The Luck of the Chinese!?!?!

On Mike's last trip to China he brought home a gold metal cat, with Chinese characters on it, it takes batteries and the arm waves.  I have never liked this cat, how it looks or the fact that every time the arm goes back, it clunks.  MIke told me that most businesses in China have these because they welcome money/good fortune.  Yeah, whatever, it was relegated to the top of his desk in the office, and forgotten about.

I have been a pretty lucky person in my adult years.  But there do seem to be some rules of the Gods with my luck.  Usually if I am going to win something (like when many prizes are going to be awarded) I will be the first name called.  If I am not the first, I do not win, but I have been first a few times.  Weird, I know, but who am I to argue?  This winter, when Mike and I put out all those applications for grants, and hoped to get 1 or 2, I didn't think much about it.  The first grant response that came in was a yes!!  Yep, my good luck holds true, I (we) won something in which more than one would  be awarded, and the first answer was a yes.  Thank goodness it was a nice size grant, because the way my luck goes, it is the only one we will get.  Several more responses came in, all sorry, but no's.  As we continued our process, it was time to turn the office into Molly's room.  Mike's desk went to the basement for the boys to use and he took over their homework desk since there wasn't enough room for both our desks in the living room.  My desk is BIGGER and HEAVIER and NO ONE wanted to haul it downstairs, so Mike's was the one voted off the island.  Since he lost desk space, the Chinese cat was placed on top of MY desk.  When I moved it, I noticed the batteries had died, so I placed in fresh batties and went about my day.  That very day, we recieved another answer on a grant request, this time a yes.  HHMMM, that's never happened before.   I patted the kitty and told Mike when he got home that I guess the cat can continue to stay in the place of honor on top my desk, there might be something to this.  We now only have 1 grant that has yet to answer us.  We were awarded more money than I thought we could possibly receive, from our fundraising, donations, and grants.  We have 2 beautiful children who will be ours soon and what could be luckier than that?

Just Another Frantic Thursday

It's a good thing my husband is a faithful blog reader.  Apparently, I forgot to let him know that I had gotten a call the other day about Zach's visa renewal being accepted.  Last night, I first heard my husband laughing at Pete's drill bit conversation, then ....... "Zach's Visa extension is approved???"  Ooooppps.  I thought I had called him and told him that, I must have gotten distracted by the children before I actually dialed the phone.  "yeah, sorry, it should be her via FedEx on Friday"  Let's just pretend I have pregnancy brain drain, from all the adoption chaos.

Last night, I had a meeting for the section I am teaching for vacation bible school.  As we talked about what everyone is doing, the lady in charge mentioned that she still needed a man to play a goofy guy in the opening skit every day.  A call home, and then I let her know that Steven may only be 14, but is taller than me and would be happy to be this goofy character.  Then he will come hang out with me in my room while I do my sessions.  I am a little worried about Zach's behavior during vacation bible school.  Not in most of it, but when he comes to my sessions.  This child is very attached to me - I call him my Velcro boy - he always wants to be cuddled by me, or hugging me, or have my undivided attention when I am talking to others- his interruptions are something we are working hard to break him of.  We will have to have a conversation with him before we start, about how he is expected to behave.  Last night he went with Mike to the gas station for lawn mower gas, and I asked him to have daddy bring me home a diet coke for my meeting.  They were gone about 20 minutes, and Zach came running into the house ahead of daddy, throwing himself into my arms "Mom, I MISSED you!!"   UUUHHH, I have a bad feeling about this.

Warning Kid With Power Tool

Mom, where does dad keep his hole saw for cutting door knob holes?  - Pete asked while holding my drill in his hand

I don't know, and if I did I wouldn't tell you until you ask your dad to use it

Then where are your spade bits?

WHY......

I need to cut holes in the tarp for under my tent to put stakes through

You don't use a drill to do that!!!

Then how can I make the holes (insert whiney, put out, lots of attitude here)

UMMMMM, scissors........

Good news..... Zach's visa extension was approved and is in the mail to us.  Now we can quit ducking the law - afterall, we HAVE been harboring an illegal alien since June 10.  You know how it is, the constant worrying that the INS will come knocking on our door, looking over your shoulder when you go out in public.....

This means that he definitely won't have to go back to China ahead of us.  And his passport will be back to us in plenty of time to travel (it will arrive back to us in the same envelope as his visa extention).  Another thing down.... and seems like a million more to go.  When we started this process, we asked our adoption agency and another mom who had adopted from China how long it would take, and were told about a year, if we really pushed things along maybe 9 months.  We rushed every process we could, even paying extra for some of that rushing, and are still looking at a year.  Sigh.  The earliest we will be able to go to China is Aug 1.   Grumble, grumble, grumble. 

Zach came to live with us last year on July 31.  It just doesn't seem like he has been with us that long, but seems like we have been in the adoption process FOREVER!!  Funny how the very same time is looked at in such different ways. 

By my calculation, that is one more step forward.......even with where we were 2 days ago.

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

As I was re-reading my adoption paperwork two nights ago, I saw where we could contact the National Visa Center to check on the status of our case.  Being the Type A personality that I am, I feel totally helpless right now, in a process I have NO control over.  This gave me a much appreciated chance to be proactive, and have something to do during the adoption.  We knew that our case had already gone from the NVC to the US Consulate in China, and we knew that our paperwork would be at the consulate for 3-4 weeks.  According to my calculations, the paperwork should either have been done by last Friday or this Friday.  The NVC verified they sent the paperwork on already, and we needed to contact the Consulate for the status there.  Boy am I glad I did.  They e-mailed me back that they've had our paperwork, but are waiting on something from our adoption agency before they can begin to process it.   UUUUHHHHHGGGGG.  E-mails sent to the adoption agency revealed we needed to send them our paperwork from the NVC when we got it - I WISH SOMEONE HAD TOLD ME THAT WEEKS AND WEEKS AGO......I'VE HAD THE PAPERWORK FOR 3 WEEKS NOW!!!!!  A quick e-mail today and they got the necesarry paperwork, and will have our stuff all delivered to the Consulate tomorrow.  It will be 2 more weeks now added to our timeline.  How frustrating!!!!!

On a totally unrelated topic, Peter and Zach decided to camp outside in Pete's tent tonight.  I explained to them it was going to be HOT.  But no, they argued they would be fine.  Ok, Momma tried, learn the hard way.  Zach came up from his shower wearing a blanket sleeper - which is fine inside with the air conditioner on, not great for 90 degree weather.  (that was 2 hours ago, now it's 10:05 and still 84 degrees).  He tried to tell me he would be fine, with those jammies on, he would not need a blanket.   HHMMM, as hot as it is, you won't need a blanket at all.  We finally convinced him to change into PJ shorts and a short sleeve jammie shirt.  Off he went to the tent, happily camping for the first time in his life.  The rest of us went off to the garden to plant some late veggies that Mike picked up for a great deal at the local greenhouse on the way home from work.  Mike asked me to go down and fill a bucket with water, and the water spicket just happens to be by where the boys put their tent........ and Zach had all the window flaps zipped shut (he must have been roasting in there)........so being the good Mommy that I am, I had to shake the side of the tent and say GGGRRRRR.  After a huge yelp from inside the tent, I calmed him down and convinced him it was only me.  After that he was not going back to sleep while we were outside.  OOPS.

( Now comes the stall... )  Mom, I have a loose tooth......   Yes Zach, I know (it's been loose for about 6 weeks now) ........  Mom, it's bleeding.........  OK, get a kleenex from inside and go back to sleep.   When he came back out, I decided to check his tooth out, and oh, my, it WAS almost out.  He couldn't get ahold of it, and consented to let Mike try to pull it.  Mike started to reach for his small pliers he keeps in his back pocket.  No, Mike, you're going to scare him!!!  Mike then tried to pull it with his fingers and could not get a grip on it.  Zach then looked at Mike's pliers, checking them all out, and consented to letting Mike use those to pull on his tooth- MY dad used to threaten to use pliers to pull out our teeth to scare us into pulling out our loose teeth.  Unfortunately, Mike couldn't grip it with the pliers either.  Zach then worked and worked at it, until it came out.  We convinced him, since it was past his bed time, the tooth fairy has already passed by this neighborhood and he would be on tomorrow night's schedule.  He is so cute right now, with his Chinese accent and his slight lisp from his missing front tooth.

By the way, he then went back into the tent and saw a lightening bug inside, since he had forgotten to zip the door shut.  Off he went into the house with his pillow - camping over.  I think Pete is inside now too - he was too hot.

Our prayers have been answered

Today has been a great day.  Really great.  We got a phone call this afternoon telling us we received an adoption grant.  This grant has now put us over the hump for the last of the money needed to fund our adoptions.  Mike says that now I can relax and sleep at night.  That just shows what he knows......now I will lose sleep waiting to get Molly in my arms and make Zach our son forever.  The waiting is hard. 

Now I'm watching one of my favorite movies "The Blind Side".  I love Sandra Bullok's character Lou Ann Toulley.  Mike and I agree that she could be my sister, seperated at birth.  I just love her and my very favorite line of the whole movie, now that we are adopting, is when her friends tell her that she's changing "that boy's" life and she says "no, he's changing mine".  Amen to that,  we have been saying from the start that we need Zach as much as he needs us, and we are learning so much from him.

I've been running the numbers on our time line- the adoption agency gave us a handy dandy chart for this last part of our process, after our LOA (official approval from China to adopt).  From LOA it's about 3 weeks to our Provisional Approval (and it was three weeks exactly), then about 1 week to wire all our paperwork to the US National Visa Center in China (and it was 9 days),  then 3-4 weeks for the NVC to turn that Provisional Approval into our Article 5 (this is were we are now, today was 3 weeks, so we are waiting to hear this step is done), then we have 2-3 weeks for China to issue our Travel Approval.  We should travel within 2 weeks of getting our TA........... we could still make it home in time to register the kids for school the week before school starts..........Please, please, please........

We are still waiting for Zach's passport to come back to us.  We had to send it in to the Grace Children's Foundation for them to renew his medical visa.  Without that passport back, our travel date could be held up, since obviously he can't travel without it.  Again, please, please, please let that come back in time to not throw off our earliest possible travel date........

Today's Project

Darling Hubby had to work today, so Pete, Zach, and myself put together the big and small strollers, in anticipation of Molly coming home soon.  Pete had to be reminded several times to WAIT until I read the directions before he did something else, and that there are often reasons to follow a specific order when putting them together.......We did good I think!

 After the strollers were assembled, we were left with I big box and 1 fair-lee big box.  Pete started with the big box, making himself into a robot.  Zach of course had to be a robot too, so I helped him make his.  Zach has been playing with Molly's Chinese baby doll today, pretending it IS Molly.  We decided she needed to have a robot costume too.  Here are our final costumes.  We have named them Data (Pete), R2D2 (Molly) and C3PO (Zach).

I hope Zach babysits for real as well as he babysits Molly's doll