Fun News re: Christmas Baby

So, we got some fun news today. Things are moving "very quickly" with Guatemala adoptions. Now, "very quickly" doesn't mean next week or anything... but....here's what our adoption agent lady said today:

Guatemala is moving very quickly. Our director is asking that we expedite dossiers as quickly as we can. She feels that we have a window of time until the end of summer to submit dossiers. After that time we may need to hold on applications, and wait to see how the implementation of the Hague treaty impacts adoptions. Your timing is perfect for submitting a dossier! I hope you are ready for things to move rather quickly. Two of my families were matched and traveled last week to see their newborn babies! It's an exciting time!
...

You could be matched mid-late summer, then done with the case (if there are no glitches) and ready to bring the baby home around Christmas. This is if things continue as quickly as they are right now.

We also got a nice pat on the back for our dossier efforts, which was nice. Good to hear we're on the right track. Oh, nervousness attack! This is starting to seem a little more real now.

One Month Mark

Well it feels like about one year to us, but it's just been one month since we started this adoption process. We are patting ourselves on the back because we are already down to the last few tasks to put together our "dossier." We rock! We got to write our autobiographies, get fingerprinted, schedule & attend appointments with regular docs & psychologists (I even had to do the ink blot test!), go to court to clear up dog tickets, get things notarized, certified, and triple verified (OK I made up that last one), document the state of our finances, take our own self portrait and pictures of our house, dig up addtional pics of us with kids & family, and have those developed, hit up friends and family for letters of reference, mail things to various agencies, get money orders, fill out a terrible terrible form about what sort of, um, 'flaws' we would accept in a child, get employment verification letters, proof of insurance and a few other things I'm not thinking of right now.

This in the same month that we managed to rebuild part of our backyard into raised beds--involving lots of digging in hard clay & many, terrible, heavy trips hauling landscaping bricks--we also had to put Mooky the kitty down, have done a good amount of work on the terrible staircase, Mike got a grant & earned a research award, and of course our day to day jobs continue. So it's been a little hectic.

In other adoption news, it's all very anticlimactic. Basically, until your dossier is completed, nothing happens. The agency doesn't even really talk to you, they just leave you alone to get your stuff done. Nothing's really changed in Guatemala, so we should still be in good shape there.

So now we are just finalizing some last to dos and waiting for things we've sent off to return.

We'll Miss You Mooky

Mooky didn't get to know too many people. Pretty much just me. As Mike said "He was the border collie of cats" meaning, he could be incredibly annoying, he was a bit too smart and busy for his own good and he was also incredibly endearing, at least to me.

I found Mooky literally on the street. He was only 4 weeks old & really too young to be away from his mom. He could have fit in a measuring cup--the cup size. I had to bottle feed him for the first few weeks of his life.

He grew up to be quite a character. Kind of a bad ass--he would torture the dogs next door by sitting just out of reach (they would paw under the fence to get him). He hardly ever met a drink he didn't like, including mimosas. If the glass was too tall & he couldn't fit his pointy face in, he'd just snake a paw, very elegantly, down to the bottom, and then daintily lick off his paw. He also made friends with a magpie at our old house. They would hang out on the back lawn together--I never saw him make a move to attack the magpie.

He was not too keen on strangers, and saved most of his affection for me. Occassionally Mike too, but mosly me. Once he was in affecionate mode, good golly, he was affectionate. I had to try to fall asleep many time with him curled up right in my face, purring like crazy.

We'll miss you Mooky. You were a good kitty.

Rock Star Professor

My hubby Mike is a rock star professor. He just won a college wide research award. Big honor! Big feather in the cap! He may even win the university wide research award, which is a really big deal.

And if that isn't enough, he also just earned a grant. Big deal! Hard to get! Another big feather in the cap! Fantastic news!

Watch out people, the man is on fire. Give him your congrats. He's also tearing it up on the adoption paperwork & putting me to shame.

Mikey is awesome.

Such a nice, respectable couple

Thanks everyone, for all your support & enthusiasm for this adoption project of ours. We do appreciate it!

So far so good, we are just doing paperwork like crazy. Got to get fngerprinted the other night at the police station. Filling out forms, writing autobiographies, requesting birth certificates, digging up old taxes, getting psysch evaluations--all sorts of fun stuff. We also had to come up with an 8x10 of ourselves looking like a nice respectable couple. Since we mostly just have wedding photos and very casual vacation pics, we busted out our Sunday best, the tripod and the self timer to come up with this... Now wouldn't you give a baby to this nice dorky couple? We would.