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