingerprints.  Yes, I had a feeling my meager prints were going to cause problems when I was at the USCIS office a few weeks ago and the computer kept saying "denied" or something like that every time we tried.  I haven't heard from them yet about whether they were readable enough for their liking.

But we have now heard from the other agency that has to do a background check...the FBI. The fingerprints that I had the police take that I sent to them were not good.  We got two envelopes in the mail.  One that said that Jeremy passed the background check, and one that said that I would have to send in new prints.  Grrrrr!  Looks like I'll have to try again.  This time I'm going to try to "plump" them up with some greasy lotion the night before (I heard that helps) and I'm going to send them 4 copies--two done by the police station the traditional ink pad way and two done on a computer at the BCI office.  Wish me luck and pray that my poor faint little prints will show them what they need to see AND that we can somehow get them to expidite our background check since we already have a child identified.   It took them about two months to complete the first one.  We need them to be faster this time so we can have our dossier ready when we travel in a month!

Bump #2:  A lovely pink letter that came from the USCIS Thursday, saying that we need to send in evidence of Jeremy's income this year.  You send tax returns and your home study with your I-600a application.  Our last year's tax return showed a sad income because Jeremy's business was in the dumps with the economy situation.  Business has picked up like crazy since we started the process of adoption  (which is an obvious miracle in itself.) We stated a much larger income in our homestudy than what our 2009 tax return said we made last year.  So they want evidence of that income actually happening.  W-2's, bank statements, a letter from our CPA, and check stubs from this year.  We're not worried about this.  Luckily, we have all the evidence they are asking for and it should make them happy.  I just pray they aren't going to ask me to send in more fingerprints, too!

It's funny, on the Reece's Rainbow discussion group, people are always saying things like , "Please pray for us today, that our paperwork makes it here or there, or please pray for my social worker to finish our homestudy this week, or pray for my fingerprints" etc.  I have to be honest, it sounded a little funny to me at first. But now that we are deep into the process and we are hitting bumps, it's not so funny any more!  So much in adoption is completely out of your control, and the only thing you  can actively do is...pray!  And ask others to pray, too!  I'm so glad we can turn to our faith, though. I know that prayer makes great things happen and that God hears them ALL!  The big long ones and the little short ones, too. :)  So, this week, we'll be praying that the FBI and the USCIS will have mercy on us.  Sounds like we're illegal immigrants or something. Gotta laugh.

Adventures in Shots

For our dossier, our doctor has to fill out papers on each of our children saying that they are fully vaccinated and healthy.  Vaccinations have always made me nervous.  We vaccinate our kids, but I do it really slowly, like one or two at a time.  They just make me nervous.  Because of this, and the fact that I'm busy with five kids, these two little squirts are 5 or 6 shots behind schedule.

So, I had to take them to the County Health Department to get caught up.

Problem #1: Bad time to go get shots at the Health Department!  School starts in 2 weeks. The waiting room was full when we walked in.  There were no toys and it was past Eli's nap time!  The wait itself was torturous.  He cried and fussed the whole time. 

Problem #2: We got *that* nurse. The one who is going through menopause, permanently ticked off at everyone, has no patience and scares the kids half to death.  When she saw how "behind" we were on our vaccinations, she asked me why and gave me a lecture. 

Problem #3:  I said the WRONG WORDS to Bennett.  He had asked me several times on the way, what "type" of shots he was going to get.  I told him they were the type he had last time, that didn't hurt.  He was great with that.  Little did I know that for some reason in his 4 year old head, "kindergarten shots" were terrible and painful.  When the nurse wrote down all the shots he needed, I told Bennett that this was good because we were getting his kindergarten shots right now and he wouldn't have to have them in a year, when he would normally have them.  Suddenly panic entered his little mind and he was NOT about to allow anyone to give him any shots!  He started crying and repeating over and over "No shots, no shots!  I'm not getting any shots.  Come on, Mom, let's go now."  I tried bribes, explanations, anything I could think of, and he was NOT going to allow this. 

Problem #4:  Did I mention that it was past Eli's nap time?  He was upset before Bennett freaked out.  Now he was really upset. 

By this time, the mean nurse had already prepared all the syringes.  There was no backing out.  They would have to charge us for all these shots and our insurance would not pay for them again.

So after a good 15 minutes of me trying to say some magic words that would make Bennett go for this, the nurse finally commanded me to sit there and hold Eli.  Poor baby.  Poke after poke happened (five to be exact) as his brother freaked out.  I felt like I was killing my kids.  Luckily, I held it together emotionally because that's all those ladies needed was the mom crying, too! 

As I comforted Eli, I thought about all the people in the waiting room who were already ticked at how behind schedule they were.  No doubt they were hearing our episode happen on the other side of the door.  Sorry people.

We ended up forcing Bennett to sit on the other nurses lap (the nice one) while I held the crying baby.  Here's the funny part: As soon as the mean nurse stuck the first shot in his arm, he calmed right down. 

Oh.  That didn't hurt.  I guess Mom was right.  O.K.  I'll just sit here.

As easy as that.  We're done.

During the time I was trying to talk him into the shots, I had bribed him about going to Target afterword and letting him chose a toy.  Didn't do a thing to get him on board.  But you'd better believe he remembered that when we were done.  We were on our way to Target as soon as we got home and put Eli down for his nap.  Luckily Sadie was there to babysit.

I guess the good thing is that we are now caught up with vaccinations, thanks to Anna!

Next adventure:  Bennett gets to have his tonsils out next week.  Heaven help me.

A Book for Anna

I made some 5X7 pages that I'm having printed to put into a photo book for Anna.  We are going to take it to her when we meet her so that she'll understand a little bit of what is going to happen in the coming months and recognize the kids a little more.  My friend/neighbor, Amy made this book for her daughter that she is adopting from Ghana and she was so kind to give me the psd files of the pages, so all I had to do is change the map page from Africa to Eastern Europe, plug in our pictures and change the words (all in Photoshop.)  Thanks, Amy! 

There's going to be 2-3 months between the time we meet her and the time we go back to bring her home, so I'm hoping we can leave this with her speech teacher to read with her or something.  I put the phrases in English and Russian so she can hear it in her own language.  I hope the Russian phrases are correct! I just used a translator I found on Google.  I'll have to have someone who knows the language well proofread it!