Waiting...

Waiting fr our referral. I almost don't want to post, or say or do anything, for fear of jinxing it. And the kids are ALL OVER THIS. They talk all the time about their sister who is coming. They tell friends, which has led to some interesting discussions in odd places, like the changing room at hockey, since although they all know kids who were adopted they just never think about it.

We are learning mandarin at a record pace, and if asking "what color is that?" "What is your name?" or What animal is that?" will help in China, we are all set. We can also tell people they have cute hats. In fact, if the hats are red, blue, green, yellow, orange or purple, we can tell them they have a cute ___ hat. I have a feeling that unless they speak very slowly, or are a panda bear hand puppet, we will not be able to understand anyone else at all.

1-171 Thingy

Obnoxious--we sent in our Homestudy, and five days later (including a weekend) we had our approval. After all the reading of timelines and the 1-800a process, I was expecting a three month wait. But happily, the I-600 still seems to be rolling along.

Our preliminary papers head off to China to be matched with a referral in the next few..weeks? months? Who knows. All depends on who waits in those orphanages. 6 more just got added to our program, so I envision lots of kids, waiting--like a store with Cabbage Patch Dolls that didn't open until hours after all the other stores had been cleared out or something. I envisioned the two initial orphanages as getting rather cleaned out. I know that's not true, but it does seem like youngish girls with mostly minor needs (we have a few slightly biggy-er ones we can deal with) go like hotcakes. Everybody wants a girl? Why is that? For me, it's A) because Gertie needs a sister and won't let me pick out her clothes and B) a Chinese girl is only half different from me.