Drowning in a sea of bureaucracy

I suppose now that we are on the "home stretch" to becoming a family of four, I should start blogging more often. Honestly things just get so crazy around here! And yes, all you mothers-of-more-than-one who are currently chuckling to yourselves, I do realize that it will only get crazier. But today P was playing superheroes and I thought, "Gosh, won't it be great when he makes his little brother play Robin instead of me." (Why he won't let me be something cooler and more gender appropriate, like Catwoman, I don't know.) Okay, so in my delusional mind my two boys are always playing peacefully and no one is calling anyone a name or poking anything or touching any toys that are not theirs to touch. (Insert "Maaaaaaahhhhhhhmmm" here)
I digress. Progress update on J: We have sent in all the paperwork, and then resent it a week later when they realized our name was misspelled. As luck would have it, our fingerprints for immigration expired eight days after we got our referral. We had sent in a request for re-prints a few weeks back and they happily cashed our check and sent us a note saying they were "processing our paperwork". Which was great since, well, there was nothing to process!! All we need is a letter saying we can get reprinted, aka the fingerprint permission slip (our social worker called it the FPs - I mean, what else could it stand for?) I finally got in touch with someone over at immigration, got the permission slip, & now need to figure out how we are both going to get downtown before three M-F to get re-fingerprinted. I seriously have lost count as to how many times my prints have been taken; let's just say it's a really high number.

REFERRAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

P is going to be a big brother!!!
A few weeks ago I noticed that our fingerprints were about to expire. I shot off an email to our agency to see what we needed to do to update them. When our social worker called me back, she said that things were looking good for us - that we should receive a referral by the end of the year. I started collecting and organizing the appropriate paperwork, and figured we'd hear the news around Christmas. What a great present!! Three days later, on Friday afternoon, we were getting ready to finally go out and celebrate P's KTA day at the "pencil sharpening restaurant" when my phone rang. I assumed it was my friend calling about plans for Saturday. It was 4:00. CJ brought the phone to me.
"Is it Nicky?"
"Uh, no."
"Hello?"
"Hi, Sandi. This is ***. I have some news for you but I'm not sure how you will feel about it."
"Ok."
"I have some paperwork here. For a little boy. He's really cute. Healthy and developing well. You can wait for the next one if you want, but I can't promise it will come this year. And it may be another boy."
It takes me a few minutes to process this. See, we had told our social worker we hoped for a girl to complete our family, but I think I always knew in my heart that we would have two boys. After all that we have been through to create our family, I am not about to question God's plan. About 45 minutes later, pictures arrived via email. Honestly, what's not to love? This past week has been a blur of paperwork as we prepare to officially accept the referral. Hopefully our boy will be home late spring/early summer. Stay tuned!

Rock star

I've been reading Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, and he talks about how practicing something for 10,000 hours is the key to success. If that is the case, my son is well on his way to drumming greatness. "You better watch out!"

Hallween successes and failures

Halloween '09 seemed to last forever. Is it me or did the decorations appear extra early this year? Around the same time as school supplies? Hubby says it is because the economy is hurting and retailers need to push for every penny. The over abundance of consumerism makes me nostalgic for a time when you could just piece together a creative costume out of stuff in the closet rather than watch your child pour over the party city catalogue and carry it around like a comfort object. With that said, when he decided he wanted to be a ghost I thought, "Cool. I can cut some holes in a sheet." Apparently he spent the evening trying to readjust his eye holes while running from house to house. At one point he ran into a tree. (There goes Mother of the Year award!) He kept making the holes bigger until eventually there was one hole... for his entire head. I would have taken an after picture (of what the costume looked like when he returned from trick-or-treating) but he tore it off and headed straight for the kitchen to investigate his loot.

In the meantime, I had tons of fun coming up with creative dishes for our little get together. And CJ had a ball decorating the front yard. He made a coffin for our "zombie" and had motion sensor lights. (Ok, so we did make a few purchases - we had to do our part as good Americans after all.) Now that it is November, I am ready to rest. But I've noticed that retailers wasted no time with Christmas decorations. Welcome to the two month countdown... ho, ho, ho.

Our little helper

The boy likes to "help" with household chores and has been enthusiastically chipping in with outdoor fall cleanup. However it seems that when he is with his father, the helping is actually productive, versus when he is with me and it appears to be more, well, counterproductive. He regularly helps daddy mow the lawn (don't my boys look cute in their matching ear protection?) and has also helped to rake the leaves and set up for Halloween. I took him out to rake the other day and after making a nice pile for removal, he proceeded to "un-rake" it.

The weather outside is frightful

I love fall, and I have to admit that this one has been a little disappointing so far. It seems like every time we try to have a little fun in the great outdoors, the weather is miserable. Rain, rain, rain, rain. What - did I move back to the Pacific Northwest? Yesterday we headed out to our favorite pick your own pumpkin place, and the mud was so thick I was worried it would suck the boy down into the great beyond. Meanwhile, wind is wiping my hair in such a fashion as to make it nearly impossible to choose an acceptable gourd. The positive in all of this? Our pumpkins this year are monster-sized. They will probably be tasteless from all the water retention, but they are HUGE. Yes, we eat the pumpkin guts after carving jack-o-lanterns. I make a fantastic pumpkin soup. And yes, I am aware of my pessimistic attitude. The depressing autumn situation has made me a bit jaded. Needless to say, I shucked out all our available cash to pay for our mutant pumpkins while husband and the boy trampled knee-deep in the muddy corn maze. I have zero photographic evidence this year because my camera can only keep a charge for about 15 minutes and apparently I had used it all up the day before on cheese-ball shots of boy in commercialized pumpkin patch. Cute, eh?

New school, old questions

Started back to school last week. It was a little freaky going back before Labor Day, but I guess the district decided it was best to have some extra emergency days to work with in the event of a major storm or flu outbreak. Opening day for teachers was September 1, and I survived the district-wide introduction. All of the new teachers were required to stand up in front of a large live audience (in addition to several other locations receiving a live broadcast) and introduce ourselves in a clever manner. I wrote a poem and managed to say it without messing up. A very proud moment indeed. Thursday the students started and all is going well thus far. I like my colleagues and it seems I will have a good group of students this year. Of course we are in the "honeymoon phase" right now; ask me how I feel come October. The biggest adjustment is teaching without walls; it is a little challenging to focus on what is going on in the immediate vicinity when you can clearly hear what is going in other people's "rooms". My former co-teacher referred to my new job as a "teacher without borders". It's wild, but I know I will get used to it soon and will barely notice the difference.
In the meantime I have been trying to meet some new people. During the days of new teacher orientation I got to know the other full-time substitute for Special Ed. in our building. We're the same age but she is newly married and does not have children yet. I showed her a picture of Paul and was (of course) bragging about his awesomeness. She didn't come right out and say anything about the fact that he is Asian, and I am beginning to wonder if she realizes he is adopted. The other day we were talking about Paul's outgoing personality and she asked, "Does he get that from you?"
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"Do you think his personality is more like yours or your husband's?"
"Uh, neither." Admittedly I was caught off guard and didn't have the right answer. Is there a right answer? Sometimes I struggle with how best to communicate my status as an adoptive mom to someone I am getting to know. Part of me wants to avoid tricky questions/comments that force the issue - like "Did you nurse?" or "Pregnancy changes the way your bra fits" (I actually was told this at V.S. one day... with Paul right there.) Another new teacher asked me, "Are you planning on having more?" What do I say - "Well, I didn't exactly have my first one."??? My mom would say that all of this thinking and worrying is silly and no one really cares. The problem is, I care. And I get stuck in my head about this stuff all the time. When Paul starts understanding his adoption story (right now he simply likes to repeat it), I want to be able to equip him with the best answers for inevitable questions he'll face his whole life. If I can't figure out how to answer them, how can I teach him?