The Pattern Trap

Whoops!! I published this to this, my old blog, when I meant to add it to No Hands But Ours, and to my current, active blog: Raising Devils. I hope you'll click through to me there.



I've been re-reading some old blog and journal entries from our first weeks home with Rory. Mostly, I'm seeing how amazingly far we've come (and how painful it was to get there). But then there was this, taken from an incident just two months after we came home from China. (Because of her foster home, Rory spoke some basic English when she first arrived.)

I decided to make Rice Krispie Treats with Wyatt.
I read Rory a book first. When Wy ran to get the cereal, she strode confidently into the kitchen.
“I help too!”
“No, this is Wyatt’s job. You can help with dinner.”
“But I help too! I wan’ do butter!”
“No, Wyatt is going to butter the pan. Wyatt is going to put the marshmallows in. I will give you a marshmallow to taste, but this is Wyatt’s job.”
Rory wasn’t happy. She wasn’t happy while Wyatt dropped butter into the pan to melt. She wasn’t happy when Wyatt added the first bag of marshmallows. She wasn’t happy when he got to hold the wooden spoon, and at that point, I turned her firmly around and walked her out of the kitchen and around to a seat on a barstool.
“You can watch,” I said. “But you have to stop asking to help. This is Wyatt’s time.”
She pulled in a deep breath and I put a hand over her mouth.
“And if you start to cry or scream, you have to go upstairs. This is Wyatt’s time. When we are done, you can help make dinner, and Wyatt won’t help.”
A long moment passed, me with my hand over Rory’s mouth and Rory glaring at me above my fingers. I removed my hand and waited. If she started to scream, Wyatt’s “time” was over: I’d have to drag her upstairs, put her in her room, hold the door shut and go through the entire tantrum ritual. By the time we were done we’d be lucky if I had time to cook dinner, let alone finish the Rice Krispie Treats.
Instead, she nodded. I went back to Wyatt, so happy I handed him six mini marshmallows and gave as many to Rory. We were on! We were making Rice Krispie Treats, just like in the old days! Wyatt began to stir.
“Is I good girl, Mommy?”
“Yes, you’re a very good girl. Wyatt, get the spoon down to—“
“I very patient.”
“Yes, you’re very patient. Get the spoon all the way down to the bottom and—“
“I good patient girl?”
“Yes. Keep stirring, Wyatt.”
“Is you done yet?”
“No. Ok, let’s add the next bag of marshmallows.”
“Is my turn yet?”
“No. Here, let me help with the bag…”
And so on. Yes, she was patient. Yes, she was a good girl. Yes, she would get a turn next. Yes, she would help with dinner. Wyatt never said much at all. I made dinner, with Rory’s “help,” and then I locked myself in the bathroom for half an hour.


I read that with disbelief—because Wyatt and I made Rice Krispie treats yesterday, and—minus the initial teetering on the edge of tantrum—I could have written that fresh today.

Rory and I have fallen into a pattern. One of my favorite writers, Sarah Susanka, says "a conditioned pattern is a set of actions and responses that you've set to replay on automatic because it worked for you once a long time ago ... and you've continued to replay the same pattern every time the circumstances arise ever since." She says these patterns come from our hidden beliefs: in Rory's case, that if I'm not constantly acknowledging her presence, I'll forget her, and in mine, that I need to respect that need of hers even when it's to Wyatt and my detriment.

This isn't our only similar pattern. I've found a couple areas in which Rory and I are still saying—-to the word—-the exact same things we were saying to each other two years ago. I thought we'd come so far--but it one particular area, that of Rory competing for my attention--we're still very much trapped. And it's not good for either of us. I'm getting more and more impatient in my responses, and Rory is getting more and more desperate in her attempts.

And--this is key--I can't change Rory's behavior. I can only change me, and hope that my change helps her change. So, what am I going to do, the next time she goes with her frontal assault on my interactions with a sibling? I have a couple of ideas.

I've tried getting it out in the open (I've been aware of this as an issue, just not how long ago it started and how precisely, eerily similar our conversations are). "I love you so much, Rory," I say, "But I'm reading with Lily now." Or even "I know it's hard for you to see me work with Sam and not you, but I will work with you when I am done—IF you don't say anything else while I work with Sam."

That last one works--sort of. In that circumstance, she'll stand there, as close to us as possible, without speaking. Told to stand somewhere else, she stands on the edge of wherever she's supposed to be. In other words, she does as much as she possibly can of her pattern unless specifically, in so many words, required not to--to the point where giving her the instruction to get her out of the way is as time-consuming and attention-getting as, well, she wants.

I'm writing those off as failures. Here's my current plan: I'll ask her to do something for me. Something that should take her a long time. Something that should get her brain doing something else during the tough moments when she's not in what she perceives as the inner circle of my attention. But it can't always be the same thing. In other words, this is going to be a pain in my ass for a while. But two years of agreeing that she's a good, patient girl--when really she's NOT--aren't good for either of us. This is a pattern we've got to break free of.

I'm welcoming any other ideas!

Come to Raising Devils!

If you're here, you probably found me through a comment on another blog. That's the Blogger way: no links to outside blogs! But I still blog regularly, just not here--not anymore. Please visit me at RaisingDevils.com, where I blog (and bitch) about family bonds, balance and blend--and, of course, adoption, parenting and all things family.

KJ--aka Lola Granola

Goin' Public (at least for now)

This has been what I thought of as my "non-local" blog--the place I could write things that I might not want read by, say, the other moms in Bart's class.

But things are happening fast, and I'm blogging it all in the same place: Raising Devils. Please meet me there!

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.

Adoption Week (OK, Adoption Hoop Week)

For me, this is the week of adoption hoops. Tomorrow: Doctor's appointment. Friday: social worker. Saturday (supposed to be a BEAUTIFUL day): adoption education, 9-5. I mean, I would normally kind of enjoy that, but we don't get THAT many beautiful Saturdays. But okay.

And those are pretty much my hoops. After that I'm good--have to notorize a couple of letters and do the home meeting, but generally, nothing big left. Kind of amazing, that.

We have told my parents, and another set of friends--one is a pediatric plastic surgeon, so he knows his stuff on clefts and of course, that's a possibility, so we had to get the scoop. 

But that's what's up! My enthusiasm level is back, too. I'm in for the ride now.

I Should Be Really Excited

We commited. We're in, to the tune of about five grand. Agency fees and home study fees.

And we're kind of avoiding the subject. I sent perky little emails to the home study social worker and the agency people, all about fingerprinting and yes, limb differences are ok as long as it's not legs...Oh great.

What are we doing? Have we lost our minds? Is life not hard enough with three little kids that we feel compelled to add a toddler with some kind of issue who doesn't speak the language and has been raised in a Chinese orphanage and will probably hate us for weeks and then need all kinds of special this and that and the other--speech therapy, ESL, who knows what? Beau will bite her and Gertie will push her off of things and Bart will just moulder away from neglect.

Part of me says this is the same stuff I would think if I were pregnant. Well, except for the whole Chinese thing, but you know what I mean--the this is going to be a disaster of enormous porportions thing. Ginormous, even.

But we could turn back. Five grand is nothing if this is really the wrong decision...even as I type that I know that's not what I want either. But I don't feel like I thought I'd feel.

Probably only the beginning.

Hesitation

Still in a holding pattern on the China adoption. I'm ready--or think I am. Poptart is the holdout, in a sense. For me, it was the question: Four? Are we crazy? For him, I think it may be: China? Are we crazy?

And probably we are. I think about it a lot less at the moment--it was an obsession for a while. Now, it's more a fact of life. I think of it as something that's going to happen, but I'm okay with waiting on it for a while.

I kindof pushed at another blogger for waiting on her husband, saying why not get the ball rolling while you're deciding? I think now that that was pretty rude of me. This is a process and it's a different process for everyone. There are plenty of POVs around the the Nets, and then there are the majority of people who aren't out there blogging or posting on Yahoo groups at all, but just going about it. I think the Nets are pretty self-selective--if you aren't obsessing a bit, you aren't out here.

Me, I just like to blog.

Whiter, More Painful Teeth in Just One Hour!

I got my teeth bleached today. I've been longing to do it and just waiting for my dentist to offer it, but still, that plus a small weekend shopping spree have left me feeling like one of these people. Swear, I'm all done spending money for a while.

Especially since, although I love the way my new, vanity enhanced teeth look, they hurt. And I already have a cold, and the kind of laryngitis that makes words possible but exhausting effort, and as always way too much to do and way too little time to do it in. And did I mention my teeth hurt?

They say it will go away in a few days but what if it doesn't? What if I have achy teeth forever now, until I have to have them all pulled out and wear false ones, and they are all out of the really white false ones that make you look younger (ok, I admit it, that was the goal) and I have to have yellow ones, really yellow ones, yellower than my teeth, which the dentist has been insisting for years weren't yellow at all no matter what my mother says?

Speaking of dentists, this is apparently what they do. Come in for a fillling, or cleaning, or whatever, and they flit in, muttering, wave at you, maybe fill a tooth or two before rushing out. But let them paint a toxic substance all over your mouth while you wear a funky little guard to keep your tongue and lips from touching your teeth, and they will sit there with you all day. I think they just like looking at their vainest patients, dorky and drooling in the name of beauty.

Why nothing on the adoption front this week? Oh, a little more cold feet. Time to write the checks, baby, and We are both--really truly both---hesitating about rocking this boat. Gert fell asleep this evening for an hour (never a good idea but it didn't work out as badly as it usually does) and we were outside with Bart and Beau and it was...easy. Two is easy. Three is hard. Four is scary, and we're flinching. You know, it's not even a little about the special needs, or the trip, or anything else. It's about the kid. Who will be here, waking up in the night, running down the driveway, trying to sit in my lpa just because everyone else is.

That was supposed to make me not want her. It isn't working. I still want to do this, I just can't actually do it right now.

SO Not My Fault

How Lola starts her day with a small, secret smile (no, not what you're thinking!)
Stuffs Bart and Gertie into their boots and coats and whatnots and whizzles and shoves them out the door after Poptart. Scoops up Beau and heads back in for a peaceful morning. Well, ok, to wait for the babysitter and frantically prepare for a conference, but I enjoy that.
Poptart reappears.
"Did you put Beau down for a nap in my car yesterday?"
"Nope. Wasn't home before you, remember?"
"Oh. Did you get anything out of my car, then?"
"Nope. Haven't driven it in days. Have I mentioned that it's smelly?"
"That's my bike helmet. So you haven't been in my car?"
"Nope."
"Well, someone left the door open or something."
"Wasn't me."
"The battery is dead."
"Ah." I could see that coming, actually. Poptart's battery dies if you look at it funny. And I do mean his battery. Geez, your mind!
"I need you to help me jump it." (You really have to imagine the snarliest, grumpiest possible tone you can imaginecoming from someone referred to as "Poptart.")

It was the most fun I've ever had jumping a car. Because honestly, that sort of thing usually is my fault. And this wasn't. And he knew it.

Chilly Feet

Not literally (although I did think I had frostbitten toes after my first bike ride of the season this past weekend).

But freaked-out-edly.

Me, a little bit. I look at beau in his crib and he is so happy, and he really is just a fabulous little two-year-old pudding, the best and most amazing little guy, and the thing is, he is NOT going to like this. Not at first, anyway. Gertie was a charming and happy flirtacious little 20-month-old when beau popped her bubble, and now she's difficult kid supremo numero uno. her first reaction to anything is nearly always no, I don't wanna, you can't make me. I mean, that's probably a personality defect, but who knows?

So I'm a little but going hey, why are we thinking about rocking the boat here?
Poptart says, isn't this going a little fast? (He says this as he contemplates the upcoming rash of large fees.) I say, it will slow down a LOT once it's started. He says well, i maybe need to have it slow down a bit now. We are going away together, just the two of us, this weekend (second time since the advent of Beau! And I could probably count the times since Bart showed up on one hand...maybe two.) Let's sit and talk.

So we will. And the minute I said of course, let's, things relaxed. We are still having meeting #1 (the introductory meeting) with the social worker tomorrow am. I think that will get us talking. Otherwise we tend to do more than we talk..and if he doesn't want to address a subject I really hate bringing it up, and he avoids the strangest things (witness the baseball/soccer incident). I know what he means, though--it's just being so incredibly exhausted and not wanting to DEAL.

In other news, the reason we're away is a writing conference for me. I have a few meetings with magazine editors--one in particular that I REALLY want to write for--that I'm really excited about. I should be prepping. I need brilliant pitch ideas, and I need 'em now!

An Official Document! A Very Tiny One!

Well, we are now official--at something. The USCIS sent us a little tiny reciept, like a cash register receipt, for our money order. They divided it up according to the official fee and the two fingerprinting fees, so they did, apparently know what it was for. And there it was, all alone in its little hand-addressed envelope.

I put in the big drawer of adoption stuff, which is apparently my idea of "being really organized about this."

Telling Secrets

I've told four friends now, and I swear I'm stopping. On the one hand, that covers all of our recommendation people, which is good and would have had to be done sooner or later. On the other, I suspect it guarantees that when I tell most other people in a few months, they will somehow already know. Cause this is a super small town, and people are just like that. I guess that's ok.
I did mean to tell this last friend, and had been planning on it--all are people I want to know. So that's ok.

Really.
OK maybe I'm not so sure about that. Not sure why, either.

A Meditation on Special Needs

Today I've been giving more thought to the "special needs" part of special needs adoption. The most common relatively easy ones seem to be cleft lip/cleft palate and heart defects, of the easily repaired and already repaired variety or sometimes of the needing more surgery variety, especially for younger babies. Then we have premature birth, spina bifida, varying degrees of developmental problems and so-called limb differences--oh, and "ambiguous genitalia". Bringing up the rear in terms of things I can remember at the moment is albinism--oh, and other skin issues, which I assume to include birthmarks--and burn scars.

That's quite the list. It all reminds me a little of that popular parlor game, "Which Disability Would You Rather Have"--which usually starts with drunken questions like "Would you rather be blind or deaf?" and "Would you rather lose an arm or a leg?" and generally goes on from there, only with two especially bleak additions: the disabilty, if that's what it is (I know some of those needs aren't disabilities) goes to your child, and the children alredy exist. You've got skin in the game, as it were.

So our list of things we can cope with probably tends towards the usual, with an emphasis on short term and resolvable issues, and maybe a slight extra willingness with respect to things that are going to require additional medical care, like heart defects--but only the ones that are considered fixable, and I can't say I've thought too much about the fact that that's really not a 100% guarantee. Certainly I should. And I will. I don't want my zeal to be a good AP, one who genuinely wants to adopt a child who needs us and, in some sense, not take the opportunity to adopt a child away from someone childless--to haul us blindly into something that will clearly be too much for us to handle and continue giving the BGB three what they need.

So I got to thinking today about ambiguous genitalia and about "limb differences". To address the second first, I had included on my prelimary form to the agency limb differences not affecting mobility--and I think I/we should rethink that. (In all honesty I filled out the form myself, after discussion but not enough of it.) So, follwing a great add for cars, of all things, that's been running in all kinds of magazines and features a beautiful fit young woman with an artificial leg, and thinking again about all the opportunities here for a child with only one leg to get that kind of treatment, and also to learn to ski and play and generally just get on with life, I had to wonder--maybe we could do that. I have to look into it.

I'm iffy on the one arm (as I've said before, you don't really know yourself until you think about this stuff) because that's less easy to--not hide, but tuck away--and also I think might actually impact your life more, and I'm not sure that I can either deal with that myself, as a parent, or help a child learn to deal with it. And I'm not saying one should hide one's disabilities, but that it's nice to be able to choose not to reveal them constantly, especially if you are a child whose status as an adoptee is going to be nearly always on view.

As for ambiguous genitalia, I don't have time to meditate fully now, but I read
this piece in the New York Times magazine and it made me think.

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!")