RIght Back Atcha!

Our i-600a came back today. Apparently I mailed it to the wrong office. As of April 1, it's a whole different form and possibly more complex process. So it goes out again tomorrow, overnight.

But the office is in Boston, and at least one website says Massachusetts won't let you file the form without the homestudy. But there's nothing I can do about that, it might be wrong, might as well put it back into play!

Athletic Support

Bart must decide between soccer and baseball this spring. He's six, and it seems like you should be able to learn both, but no, soccer takes three days a week and baseball two--both on the same two weekdays, too. But not at the same time! Ooh, we could do both!

No.

I like soccer, because it's after school, as opposed to at dinner, and there's running around. Poptart likes baseball on the grounds that it's harder to learn and more important to learn young. (Not that you see him out there tossing the ball around with Bart, because a) he does not have time and b) there is too much critique involved and Bart does not enjoy it and therefore does not want to do it after the first ten minutes.)

I don't really care, although I do resent the idea that sports take place at dinner time at six. I mean, older, I know this is going to happen, but SIX? How are we going to protest that if we participate, and does he have any idea what it's going to be like sitting there at dinnertime with Gert and Beau and waiting for baseball to end? Oh, I'll pick him up, Poptart says, and I say yeah, right, and then we fight. But he probably will, mostly some of the time anyway, and I could go home and not stay and watch, thus probably scarring Bart for life because of my lack of interest. Poptart will show up for the last ten minutes and then tell Bart everything he did wrong. (Sports are going to be an issue for our family, it's just the way it's going to be. Probably the worst one we've got. There's the way any given child does it, and there's perfect: i.e. the way the child should do it. Wild, natural enthusiasm and immediate talent are all that will be acceptable. Poptart claims all men are like this and that being told what you are doing wrong is the only way to learn.)

OK, so the real point--I told Bart to talk to his father about which sport to play. The deadline for baseball is Thursday. Every time I bring it up to Poptart he bites my head off. I don't want to think about it. I don't want to talk about it.
Well, they've got one more night with baseball as a possibility. I want to not bring it up again to punish Poptart for being a jerk about it (Even though we're on day six of the parents Granola and I should probably concede that that makes him testy, in fact it was making me testy tonight, about which more later, but they leave tomorrow). But that would punish Bart too.

Of all things to be a nag about...baseball and soccer. As far as I'm concerned he could take the spring off and just play in the yard.


Grrrr.

The Benefit of Many Other Things to Think About

The parents Granola continue their visit. Gert is under the weather--or fooling us into thinking she is due to her desire to stay home with Grandma and Grandpa. Which one we think is happening depends entirely on how recently she's had ibuprofin, so I'm thinking she's really at least a little sick...

We applied to the local independent (read: private) school for Bart. One slot open for second grade, and we found out today that it's his if we want it--which puts the ball squarely into our court. On the one side, small classes, personal attention, classic education featuring actual facts, spelling, math practice, tests, a feeling of being able to let go massive amounts of focus on child's education and assume those are in the hands of professionals. Also, major financial commitment (remember we're planning to have four of these little educable creatures soon). leaving the community schools, putting an additional badge of privilege on a child in a pretty privileged community, plenty of pressure to succeed (although only through eighth grade), risking alienating some of our neighbors, no more happy mornings at sing-along on Wednesdays and having to pack lunch daily--oh, and no bus.

On the other side, most of our community. Teachers willing to let child follow interests. possibly less homework, busses, lunch service, community, free, community, did I say free?

I'd really like to pack him up and send him to this nice, friendly little school. They must work hard but the kids seem relaxed and happy. Our community is, in all honesty, so privileged that I'm not sure anything we can do could make it much worse--I mean, we are really pretty removed from a major chunk of reality. Exposure to most of the real world of poverty, desperation, hatred born of those things and otherwise, struggling to find work, food, medical care--it's going to come through travel and education at either school. All the kids--even the future Mei Zie--could be there together for at least a year or two. We would know the community, the kids, what's going on without putting a huge effort into it.

I'm having trouble wrapping my head around the tuition, though, and especially now. FInancial life feels very precarious. This is a big burden to add.

So although I'm about to go downstairs and fill out a form and put stamp on a check, I DO have other things on my mind!

Happy Easter!

We don't actually do Easter, in the church sense. We do more the pagan spring celebration-style stuff--being, as we are, a mixed-religious background household of current atheists--a designation that's ever-changing, as it happens. Well, not the background. You can't change the fact that Poptart was raised Jewish and I was raised by lapsed Catholics with the recurring conviction, gathered from overheard comments, that I was not allowed to participate in any religious activities and that all church-related stuff was strictly verboten (and rather glamourous in my eyes). I later found out that the priest had solicited contributions at my sister's funeral and that my father, at least, had given up all religion then and there. My mother went agreeably to please her parents--or her mother, rather-when we visited and it never seemed to be a really big issue.

More than anyone needs to know, that. In any case it's all about the Easter Bunny here, with a pleasant disregard for whether he's real or not, because even with an almost 7-year-old in the house we're really just not that sophisticated. Although we did have a moment--there were change purses in the baskets with small amounts of change in them, and I referred to "the money your grandma gave you for Easter". Oops. But then I just said that I though Grandma had given them the money to put in the purses, and Bart said no, it was in there when they got them, and that was the end of it--or so I think. I don't really care if they believe in the Easter Bunny, actually, although I'd like to keep Santa going for a while. Poptart refuses to participate in any of it, out of respect, he claims, for his cultural upbringing, which he insists also included a refusal to participate in anything Valentine's related "because it's St. Valentine's day". I think "because that way I don't have to put up trees or hide baskets" would be more accurate!

Gert has the cutest basket--it looks like a big pink peep bunny. I can't wait to buy a yellow one, or maybe the yellow chick, for Four. I wonder what is Mandarin for four? I think I'll find out and start calling her that, or Mei Mei for little sister.

i-600a: Mailed. Obsessing: Temporarily on Hold for Fabulous Parental Visit

So that's done. I am left with nothing but a receipt, a copy and a lingering sense that I have either forgotten something or mailed it to the wrong processing address, but there's nothing I can do about that!
Which is a good thing, because the Parents Granola are here, and we haven't announced yet. We have every confidence in their being right on board with this program once it's rolling--and in fact I'm hoping that when we travel, they will come with us--but Grandpa Granola is a notorious second-guesser, worrier and parade-rainer, and even felt that the production of Beau (before the arrival of the much-loved Beau himself) might be too much for his Lola, already overwhelmed with babycare and scarcely recognizable as the go-getter he put through law school. (Successful freelancing and the publication of my book have eased that particular worry, too.)

So we're going to hold off, because we also haven't told the three yet (too long to wait, to many "ifs"). In fact we've told a total of three people. Poptart unexpectedly announced to our closest friends early in the process (which worked out well as it allowed us to go over that list, that awful list, with Dr. J) and I told a friend who's on the infertility train and looking this way.

Why not, you ask? Why not tell people, why not tell everyone? I've thought about that a lot too, and here it is: I'm so excited to tell people that I want to really enjoy it. I want to savor knowing before everyone else (shades of the first trimester!) and I want to be able to tell them, when I do tell them, we ARE doing it, here's who we're doing it with, our paperwork is done, our dossier in progress! In fact I may not even tell until we have a referral (although I can't believe I will be able to wait that long...plus we're going to have to explain those Mandarin lessons somehow!) (Seriously. Poptart has always wanted the kids and us to learn Mandarin. I had to convince him not to start Bart in kindergarden, and apparently I was wrong!)

So that's why.
Meanwhile, a good chance to breathe--everything I can do is in train, anyway. If the Homeland application comes tomorrow (and I really hope it will) I will fill it out and flip it back to them faster than you can say Xingfu!, but other than that, I'm going to enjoy my parents and the kids and a good weekend. Plus Beau's birthday party and Easter. So it's not like we're not busy!

Decisions--Preliminary. And one filled-out i-600a.

I think the Homeland Agency, and its Xingfu program, are right for us if they will work with us. I loved the sense that these people, with all of their depths of knowledge and experience, would be interested in getting to know us as a family, would know the children involved, if not personally then at least in the sense of really knowing where they come from--and would want to match us with Four. I could say more, and I will, but I am going to wait to apply to them and be sure that it works out. I have talked to other agencies and other possibilities--CHI being one I liked very much, with the advantage of working in our area--and I think I need to see how that plays out.

Filled out the big i-600a last night, got all the copies made, everything ready to go: And left it to sit until tonight. For one thing, it's never a bad idea to give something like that a second look before you send it. For another...well, it's a big step. But all I have felt all day is anxious to get it in the mail!

Poptart earned big points today by proposing, out of the blue, that if this happens we will need a lot more housekeeping help. Now that, gentlemen, is the kind of talk that gets a girl hot! (Aas my friends the authors of Finding the Doorbell would say, "it's the little things that get you laid!")

Progress, such as it is!

Ooh...exchanged messages with actual agencies and social workers today. I usually work "in town" (we live in a very small college town) while Gert is in school if Beau has a sitter, because I have to pick her up anyway, and I find the laundry and such shriek too loudly at me if I work at home. But I can scarcely call home study agencies from a table in the bookstore!

So I set up in a group study room at the college library. They are on spring break and the going was easy and the wireless strong and free.

I admit to calling my favorite possibility, the XingFu program in NYC, twice. Three times today, actually, but once was returning a call, I swear! Now I suspect they think I am crazy adoption stalker girl.

I hesitated for a minute before I dialed that first number. Calling is so much more real than emailing, or even joining a Yahoo group. It's calling. It's real. It's the first real step towards the part where the process takes over, and you'd have to take affirmative steps to stop the train. Are we really ready to fill out forms and sign checks and have social workers in our house?

Two things: One, I asked Poptart tonight not to tell Mom and Pop Granola about the crazy plan, henceforth referred to as Operation Four. He agreed without question, but I still explained: I have this feeling they will rain on my parade.

He nodded and kept eating Beau's birthday cake.

"How about you? Thinking of drizzling?"

"Nope."

"I guess that makes it our parade, then."

And I guess it does. The second thing? I'm awfully happy lately. Patient with the kids, bubbly, brimming with good cheer. A bit nervous, anxious, given to moments of this-is-all-out-of-my-control panic, but overall happy and...expectant. Which definitely told me something!