Looks Like I'm a Mess

I had a dental apt. this morning for a cleaning. The hygienist says to me "your teeth look great, but your gums are looking slightly irritated which is usually caused by stress and hormones." WOW. I just so happen to have an abundance of both.

I go by the salon to have a quick lip/brow wax (now you know:), and my good friend Jenny who is the greatest astetician (sp?) and has been doing my waxing forever (and when I'm lucky, an occasional facial) says to me that she is noticing some redness (inflammation) on my face that is usually caused by stress. I'm sensing a pattern here.....

I have managed to really work on our packing list and actually start packing some things. I have gone through the medicine cabinet and found things that we might need while traveling and started making an enormous shopping list of the things that we don't have. I'm sure that a lot of it will never be used, but I don't want to take any chances while I'm a million miles away.

It's so hard to know what to pack for Emma. I know that the latest sizes that we received may not be very accurate, so I am only estimating her weight to be around 18-20 pounds. So I am taking 12 month sizes that may end up being too small and 18 month sizes as well. I know that I should not over pack for her, but I have been waiting for a while, so I'm going to take several cute outfits so I can pick and choose what she wears. I'm also concerned about shoes. I don't know if she can wear cute little sandals since she has special feet, so I think I need to buy some little white sneakers. I have no idea what size. My other babies have size 9's and 10's, so it's been a while since I thought about little feet. As I posted yesterday, I'm only slightly worried for Emma and her slightly unprepared mom.

Still no working oven. That is not necessarily a bad thing, but I hope to have one soon. I am browsing. As soon as I find one that comes with self cleaning and self baking, serving, and cleaning up afterward, I'm taking out a loan and buying that puppy.

Sharing our Story

I really enjoy sharing about adoption and God gave me a perfect opportunity today while I was at the dentist office with the boys. A lady overheard me talking about going to China and she started asking me questions. Of course, I have no problem talking about it and enjoyed sharing with her. I even gave her our blog address and hope that she follows along with us on our trip. She had done some researching into adoption before and I think the seed was there and it may really need some water. I hope that I was able to give her a little insight by sharing our story.

I called to make an apt. with our pediatrician for when Emma gets home. I am totally not thinking like a mother of a little one, but fortunately, the apt. secretary was. Conversation over the phone "I need to make an apt. for our newly adopted toddler upon our return." She asks how old and gives me a date to which I agree to. She asks "Would you like a morning or afternoon appointment?" I reply "Something in the middle of the day would be fine." Pause. She says "Well, usually little ones take their naps in the middle of the day, so are you sure that is the best time?" Mother of preteen and teen replies, "Oh, yeah, little ones take naps during the day (or at least I hope so), so maybe early would be good." She laughs and we make a morning appointment. I am so out of practice for little ones. Are you scared for Emma? I am a little bit. I guess we are in this thing together!

Thank God this Day is OVER

Today is one of those days that all I can say is I am glad it is about over. Before I went to bed last night the oven went out. Of course it is 15 years old, so I guess it was about time. So now I need a new oven - great.

PALS is over and that is all I have to say about that. I passed, but it didn't come easily and thank God I only have to take it every 2 years.

Enough complaining, now I am going to rest for a while. With everything that was going through my head last night I think I finally went to sleep around 1 a.m. and then was up before 5 a.m. I am ready to call it a day.

A Busy Day - And Wait - WE ARE GOING TO CHINA

My attempt to study for PALS didn't go as planned. I did manage to study for an hour or so this morning, then I took a break and checked out some message boards. I began seeing that several people with the same RA dates as us had gotten their travel approvals. I immediately e-mailed our FC and our travel coordinator to see if ours had arrived and at the time, it had not. Our travel coordinator called me back and said she thought it would arrive this week and that I could go ahead and send our visa applications and all that goes along with that. I made a quick trip to the UPS office and sent our paperwork, ran a few errands, came home and starting preparing corn to freeze that my in-laws had sent us, and then I got THE CALL. We are going to China (if nothing happens:) August 28. Exactly one month from today!! I can't believe that it's finally happening!!

Now, I just had time to share our news and now I have to finish dinner and oh, yeah, I need to finish studying!!

The countdown begins. Hold on little sister, we are on our way!!!

Please pray for our family!!

Fingerprint Appointment - YES

We received paperwork today to have our fingerprints redone (3rd time - have I mentioned that). The weird thing is that the appointment is for next Saturday at 11 a.m. I can't believe that the government is doing fingerprints on a Saturday, but I am not complaining. Of course I have already made arrangements for Brady to attend Sylvan that day at 11 a.m., but I will make the necessary changes.

Brady and Bo went to see the Batman movie last night and Brady thought it was the greatest movie of all times. He especially liked the Joker. He called me at work after the movie to tell me about it and what he loved the most about the Joker was his thoughts about not making plans, just going with whatever happens. I can see where Brady would think that was a good thing. He's not much on making plans or sticking to them:)

We had a really decent night at work last night, another answer to prayer. Dede and I spent some time studying for PALS and I think she is really concerned about me. I didn't do very well on my drug dosages, but I will on Tuesday when I take the class. I plan on spending all day Monday studying for the class and then hopefully I will be fine on Tuesday. I just feel like my brain is in overload with everything that is going on in our lives right now and studying for a test is not helping it. I would hate to think I had to go back to school at this point in my life!

I spent some time reading the Rumor Queen yesterday and one of the topics over the last few days has been about anger. Anger regarding the adoption system, particularly in China. Anger regarding the wait times and all the hoops that we have to jump through and the end result being children that are sitting in orphanages waiting on forever families that should be getting out of those places much quicker. I don't claim to be an expert on adoption, I only know what we have gone through and what I have read about others and I too have anger towards the system. I look at Emma's face, the face that has no smile at all, and wonder why it has taken almost 2 years to get her out of an orphanage. I know that we are going to face substantial delays in her development because of the increased wait time. As a Christian, I believe that God has a plan for all of our lives and that she is coming to us on his time table, but I also believe that had she been paper ready for adoption more quickly, she wouldn't face as many delays. It's a complicated system and I have to say that as thankful as I am for her and what the adoption journey has brought to our lives, I don't think I could ever go through this again. The wait times are excruciating and I don't see any purpose in them. The children are the ones that suffer. As pointed out on RQ, the system in the United States is equally bad. I have been asked on several occasions why we didn't adopt from the U.S. and although it really isn't any one's business, I point out that adopting from the foster care system in the U.S. is a nightmare. The goal of foster care is to place those children back in their homes with the very same person or persons that have neglected them, abused them, etc. I know that sometimes the system works out and the parents turn over a new leave, but oftentimes that isn't the case and those kids stay in foster care much longer than they should. I'm of the notion that the parent should get 2 strikes at the most and then you lose your parental rights and that child is up for adoption. I've witnessed several times in the ER where those kids just get shuffled back to mom (sometimes mom and dad) and it's just a repeat situation.

So, the long and short of it, yes, I'm thrilled to be adopting our daughter. When I look at her picture and imagine what lies ahead for us as a family, I am very thankful that God has brought us together. Am I angry that she, and so many others, have had to wait so long and that the wait just continues to increase, you bet I am. Would I do it again, well, never say never, but due to the many new changes in the Chinese adoption system, Bo and I wouldn't meet the requirements. It's all so very frustrating and I hope that at some point, the grown ups who run the adoption world, start to look into the faces of all the children who are suffering. Whether they are Asian, Latin, American, whatever. It's about the kids and they are the ones with no voice. That's why we as parents have to be their voice.

Friday

Another busy week. I hate to sound like a whiner, but I have been so tired after working this week. Bo has been working late everyday and we have hardly seen each other. I am looking forward to the weekend and hopefully having some family time.

Our fingerprints expire today and the wonderful USCIS has not sent us our apt. to have them redone (for the 3rd time). I requested they expedite our case, but of course, their idea of expediting and ours is obviously not the same. I hope to hear something from them next week, or I may have to contact our Senator. We cannot have anything that is expired when we travel and I'm afraid this may end up being a problem for us.

Brady has survived his first week at band camp and has actually decided that he liked it. He has even complained about another kid who is older than him being a "whiner" and not liking the exercises and running. Brady said "Mom, you think I'm bad, you should listen to this kid". I'm glad to know he can recognize a whiner:) I was beginning to wonder.

Ashton was supposed to go to Nashville Shores today with his best friend, Daniel, but the weather has turned out bad. Well, bad for water parks, great for everything else because we desperately need the rain.

The building project is on hold until Monday. We have to get a lot of stuff out of the basement this weekend. Doesn't sound too fun, but at least we are making some progress.

More China facts: The People's Republic of China has a total land mass of 3.7 million square miles. At it's maximum, it measures approx. 3,100 miles north-south, and 3,230 miles east-west. Its land border is 14,168 miles long. Apart from the mainland, there are more than 5,400 islands.

It encompasses 5 time zones, east to west. Despite the great distance, the central Asian region of Xinjiang is on the same time as Beijing, which means that in practice it is still pitch dark at 10 o'clock in the morning. So people in Xinjiang go to bed at about 2:00 a.m. and get up around 10:00 a.m.

And on another note, that whole plane incident that occurred over water yesterday has not done anything to make me more excited about traveling to China. I have not even mentioned it to the boys and hope they don't see anything about it. I may be right along with Ashton and his 50 Benadryl to help him fly. (Not 50mg, 50 total!)

Gift Registry 101

I think I may have had more fun yesterday than I have had in a long time. I went to Target and registered for Emma's gifts and I had a blast doing it. The funny thing were the looks that I got from 2 relatively young pregnant ladies that were also registering. I'm sure they must have thought I had lost my mind. I'm obviously not pregnant and obviously not young, and yet I'm just scanning away at all these cool items. I really had fun and hope I didn't go overboard. It was like imaginary shopping, so what the heck!

I chose a different bedding set while I was at Target. The set was pretty cute and had lady bugs on it. I loved the colors and decided to go with it instead of my original plan. I also chose a lot of toys for her. That was fun too! Overall, as you can see, I had a blast.

The blast ended when I went to work. What a night! My body is screaming and I am heading off to bed so I can go back again tonight. My mother came and took Brady to band camp and Ashton has nothing on his agenda today. I'm hoping that I can get several hours of sleep with only minimal interruption.