We picked up our medical clearances today (I flunked my hearing test in one ear, possibly due to that slow-draining cold, but the doctor wrote that it would not alter either my longevity or parenting ability, so we should be fine). Now we only need to collect some pictures (of the apartment and the family), write a cover letter to China, and schedule another meeting with our social worker. Well, and then fill out the big USCIS form.
Jim picked up another crib mattress today, since Gus is using his mattress in the toddler bed and I developed a hangup about taking a picture of the kids' room with only the crib springs showing.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Saturday, September 05, 2009
Moving along
It's been slow but productive few weeks. We sent out all our requests for reference letters. We started to get back child abuse clearances from our many states.
We've finished our 10 hours of parenting training now required by the Hague treaty. Our agency recommended Heart of the Matter seminars, which is run by two adoptive moms, one a teacher and one a social worker. The DVDs are basically recordings of one of their all-day seminars, but it was so much information we were glad to spread it out over a couple of week. They did a great job, really excellent information about how lacking a family causes changes in brain development and how we can help to fill in those mental and emotional building blocks with hard work once our kids get home. We did many of these things with Gus without knowing how important they were, and now they're just a part of our parenting style (bonus!). We'd be happy to lend our our videos if you're interested.
We finished researching medical needs. Well, for now--I'm sure there will be more researching once we have a referral. We have a list with which we feel pretty comfortable and will be giving it to our social worker to write into the homestudy at our next meeting.
We also had a reminder about how life will probably be for the first several weeks with a child who doesn't know us and doesn't want to be here. A good friend of ours went into premature labor and called us to take her 3-year-old for the night while her husband rushed back into town. Gus is good friends with this little girl, and she knows us reasonably well, but she still didn't want to be here with us for the night and we were the wrong people to comfort her. It'll be like that, probably, when the next munchkin comes home, only harder. Better to be prepared than not.
Next week is hopefully our first doctor's appointment. We wanted to do it this week but then I got sidelined by a nasty virus. Mostly better now, and hoping to move more quickly next week.
We've finished our 10 hours of parenting training now required by the Hague treaty. Our agency recommended Heart of the Matter seminars, which is run by two adoptive moms, one a teacher and one a social worker. The DVDs are basically recordings of one of their all-day seminars, but it was so much information we were glad to spread it out over a couple of week. They did a great job, really excellent information about how lacking a family causes changes in brain development and how we can help to fill in those mental and emotional building blocks with hard work once our kids get home. We did many of these things with Gus without knowing how important they were, and now they're just a part of our parenting style (bonus!). We'd be happy to lend our our videos if you're interested.
We finished researching medical needs. Well, for now--I'm sure there will be more researching once we have a referral. We have a list with which we feel pretty comfortable and will be giving it to our social worker to write into the homestudy at our next meeting.
We also had a reminder about how life will probably be for the first several weeks with a child who doesn't know us and doesn't want to be here. A good friend of ours went into premature labor and called us to take her 3-year-old for the night while her husband rushed back into town. Gus is good friends with this little girl, and she knows us reasonably well, but she still didn't want to be here with us for the night and we were the wrong people to comfort her. It'll be like that, probably, when the next munchkin comes home, only harder. Better to be prepared than not.
Next week is hopefully our first doctor's appointment. We wanted to do it this week but then I got sidelined by a nasty virus. Mostly better now, and hoping to move more quickly next week.
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