Three words or less that make me smile, happy and full of joy?

HOME SOON.

I need to work faster.


~mama

Care for a Little Wager?

We just finished the home study and we are starting the dossier.

What month do you predict for a referral?
What month do you predict for trip one?

There's no money involved here...just a little harmless fortune telling :)

Mr. N. and I have our votes...but we won't be telling what they were until the time comes.

Your vote? Please leave a comment. Don't be shy. Share your predictions!

~ Mama

Inky Monday

Did the fingerprints again today. Mailed them off too!

~mama

Burunduk!

A little bit closer to getting our little chipmunk home! Today we mailed off the home study packet and the first of many big checks. Very exciting. We have however been slightly foiled by Uncle Sam...who did not like my FBI fingerprints so now I have to have them redone. Could be another 10 weeks. We have plenty of paperwork to do between now and then so it's no big deal, but the fingerprinting bit wasn't much fun. You think they use the nice electronic fingerprinting? No, it's all caveman style with ink and paper. The police officer was not happy that he had to do this...he said he didn't like getting ink on his hands...and getting out the other stone-age equipment was a pain. I so look forward to his face when I come in a second time. Mr. N.'s fingerprints on the other hand came back perfect. No problem. Oh well, just another hurdle among many more to come I am sure.

For my birthday (which is in a few weeks) my sister-in-law and her family gave me a bunch of adorable clothes for our Burunduk! She also had some beautiful cloth blocks made...and an adorable gnome named Gabe. I will post pictures of them soon! If you go to Two Stray Cats on Etsy you will see them. They are the green ones with the mushrooms.

Here is the Etsy store!

http://www.etsy.com/shop/TwoStrayCats?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=App_Seller&utm_content=shops&utm_campaign=fb_seller_shop

Mama

Catching Snowflakes

I live in Florida so catching snowflakes is virtually out of the question. I said virtually since on occasion we do have snow (on a very very very RARE occasion that is). When we do have snow, the flakes usually melt when they touch the ground...but you can catch them on your tongue. Tiny little fragments from the sky that can be so rewarding to someone that never sees snow.

Only a few more flakes of home study paperwork to catch and we can write this part of the process off of the list! Today is February 9th, 2010. By Friday the 12th (Jordan's birthday!) we will be done with our home study paperwork. We just got the LAST certificate from our parenting classes. Mr. N will get his medical form tomorrow. CPR on Thursday. That's it. Saturday make copies and mail it in!

So what's next?

Home study visit
NOPE! Surprise, we did that last Sunday and it was SO easy. I was freaking out for nothing. I kept the visit on the down low to keep me from being antsy. The social worker was very very nice. He spent about an hour and a half with us asking some general questions all of which we had discussed before. We were pretty well informed thanks to all the reading and the APs that I have become friends with (thanks to you all). The listservs are also helpful. I recommend reading and knowing as much as possible...but the questions are mostly about how you were brought up, your beliefs about parenting, what you will do with the child while you are at work, etc. The walk through the house was probably less than 5 minutes so don't worry about the dirt! Just clean up the clutter. The only question he asked that threw us off was "describe your personality." Yikes, we didn't brush up on this. We nailed the visit. He said he'd have the report written and sent in before Friday.

Registration paperwork.
This is a set of paperwork much like the home study but not as detailed. It's for the agency. Compared to the home study it should be easy. In fact there is some cross-over so I can just make extra copies from the home study. I ordered extra marriage certificates and birth certificates so that isn't a problem. The hard part will be the technical part. They made drop down PDFs for some of the documents but they don't seem to work right. UGH.

Dossier.
Once the registration paperwork is done we will start working closely with the agency on the dossier. This part is more complicated. I'll get into this later in the process. Right now it seems far away and a bit daunting...but then again a month ago the home study paperwork was frightening and far away and miraculously we are here now.

That's the update! I hope that one day other PAPs will be reading our blog and learning from it like I have learned from the blogs of so many before me. I hear about their children and see the pictures and it's hard to put myself in that place right now. It seems like a dream. I wonder if they look back at how they felt when they were at this stage, or if they have moved so far away from it they they have forgotten?

Good night all...and thank you for reading and supporting us!

mama

Confession of a Heartless Woman

Well...not quite heartless. I have made dozens and dozens of paper hearts, but I have to confess that I haven't kept up with making one every day. I have some catching up to do. I'm not a bad person...I'm a busy person. I do feel a little guilty though for not making them EVERY day. I'm still counting the days until we have him (or her) in our arms. Every day we get past brings them a little closer to us.

Today is my mom's birthday! I had planned on taking her to Cedar Key for a boat ride, but the forecast said it would be in the high 50s here...meaning that it would be pretty cold on the water. It think it's probably in the 60s here...still too cold on the water so we postponed the day (she's 70 today!) for a few weeks when the weather will be awesome. My sister and I have a surprised party planned for her tonight. The whole family and a spaghetti dinner at my sisters. Hopefully no one has spoiled the surprise. Well see 2 more hours!

mama