I know its a holiday week

and I shouldnt expect much in the way of governemnt work but I keep hoping. dhs can run those prints quick as a wink. why dont they?? agency checked on it today and says needs more time. Appaently THIS is the only state around that demands prints. they CAN go and do a manual search. I had to do that myself for the dossier. took all of ten minutes. why cant THEY do that? and why the prints if it really makes no difference? I mean wouldnt anything they would come up with come up on my federal prints? seems a little redundant but thats MN for ya, redundant. When we got married we were heading out of state for three years so didnt bother getting new license before leaving. so while we were gone I had my passport amended with the appropriate documents. and when we returned to MN I had to provide actual proof of the name change, the fact that the feds said it was ok wasnt enough for them they wanted the marriage cert. too much beaurocracy in this state!!! too much I tell you!! My kids are suffering and waiting and we are suffering and waiting because someone somewhere is on a power trip. I want so badly to see them, to touch them, to hold them. and it is nowhere in sight. everything is dependent on this ONE THING. oh please someone get the job done so we can get going!!

County Assessor form

I think I got it right this time. waiting final approval of Mer and Mac but no cross outs, notary not until 2012, all in blue, all parts filled in, on letterhead. Had to get a notary from veteran affairs office to go with me since no one in the actual courthouse has a notary that goes out far enough. this means I no longer have to deal with IMPOSSIBLE people at mortgage co.

Have a call in to my ageny about my prints. that is the limiting factor here. the thing that is driving me NUTS waiting for. it is holding up the hs as well as the I600A. Good thing I filed the I600A already because I would hate to have to wait even LONGER if I sent it in when I got the hs. Come on prints, get approved! I swear there is nothing in my record so someone just approve those things already!

today was great!

we went to the redezvous today and did lots of neat things. the little kids threw tomohawks!! we used a double handled blade to help a guy carve a piece of osage orange that is being turned into a bow. chrysta eric ethan maia and I all tried it. it was neat. we saw a blacksmith working. it was neat. I should have great photos to insert here but I dont since someone misplaced my bttery charger for my camera.

Ethan and Maia are learning to ride bikes!! they are doing great!! all training wheels are off! the training wheels were breaking and each bike was down to one so I said ok off they come! Even Ethan is working at it, he was pretty hesitant to even TRY the other night when we got out the bikes, now he is almost riding!! all he needs is confidence!

DARN! wrong again!

I didnt notice but the notary crossed out a number! I guess that's a no no. no crossed out anything. if you mess up you do it again, you cant cross it out. better yet DONT MESS UP! AND no one in the court house had a notary that expired later than jan31,10 which means I need to find my OWN notary to take with me and go have them REDO it. the only thing that makes this such a hassle is its a good 30 miles away! but hey! closer than maryland!(where the home office of our mort co is) so Now I have to scrape up a notary. where would I find one of those? I have a freind who said she would notary anything I needed but guess what? hers expires the same time. anyone in THIS town isnt really useful since I have to go to THAT town 30 miles away. There is a branch of our credit union there. maybe I can get someone there. gosh who knew this was gonna be so hard! Well at least they were sympathetic at the assessors office and didnt even bat an eyelash at filling in the numbers for payment and balance. so off we go to do it again. not until next week of course since the court house isnt open on saturday! Monday I will call my hs agency about my prints and see where that is. I WANT WANT WANT all this to fall together quickly and smoothly and that is not at all what is happening. GRR! ok, deep breath, now go do that form over and be thankful you can. yes thats what I need to say instead.

county assessor letter/mortgage letter

I went to the county, brought my bill, asked them to put the letter on letterhead, fill it in and notarise it. they did. no questions asked. they didnt even charge me. that was WAY easier than dealing with citimortgage!!! still awaiting final approval from meredith. now if that pesky fingerprinting background check would come back we would be in the swim. HURRY UP ALREADY!!! I want them home!

Guess what!

the mortgage letter came!!
and GUESS WHAT! it's wrong.
sigh. why is this so difficult to understand?
It WAS notarised this time but didnt include all the
necessary information. grrr.

Maia keeps calling the kids Sophie and Jack. she wants him
to be "not Jackson. Just Jack." so she says should we get
____ for sophie and jack? and I am like huh? who? I love
Jack. I really do. I always wanted a Jack. But there is a nephew with
the same last name who goes by Jack. I thought of calling him A.... Jackson
and then call him AJ or jack but it wouldnt be his legal first name. of course the other Jack's name is really Jacob. so Jackson wouldnt mix things up.
I just polled the kids and three said Jackson and one said Sawyer. of course daddy
holds the final vote lol. I just cant seem to get used to calling him Sawyer. I hadnt wanted to call him Jack because of the other Jack but since that Jack has all but fallen off the face of the earth maybe it will be ok? tell me what you think?

yes virginia there really IS a santa clause

the mortgage guy I spoke to yest who was going to ask the higher ups to please do that called me back promptly at 8 this morning as he said he would and said its on the way. he wanted them to overnight it but they had already sent it out before he could even ask them to overnight. so should be here soon. I am hope hope hope hoping it is the RIGHT THING. if it isnt I dont know what I will do! printed out all my other dossier papers. Hopefully thurs we can get those done. then its hurry and wait for the prints to go through, the hs to be printed, the ins to approve and then we will have it all.

I JUST realized

That the information on the county assessors form is exactly the same(plus a little) as the form I need from the mortgage co. Makes me wonder why they need TWO forms that say the same thing? why is this so difficult?

!

redid my fingerprints for the adam walsh today. Went to another county where they did them manually and not on computer. the woman said she had been there 9 years and for adoptions they never do them on computer and she hasnt had any come back that she knows of. turns out I have poor minutia in my prints. she wrote on there that these were the best prints available and also her name and number and I mailed them off already. My own county woudlnt do them until weds or thurs. I didnt want to wait that long. it was cheaper and they could do them today in the neighbor county. I live just off the highway that divides the counties so it was actually closer to go to the other county, not to mention faster. sent those directly to DHS without stopping at the agency, so hopefully they will work them quickly. I also spoke with the man who I was to send them to twice today so hopefully when it hits his desk he will have a moment of recognition and do it quickly!

as for the dreaded mortgage letter, I am getting nowhere. I spoke with someone today who said they would ask the higher ups. so still I have no letter and do not know for certain I will get one. I called the county assessor, the county recorder, the title company, and about 15 people at citimortgage. we pay our mortgage faithfully but I would hate to be someone who really needed help with some mortgage problem because it is IMPOSSIBLE to get anything done with them.

so those two things are the holdup. once the prints clear should be smooth sailing for hs and I600A and need only a few more simple documents for dossier and the daarn mortgage letter.
Hang in there Sophie and Sawyer I will be there just as fast as I can!

The Look

I got the look again yesterday. Ethan told someone (who knew we were adopting) about his new brother and sister have legs thaat dont work. they gave me the look. the WHAT? their legs dont WORK? wht do you mean their legs dont WORK!? I just said they have a joint disorder and carried on with what I was doing. I am prepared for strangers to give the look but this is someone I know and respect and she is a NURSE so she should know better. she works with mostly elderly though so maybe she doesnt encounter a lot of young people who are different physically. the look still really hurt my feelings. I have to get me some thick skin in a hurry. I have to for the kids so that they can learn to let comments roll off. I do think it very sweet though tht ethan is so excited about his brother and sister.

6.9.09 FAXed letter to mortgage co at their insistance that they wouldnt do anything without it, and IF we faxed it we should have our document by monday. today its friday. nothing. and what are the chances I talk to someone who has a clue? slim and none.

the good the bad and the ugly

we went to our appt at BCIS yesterday. filled out the paperwork and did our prints along with lots of other people from everywhere. We sat next to a young man from Kenya. he was very nice and it was fun to hear him talk. I loved his accent and we love learning about other places. we also got the background police check done.

hurried out of the city so we would have time to stop for a swim on the way back.

thats when things turned ugly. it turns out that the prints i did for the adam walsh background check for the HOMESTUDY wasnt acceptable. or werent accepted. so I have to do them again. why did it take them a MONTH to tell me they werent acceptable?? Erics check is back fine. but again no homestudy without the release of the background check. so now I have to wait for the form to arrive, wait for the day the county does these, and wait for them to redo them. grrr. GRRRR I say! a MONTH! it took them a MONTH when they claim they can do these in MINUTES! I suppose just because they CAN do them in minutes doesnt mean they INTEND to. so I waited a month only to do it all again and wait who knows how long again. so now my I600A is all ready to go....except they dont have my hs....and they WONT have my homestudy until I get the adam walsh back, whenever THAT is. I am so discouraged. This little boy especially is on borrowed time. the little girl isnt yet 4 but the boy is 5 and half! any day they could tire of caring for him or need his spot for a new child and he would be sent away. oh I hope we can get there in time.

adam walsh

well I called the agency and eric's is in but not mine. what the heck? why dont they process them TOGETHER??? Eric's is in but mine still says need more time. how much time do they need, I dont even have so much as a PARKING TICKET! my background check should be completely clean. I have never been in trouble with the law even before I was 18. I have never had a speeding ticket, or a parking ticket. not here not in Iowa. so why is it so hard to finish my background check and send it on??? this is SO FRUSTRATING!! and oh by the way it takes a week to get the hard copy after it is approved online. His was approved today. GRRRR. DHS says on their website that it can be done in minutes! hours! instead of days or weeks or months. and yet...here it is a month later and it still isnt done. guess grandpa wasnt right when he said they wouldnt print it if it wasnt true gal!

do they not understand the incredible urgency here? sure I suppose everyone having it done says its urgent but I think if dhs had the kids interests at heart like they claim they would be in a hurry to get these done and sent on to appropriate agency. instead they draaaaag their feet. and draaaaag their feet some more.

I think I am going to go read Mercer Mayers book "I was so mad" because right now I AM MAD!

so where IS it?

In the past, it has taken weeks and months for results from the FBI check to come back. What does DHS estimate will be the turnaround time for Adam Walsh fingerprint-based FBI checks?

A: DHS will be submitting fingerprints in a new way. FBI-approved scanners will be installed which will allow DHS to scan fingerprint cards, rather than sending them over to the BCA. Once scanned, the image will be sent electronically through the BCA to the FBI. The results will be returned electronically to DHS. What we anticipate, particularly when there is no FBI record, is that the results will be returned within minutes or hours, rather than weeks or months.


its been a MONTH! where the heck is my background check??? its holding EVERYTHING up!!!!

thinking again.

I was talking to this lady at the store and she was saying how her husband thought that if they had adopted a black child he would have been out there playing football or basketball. but that they never did adopt because of opinions of the time. This got me to thinking. stereotypes. Not all kids of color are sporty. some are writers or poets or bookworms or just ordinary kids who arent interested in sports. that is like assuming every one who is tall plays basketball. which leads me to wondering what people will think when they see my kids. They are obviously different. but what stereotype will people put them in? incapable? brain damaged? I generally see people in wheelchairs as people whose legs dont let them walk for whatever reason. That is what I teach my kids. people in wheelchairs are there because they are unable to walk and the chair helps them get where they are going. But what do other people see? do they see someone less than themselves? I dont care so much what anyone thinks of me for having them, but it breaks my heart to think someone would think of THEM as less important, less special, or just LESS of a person. kids are kids. big ones small ones kids who walk kids who roll kids who talk kids who sign kids who see kids who dont they are all just kids. kids who play kids who need kids with feelings. I imagine I am entering a whole new world bringing home these kids. I will probably see a lot of things I have never seen or noticed before. of course one look at those little faces and I am willing to deal with anything thrown at us along the way.

lullaby

my daughter likes me to sing this song to her. it struck me as appropriate for my kids far away.

Somewhere out there beneath the pale moonlight
Someone's thinking of you and loving you tonight

Somewhere out there someone's saying a prayer
That we'll find one another in that big somewhere out there

And even though I know how very far apart we are
It helps to think we might be wishing on the same bright star

And when the night wind starts to sing a lonesome lullaby
It helps to think we're sleeping underneath the same big sky

Somewhere out there if love can see us through
Then we'll be together somewhere out there
Out where dreams come true

And even though I know how very far apart we are
It helps to think we might be wishing on the same bright star

And when the night wind starts to sing a lonesome lullaby
It helps to think we're sleeping underneath the same big sky

Somewhere out there if love can see us through
Then we'll be together somewhere out there
Out where dreams come true

thinking about the surprises in this adoption

I always thought if I had an unexpected pregnancy I would always refer to it as a surprise because it was something you didnt know you wanted until you got it. Well my adoption plans went sort of that way. I knew what I wanted. A baby. First I had to convince husband we needed to adopt at all. once he was on board with that it was really him who said lets bring home the second one. Of course I said absolutely! But before all that I had this neat little plan of who our child would be. He or she would be young. maybe a year or so. definitely NOT older than 2 or barely 3. They would have some simple easily fixed health problem or maybe no health problem at all. but definitely something fixable in the short term. Twins would be the only way I could get two home I thought. so most likely just one would come home. And come from Ethiopia. I felt called to Haiti but Haiti wouldnt allow us due to family size and length of marriage. and then one day I saw little Sophie and she just stuck in my mind and weighed on my heart. But I wanted a baby I said to myself. I tried everything I could think of to find a family for her. it became clear to me that I needed to be her family. all my "baby dreams" needed to go out the window because this GIRL, this CHILD, needed me more than any baby. I vividly remember spending the day pondering if she would ever get the chance to be outside in the wind and run and have her little blonde pony tail bobbing up and down. I could give up my dreams for myself but I couldnt give up on her. Eric, ever the doubter took one look at her and said go get her. thats all I needed. I was over the moon. She isnt a baby. and thats ok. then we talked about the second child and I remember that very clearly too. I was over the moon again. so here I am in the midst of adopting not one but TWO children who are FAR from being a baby and are not perfectly healthy and are NOT easily fixed. but I am ready. Ready to bring them home in all their imperfections and see only perfection. Ready to bring them home and make them as much my "babies" as they can be. Ready to love them unconditionally. Ready to help them with what may be a life long struggle with their disabilities. Lord I am ready. I am ready to make them my own, even though they are not what I thought I wanted. I knew what I wanted, but what I needed overpowered and I need to have these children, not just any children THESE children in my home in my life in my arms.

grab my button!!

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We are hoping and planning to bring home two children with special needs. One little boy and one little girl. While we are excited to have them and make them part of our family we need your help to make it all possible. Adoption is an expensive venture and we need all the help we can possibly get to bring them home. Your help is appreciated even if its only a dollar or two.


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I sold another bracelet today

rearranging and arranging

preparing for kids. the crib has been moved into my room (in toddler bed form) and in order to do that I had to rearrange and clean up my room. now to go finish cleaning up Ethans room to put the other little bed in there. Eric wants it done before the homestudy visit. since she cancelled for today that gives me time to get things changed around. I know it will be a bit before they come home but it makes him feel better to show the sw that we HAVE SPACE for them. we can acommodate them. Looking so forward to getting all papers in order and apostilled and being able to send off our dossier. all has gone REALLY well so far hope it keeps up. so far nothing like the last one. well back to work.

BCIS APPPT!!! PROGRESS!

remember the six week thing? the letter came today!! we have apts on june 18 for fingerprinting! yay!!! AND its on a thursday which is Erics day off! PERRRRFECT!

tomorrow the social worker is supposed to stop by but I havent heard from her as to what time....

aaaaand I got the letter from the mortgage company....and of course it isnt correct. it has the correct info but is not notarised. Not sure what to do now since I cant seem to taalk to anyone who isnt in India! I said several times NOTARIZED IN BLUE. do you understand? it MUST BE NOTARIZED! MAKE SURE its notarized in BLUE! and guess what it isnt notarized at all. how does one talk to someone in the states???? I called every number i could get for the company. and of course there isnt even an office in this STATE for them. We have our mortgage with citimortgage has anyone had any experience with them? can anyone give me any clues? hints? phone numbers?

edited to add: talked with sw and she isnt coming this weekend. but said it wont hold up the hs at all. it is already written but still waiting for the stupid adam walsh check to come back!

I600A

got a receipt from bcis. they got the money. which means they got the app. and the letter says we will hear from them for fingerprinting within SIX WEEKS! good god! sixWEEKS???? thts insane! oh please dont let it take six weeks. I do not want to go to the country in the middle of the winter. We did that last time we adopted. cant we go in the summer/fall when we could get outside a little? comeON! seriously? six weeks? maybe someone will write and say hey they told us the same thing(st paul office) but it only took one or two weeks. couldnt someone tell me that? PLEASE? anyone? anyone? Bueller? Bueller? will it go faster when our hs arrives to go in the file? That should be finished up this next week I would guess since she is coming to the house on Sunday. oh gees six weeks isnt what I wanted to hear!!! not at all.

Bryce is out Sawyer is in. Sophie and Sawyer. has a ring to it. doesnt it? Sophie and sawyer sawyer and sophie. Eric likes spencer but I think I like sawyer better than spencer. so you tell me sophie and sawyer? or sophie and spencer?

You are crazy!!

If one more person tells me I am crazy for adopting I am going to scream. seriously. if you dont know what to say or you are shocked that we would even consider TWO children with special needs feel free to say "I am shocked" or "I just dont knwo what to say" its preferable to YOU ARE CRAZY! if you gave birth to a child and he or she surprised you by not being born the way you expected them to be would you want people to say when they see the child "you are crazy!"? Why do these kids need a home less than kids without special needs? why am I crazy for wanting to give not one but TWO kids a chance at a future that will not be offered to them in their own country? Why am I crazy for thinking outside the box and having more children through adoption and not pregnancy? when your cousins brothers friend has her 8th pregnancy does anyone say to her You are crazy? no. does anyone look at the duggars with 18! children all by birth and tell them they are crazy for having so many children? no they tune in to watch. so how is my ADOPTING two children crazy? how am I crazy for giving of my time and of myself to help someone (two someones) who have less than me?

moving along

paper trail
I have a lot of papers "in progress" several printed and ready to be signed and some still need to be printed but cant be because I dont have husbands new passport yet. pretty much everything on the checklist for dossier is either in hand, in progress, ready to be signed or waiting for passport. the medical forms are with the doc and I just had my mantoux checked. of course the dr license is coming too. INS is filed. homestudy is almost finished and along with that goes sw license and agency license. Expect that to be finished any day. Waiting for the thing from the mortgage company(of course when you can only speak to someone in Indiam chnces are it will not be the correct thing. Erics passport is in process and they are saying approx 2-4more weeks. hoping for TWO! have marriage licenses. tomorrow we will get the state clearance from beaureau of criminal investigations or whatever they are called. this dossier is coming together a lot faster/easier than when we went to Russia 5 years ago. Not sure why. maybe its the knowledge of having done it once already, maybe its having a hs agency who wants to finish the hs and is in regular contact with me(yknow instead of moving and losing my phone number) maybe its not using the crummy placing agency we used last time. or any combination thereof. its just been easier.

given that both kids are not mobile can any one who has already been there guide me on how to get them home? strollers for each? double stroller? slings(not sure how that will work with their disabilities) carry them? I think thaat arms are going to get tired and strollers are a better option than slings because of their ages. husband thinks slings will be better and easier and we shouldnt worry about it right now. My thoughts are that if I am going to take strollers/stroller I do not want to put my good one on the airplane and I could get one/two from garage sales this summer, and need to keep my eye out for one. I have a double stroller in good clean shape. much like new. I have a single stroller I love love love and used for my daughter. but I would hate for something to happen to it on the plane, already the brakes no longer work. and I have a cheapo that is just too short for us. very hard on the back. so tell me your thoughts veteran parents.

thank you so much Sharon and Andy!

working with the gov

is an incredibly frustrating process. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

bracelets

wow! We had about 5 with us tonight at 4H meeting and they sold quick. I think I better take them everywhere I go!

medical appt aand ppd done.