XV

Well, our 15 month anniversary of waiting for referral came and went this weekend. I didn't realize it until today (which should tell you how eventful I subconsciously felt it was).

Funny story about our recent home study visit - Derby, our normally very shy kitty, decided he had a crush on our social worker. He was insistent on being near her, going so far as to inquire (and not politely) if he could share her chair with her (which was a dining room chair - i.e., no room for an adult-sized rear and a cat intent on being petted). Frustrated that she wasn't paying him enough attention, he jumped onto her papers and started attacking her hair (which was flying around as she talked). I wanted to crawl under the table. It's a good thing she likes cats. So much for his shyness....here he is showing off for the camera....



His brother Demo was comparatively a little angel. He went and laid on our bed after saying a quick hello...

All in all, our home study update visit went well, medical appointments have been completed, and financial statements are done...hmmm...what's left? Ah, the cats need their shots updated, and we still have to get our fingerprints redone, other than that we're almost officially approved to adopt again. Funny how almost two years later it feels much the same as it did on day one...

Mopping It Up

I'm cleaning our house.

Not the 'tidy up, dust and sweep type' of cleaning. The 'can you eat off of the baseboards' type of cleaning.

Why? Because our social worker is coming for a visit to update our homestudy. Yes, our eligibility to adopt is about to expire. And even though it will expire again before we're all said and done, I just can't let it lapse. It's important to me to be able to adopt at any moment, even if our moment is still several years in the future.

So, I'm cleaning my house from top to bottom. Well, from top to...lower middle. I don't mop. I can perform pretty much any other type of housework, some of it quite well, but I don't mop.

When I first met D., we were working together at an ice cream parlor. Every night at closing, the shop floor involved two jobs to get it clean - one person had to get down on their hands and knees and scrape all of the chocolate bits and spilled ice cream off of the floor, while the second employee came behind them and mopped it all up. I used to cajole, trade duties, and sometimes bribe fellow employees to mop the floor for me when it was my turn. Needless to say, when you are 15 and trying to get someone to go out with you, D. did a lot of mopping. We got laminate wood floors earlier this year. Twenty-one years after we met, and D. still does a lot of mopping.

It's a good thing I'm an expert at folding laundry....

How Important is a Box?

I always thought I'd see our referral date in it. I thought I'd print it out, save it for our daughter, maybe even put it in a scrapbook someday.

It's the infamous box.

For those who're not in the know about these things, the box was a source of information on the CCAA website that let us know each month what the referral cutoff date was, and what month the review room was on. Adoptive parents checked this box daily (and sometimes more often that that!), hoping for news that more LIDs had been referred, or that their file was finally in the clear.

Now the box looks like this:

China has again stepped in to stem the flow of public information to adoptive families. I am very thankful that my agency is generally forthcoming with accurate information about the state of adoption in China. That said, I can't help but be saddened that China feels the need to restrict yet another one of our lifelines to what the future might bring - - and when.

Finally, A New Year

I, for one, am extremely glad it's a new year. 2007 felt like a roller coaster ride, in more ways than one.

I'm trying to start 2008 with a positive attitude (despite finding out today that the CCAA limped along this month, issuing a measly few days worth of referrals). I'm trying to remind myself that since we're going to be waiting a whole hell of a long time, I'd better start living life the best I know how in the meantime. Here's to cranking up the optimism and moving forward one day at a time....

On that note, our holiday trip to Texas was nice, although we were sick almost the entire time. I always love spending a little time with family - we don't get to see ours as often as we would like. My nephew, who's about to turn 4, is on a Spiderman kick. We spent a LOT of time pretending we had webs coming out of our hands. I can't wait until he's got a little cousin to play with (which will hopefully happen before he decides that playing with girls is "icky").

Next on our our plate is a trip to Portland, OR later this month to see if we can hack the rainy season there. We're both anxious for a move, so we're hoping we'll find home in the Pacific Northwest. It's a bit different from the everlasting sunshine of AZ, though, so we're tiptoeing into things at the moment. Not sure where we'll ultimately end up, but wanting to live close to water really narrows things down. I prefer the ocean, but am willing to consider lakefront, as well, if anyone has any affordable-ish suggestions.

Change is in the air, in this new year - I am hopeful that good things are headed our (and your) way!