No news...

Well, we are still waiting. We have yet to hear anything. We called the agency last week for an update, but they have yet to call us back; ah, the world of adoption. Sorry for the short post, but there really isn’t anything else to say…

Un Uneventful Day

Well, the social worker has come and gone, without falling off the railing I might add. It was a pretty uneventful meeting, but it was productive. We learned that we should have had this discussion months ago. We didn’t realize that we were supposed to tell the social worker that we had changed adoption plans from a single child to siblings. So now she must make an addendum to our home study prior to sending it off to the agency, which then gets sent to the Taiwan courts. The day itself though was a little frustrating. We were told, or asked rather, to remove some of our plants because they are too low and remove the other plants because they are too high, hence we might not have any plants, ah, who needs oxygen anyway. We were also directed, asked, or suggested to possibly nail our floor lamps to the hardwood floors so that they won’t tip over on the children, as if we would let that happen. We purposely bought extremely light floor lamps so that they wouldn’t leave too big of a mark if they hit the kids (Just kidding Taiwan!). We do understand all of these requests, but I have to say, I draw the line when we are asked to put nails in our new hardwood floors! Just a question, for all of you who have had children naturally, did someone tell you where to place your plants or to nail down your floor lamps? Did our parents get the same requests? It’s a wonder that any of us survived our childhoods, I mean with playing outside until it got dark (no supervision), without electrical socket covers, lead paint, eating honey, no stove guards and of course no rubber barriers on any hard, sharp corners. I am proud to say that we did survive and we do have the scars to prove it! When we read about children being abused or left on a hospital’s doorsteps, or even when we read about parents killing their own children, I would like to know why they don’t have a social worker coming to their home asking them to move plants and lamps. Then I come to the realization, we have no say in the matter and we must keep quiet and play the game because it is the end result that matters.
*Sorry if this was a Debby Downer of a post, but sometimes things need to be said. Until next week…

The Waiting Game

Well, another week has passed and we are still waiting to hear word. We even called the agency this week to ask them a question about our paperwork, as we secretly hoped they would tell us that they have two children who are up for adoption, but no such luck. It has been about six weeks since our agency told us that paperwork is in the process of being prepared for two sets of siblings who are up for adoption. They also told us that it should be a few weeks, and here we are six weeks later. I think their window of time is worse than the cable company. Apparently, we are the only ones who seem to be in a rush. Well, there isn’t much more we can do besides wait. As for what we have already done: we have completed our parenting classes, have been finger printed four times, by countless government agencies, which was a little nerve racking with Jen’s history and all, she did sneak through the system though without anyone finding out about her aliases (To our agency, just kidding!). We have read about eight adoption books and wrote reviews on them for the agency, we have taken our CPR and First Aid classes, we wrote our wills, received our physicals to prove our health (it was a little touch and go with my health for a while. The doctor said I am a little over weight, but then we found out that I was just big boned, so all is good). So now we are working on getting Montana (our black lab) used to having kids around. She continues to play with all the neighborhood kids and at night we take out cardboard cutouts of kids and strategically place them around the house. At first she was just chewing on our kids, but as of late she has learned to just lick them instead, I think smearing them in peanut butter has helped!

This Friday we do have the social worker coming to do an inspection of our new home. There are still a lot of things that need to be done, but we are hoping that we can fix most of the problems before Friday. Tomorrow, Tom, who is doing the work for us, will be working on that tricky railing. We figured that was of high importance and that it might be a deal breaker if it’s not fixed. We also had another thought; we might bring the social worker to our neighbor’s house and pretend that it’s ours. But that is only reserved for last resorts. Other than that we continue to wait. Who ever thought that silence could be so loud, to the point that it is deafening.