A Personal Disclaimer

So apparently I have been giving off the vibe that I am feeling a bit impatient, unsettled, frazzled, concerned, stressed-out, or even insert the troublesome adjective of your choice here.  But that truly isn’t the case.  As a matter of fact, I am really not feeling any of those things.  I am actually quite at peace about, well, everything right now.  So, in response to the appreciated and heartfelt “it will be okay” and “hang in there” sentiments that I have received from several of you over the past few days I feel that perhaps I need to put out a disclaimer to explain my recent behavior.  You see, it all comes down to the way I keep house…

As anyone who has ever visited our humble abode knows – my house is a mess.  It is always a mess.  Some days the disaster is confined to a smaller area than others, but it is always a mess.  And truth be told I make no apologies for this fact.  I really don’t try hard to hide it because basically no matter how much I try to clean, straighten, vacuum, sweep, do laundry, scrub toilets or complete any other household chore that needs to be done – my house is still a mess.  And I’m okay with that.  I accepted this fact a long time ago.  I have a dog, a cat, a husband, and four children between the ages of two and eight… no matter how much I clean, there will always be more to do.  And that’s okay because I have made my choice.  Years ago I realized I could spend all of my time trying to keep my house clean and orderly amongst the whirlwind of my family or I could spend less time cleaning and actually have time left over to spend being an active part of that family.  Hopefully, you can understand why I chose the way I did.  In my book cleanliness is wonderful, but my family is even better.  (Besides, one day all of my children will be old enough to do the chores themselves and I might just get to see the floor for more than a minute at a time.  Maybe...)

Here’s what it is though.  Some people are cleaners, some people are not.  As stated above, I am not.  I am a planner.  I plan activities for the girls, weekly menus for my family, a budget for our bank accounts, doctor’s visits, shopping trips, vacations, etc., - and I am good at this.  When I was teaching my desk and room were always a mess, ask any teacher I worked with, but my lesson plans were ready and I carried out intricate unit plans that grabbed my students’ interests, made learning fun and applications real.  And ultimately, which is more important?  Neatly stacked pieces of paper arranged between the stapler and the tape or active learning and lifelong skills?  Again, I made my choice and I am happy with the one I made.

But here is the trade off.  Planning is for the purpose of accomplishment.  And accomplishment can only be measured by results – good, bad, successes, setbacks, triumphs, failures, etc.  Otherwise plans are not plans, they are only dreams.  And I am definitely not a dreamer.  I am a planner.   And that leads me to now. 

Life here Shiplandia is currently consumed by an overly active planning session.  On one hand, Dan is planning most every aspect of his deployment in relation to the soldiers he is deploying with.  On the other hand, Dan and I are working together to forward plan what will need to be handled on this end while he is gone regarding cars, computers, finances, etc., in order to keep things on this end running as smoothly as possible.  Then, there is the third hand, our adoption.  As grateful as we are that we are in the final stretch and getting close to travel time, that timeline results in more planning as I work to organize what I will need to take with me to China, what I will need to have in order at home for my parents and the girls while I’m gone, making sure paperwork is in the right place, fees are paid and cash is available at the right times and in the right places, etc.  This in addition to the incredibly long list of items I am supposed to take with me in order to be prepared for quite literally every possible scenario and/or incident which could occur while staying in China for a complete two weeks with most likely less than 14 days notice of travel. 

And then there is the next hand, getting Jolene and Becca ready for school.  Doesn’t seem like a big deal, I know.  But there is a very real possibility that I will be traveling to China right when school begins meaning I need to have their school supplies and other shopping done ahead of time, and this must be scheduled around the other events already on the calendar such as Art camp, Vacation Bible School, visits with grandparents, etc.  Not to mention that if it is not done before Dan leaves I will be working one-parented meaning when one goes out we all go out.  

And then there is the next hand (what are we on, like hand number five now?), the hand of medical insurance.  I’m not sure if you have caught on to this or not, but Jack’s is a special needs adoption.  That means he has what some would call a “pre-existing condition” and he thus needs to be medically evaluated upon arrival home even moreso than either of the girls did.  He will also need to be referred to a specialist, if not two, in addition to visiting with a mainstream pediatrician.  And if you are not familiar with our many adventures of getting Becca from a pediatrician’s referral to an actual appointment with a pediatric ophthalmologist, let me just say I have about four months of reasons why government run healthcare is not as great as some would like you to believe.  Will Jack get to the doctor’s he needs – yes.  Will this happen speedily and within a couple weeks of his being home as all would desire – I seriously doubt it.  But as a planner, this is one more thing that I am trying to stay on top of to eliminate as many road bumps as I can.   

And, finally, as if hand number six really existed on my body, there is the never ending list of things that truly need to be accomplished around the house before Dan heads out and/or Jack moves in.  Things like getting Ellie and Jack’s closet reorganized so that Jack has a place to hang his clothes.  Clearing out and organizing the seven bins and multiple bags of hand-me-down clothes that currently reside directly next to my bed so that I can knowledgably make decisions about who needs what as school begins, Jack joins us and the summer months wind down.  (Believe me, those months will wane more quickly than you think…)  Getting my car back in the garage, downsizing our toy collection, and so on…

So, as you see, there is a lot going on around here.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I am not complaining about any of this.  This is my life and I wouldn’t have it any other way.  Well, I might ditch the whole deployment thing if I had the chance, but ultimately my role as MOM is exactly the role I want it to be.  But being Mom is not good enough, being the best Mom I can be is the ultimate desire and the daily aim, and for that I must plan.  And I must implement said plans.  And to successfully execute these plans I need information.  I need to stay ahead of the game, be able to plan ahead, to generate lists and to complete the tasks on them, and sometimes this means multi-tasking.  Okay, it almost always means multi-tasking, but it also means being able to take a block of time, cut out the white noise and focus on a single element of a goal until at least that tiny bit is accomplished thus allowing me to move my focus to a tiny sliver of another.  And that is pretty much where I am right now

.

It is not that I am overwhelmed by all that is going on around me.  Yes, I’ve had my moments when I can see overwhelmed poking its head around the corner at me, but I find the best weapon for staving off panic is often simply a little gift from the world of Hershey.  Amazingly that really is true.  But most days I simply work through the issues as they arrive and I try to use the time in between to knock out as many of those little slivers as I can.  So, it’s not that I’m anxious for this letter or that email or some other piece of information to arrive because I’m worried or panicked or running out of patience.  It is more a matter of simply wanting to implement the plan in the most efficient way possible and loving the feeling of placing big check marks next to mandatory actions as the need for them to be done becomes a thing of the past.

So that leaves me here… in a messy house, with a tote bag full of adoption paperwork, marking days off of\n my calendar while working through my to-do lists as I try to spend as much time as possible with my husband before he leaves the country while at the same time allowing him one-on-one time with each of the girls amidst our packing, cleaning, and organizing.  A very busy place indeed, but the place I would absolutely fight someone for if they tried to take it away.  So please don’t misunderstand my facebook posts or Monday emails or quick comments made on the fly.  Life here is fine.  And really things are going great. 

Jack's Room

I meant to post these pictures about two months ago, but at least I'm finally get them on here... 

For those of you with a really good memory, you might remember that way back in early December I put Jack's bed together - basically to get it out of the garage, but also figuring what could it hurt?  Well, what I didn't realize was that by putting a twin sized bed in Ellie's then sleeping-in-a-toddler-bed room I was really just encouraging her to want a twin sized bed.

You see, that bed was set up for all of about a day before Becca and Sophie started asking to nap in it.  About a week later Ellie decided she wanted her chance to nap in it too.  Then she began to ask to sleep in it at night as well.  Then, she just wanted to use that bed all the time and not her own.  So, what was a mom to do?  Would you tell your almost two-year-old that no she could not move out of her toddler bed into a twin sized bed?  Seriously?  No, I didn't think so.  So... that bed actually turned out to be Ellie's bed (seen here in these pictures) and I went back to the drawing board for Jack.  But that was okay, because I had plenty of time given how slow everything was moving.

Well, a few months ago one of my wonderful Fort Meade friends, Kiley Henry, was packing up to move - a common occurrence here on a military base.   Kiley's family has been very supportive of our adoption from the start and realized as they were packing they might be able to help us out in the furniture department.  They had a beautiful wood captain's bed stored away that they were not planning to move back to Alabama with them so they offered it to us for Jack.  It was PERFECT!  And it is now set up in Jack's room just waiting for him - as it has been since late March.

And did I tell you that his room is themed on pirates?  By his roommate's choice?  Yep, Ellie LOVES pirates and that works out just fine as she and Jack will be sharing a room.  A much better match than the girls across the hall who wanted a "princess room" with "all the pinkness."  Looks like Jack got the better deal there.  =)

So, finally, here are the pictures of Jack's bed and the bedroom waiting for him.  Be sure to take special note of the JACK artwork above his bed.  It is a custom made name put together by Megan Nickey, yet another Show Hope family member.  All four pictures are from China with the last two from Maria's.  Enjoy!

Jack's side of the room

Down the middle.  The picture on the wall is a one-of-a-kind Jake & the Neverland Pirates coloring page.  One-of-a-kind because it was colored by me.  Ha!

Ellie's bed (the original Jack bed...)

More pirates and another one-of-a-kind - Capt. Hook and Mr. Smee

You probably can't tell, but that's Tinkerbell by the door - seemed fitting.

Jack's bed

JACK
J - The Great Wall
A - Dragon from Luoyang City
C - Windows of MBHOH
K - Sidewalk of playground at MBHOH

P.S.  I know it still looks a little girly right now, but I don't want the girls breaking in Jack's boyish toys before he arrives so they are still hidden in the closet.  You'll have to wait on those.  =)

Jack's Gift

Way back in October, when we first received our Pre-approval for Jack's adoption, we were given the needed information for sending care packages to Jack.  At that time he was still at Maria's Big House so it was fun to get pictures from Mikey (a friend from my mission trip as well as our official adoption liaison) letting us see Jack and his friends enjoying the first package we sent.

Shortly thereafter Jack was moved out of Maria's, however, so even though we have continued to send packages we have not received any other package feedback.  We can only trust that these other few gifts have arrived safely at the orphanage and that Jack has been reminded in a tangible way that we are still here and still working to bring him home.

Last month we had a bit of a different experience though.  Our friends, Bill and Kelli Jones, were traveling to China to bring home their beautiful daughter, Lilli, and had agreed to take a gift with them for Jack.  Lilli had been living at the same orphanage Jack is at so there was a very good chance they would be able to see him while there.  It seems that although touring groups (like those visiting during their mission trips to MBHOH) are not allowed to carry cameras into the orphanage facility adopting parents visiting for the purpose of meeting nannies and seeing where their child has been living are.  So... not only did Bill and Kelli have the potential to visit with Jack as many of my other Show Hope friends have done, they also had a pretty good chance of getting a photo or two for us - a real gift since the last picture we have received arrived on January 7.

Well, as it turned out, Bill and Kelli made the decision for their family to not visit the orphanage as it did not seem in the best interest of Lilli's emotional health at the time. Still wanting to help us though, Kelli arranged for another couple traveling in their group, Greg and Suzanne Kroeker, to carry our gift with them as they had chosen to visit the facility.  What a tremendous blessing!  Oh, and did I mention that Greg and Suzanne have never met us?  Well, I guess that's not entirely true as Suzanne and I are Facebook friends as a result of a few mutual interests - Lilli's adoption, Show Hope and JACK!  We actually "met" through commenting on Facebook posts from Kelli and Suzanne soon shared that her daughter met Jack when she traveled to Maria's on her own mission trip.  And then, of course, there is that whole Show Hope people are just like family thing.  But I digress... 

Back to the story...  The best part of this whole thing is that Greg and Suzanne were able to visit with Jack while at the orphanage and they were able to deliver our small gift to him.  This gift was really a photo album of Jack's family and what we have waiting for him - pictures of each of us, our street, our house, our dog, his room, his bed and more.  (All with Chinese subtitles, of course.)  

 

I don't know how much of that photo album he will really be able to digest before he actually begins to experience his new life, but hopefully it will spark at least a bit of an interest in his heart and allow him to begin the transition to the life waiting for him.  And hopefully it is serving as just one more reminder that we are here, we are working hard to bring him home, and we are coming!  Oh, and did I mention we got pictures?!

And they sent a video too!  Which was fantastic in SO many ways.  Probably the best way is that the Dan and the girls got a chance to see Jack in action.  We have many pictures of him around the house, but this gave them a chance to actually see him moving - like a real person - and smiling too.  It often makes me sad that Dan does not share any of the hands-on memories I have of Jack so I was very excited to tell him we got a video.  He had a mixed reaction.  He was thrilled to have a video of his son, but he was also saddened by the somewhat empty look in Jack's eyes.  Dan, like me, cannot wait to for Jack to be free from institutional life and living with his family so that the sparkle just waiting to shine in those eyes can get out.  When you watch it I think you will understand.

In all honesty, as excited as Dan and I were to have a video of Jack, I think Ellie got the biggest thrill from it.  She absolutely LOVED watching Jack and would get so excited when "he smiled at me!"  She must have watched it 20 times in a row and every time it came to an end she would say, "Come back, Jack!  Come back, Jack!" until we started it over for her.  Eventually she figured out how to simply start it again by herself.  And as I found out the next day, she also figured out how to start it even when it hadn't just been viewed.  Even today she got excited about it when she heard it playing while I put this together.  Now that has got to make you smile.  =)

So, now you've seen what we've seen and even seen one of us seeing it.  Next time though the video might just have me in it too, and THAT definitely makes me smile.

If I Were a Betting Woman…

Last August I took a trip to Maria’s Big House of Hope.  While on that trip each member of our team was encouraged to keep a journal.  The following excerpt is taken from my journal entry for August 19…

“I spent a while this morning with Jim.  He sat on my lap to look at a book and then he too wanted to play with my camera.  We would take a picture of someone in the room and when Jim saw it on the screen he would point to that person (in the room) and smile.  He is such a sweet, smart little boy.  I am really wanting to know how to get him adopted.  Is he on the list?  Under what “needs” condition?  Can his name be traced through the adoption agency?  Is his considered a minor need requiring pre-approval or a more severe need that he can be selected before processing?  I don’t know if we are meant to bring him home, but whether we are or not, I want to know what needs to happen.  If nothing else, I can pray for him and the process that needs to occur.  It would make me so happy to know he was going home.”

Little did I know then just how much praying for him I would be doing.  And little did I understand just how happy I would be to know he was going home.  The Lord has an amazing way of pulling us into His plan and then overwhelming us completely with His blessings, and I am so thankful that He does. 

As we wait for our final few paperwork steps to be completed the timing of all of this has not escaped me. Our current estimated window of travel is August 19-September 16 with a slight chance of leaving a few days earlier if we beat that ever looming August 1 deadline.  The last time I saw Jack in person and held him in my arms was August 20, 2010.  Is anyone else beginning to think that the next time I hold him will be August 20, 2011?

Catching Up On Paperwork

So I have realized several times over the last few weeks that I am getting further and further behind on my blogging of actual milestones and process progress.  So… I thought that I would finally sit down and get you all caught up on the paperwork side of things.  I just looked back at my list of blogs and it has been over a month since I updated from this perspective (or any other, for that matter) so let me see if I can remember all that has happened.

When I wrote you last, we had our Log In Date (LID) of April 18 and were waiting for our Letter of Approval (LOA).  Our prayers and hopes were that our LOA would arrive in just about a month, but as those of you who follow me on Facebook know, Day 30 came and went with no LOA.  As well as Day 31, 32, 33 and so on.  It was actually not until Day 43 that we finally got the call.  Well, the email, but you get the idea.

On Tuesday, May 31, CCAI notified us that our LOA had arrived at their Colorado offices.  After verifying where we wanted them to send the paperwork the entire packet was over-nighted to us for signatures.  The Fed Ex man, who by the way was much less personable than the UPS men who brought us Jolene and Becca’s paperwork packets, made his delivery just before noon on Wednesday.   I quickly called Dan and asked him to stop by during his lunch break so we could sign everything and get it back in the mail.  Becca, Sophie, Ellie and I then hijacked naptime and turned it into FedEx time as we headed out to make copies and mail the signed paperwork, along with our I-800 application, back to our agency – all before 3 o’clock, thank you.

CCAI received our packet early the next morning and had emailed me by early afternoon that our I-800 application had already been sent on to the NBC.  (That would be the National Benefits Center, NOT the television network. =)  Then, on that front, we went back to waiting.  We were told this wait should be between 2-4 weeks so I just marked the calendar and settled in for a couple weeks with my little plan to start bugging people come day 15.

All things were not halted to a wait at this time, however, as we had other paperwork CCAI was asking us to complete.  The first thing on the list was our DS-230 form, also known as Jack’s Application for Immigrant Visa and Alien Registration.  We were asked to complete and return this within 5 days so that once our I-800 approval arrived CCAI could immediately forward this form for us.  We were able to turn that around quickly and mailed it back on Monday, June 6.  Then, we went back to waiting. 

Okay, maybe not just waiting.  Waiting and working.  Our next item of business was a much larger packet of paperwork due within three weeks of receiving our LOA.  This included several notarized pages basically promising that Dan and I will not sue CCAI if we or anyone traveling in connection to our family is hurt, killed, lost, offended, scalded by hot coffee served hot, turned into aliens, or anything else that anyone could think of suing for.  We also needed to turn in contact information for our social worker – in case she needs to be contacted while we are in China.  (FYI – We did have this need when we picked up Jolene and the US Consulate said they did not have our homestudy on file.  Yikes!)  And we had a few other sheets for any travel companion traveling with me – the same “I won’t sue sheets”, medical permission to travel, etc.  So, as you can tell, I was far from bored.

Well, the travel companion thing is a big long story that will someday be a blog of its very own, but all of this paperwork was completed and mailed back to CCAI on Monday, June 20.  And then we went back to the whole waiting on the NBC thing.  As it turned out, that got a little exciting about a week ago.  Several weeks back CCAI had given me the unhappy news that they expected every family “from here on out” to fall under the new post-August 1 regulations and thus we were required to submit our owed payments based upon the new regulation fees (approximately $800 more than the old fees).  We obviously did not like this news, but we weren’t really surprised by it so we wrote the needed checks.  On June 20, however, the CCAI travel department contacted me regarding our I-800 approval stating that they believe we still have a slim chance of getting our travel approval before the August 1 deadline.  They encouraged me to call the NBC and see if I could speak with our assigned officer and determine where our paperwork was in the process.   

I called the next day and spoke with our assigned officer.   She informed me our paperwork was in the building and being processed and that she would sign off on it as quickly as possible once it hit her desk, hopefully that day or the next.  True to her word, when I called her back on Friday afternoon she told me she had just finished with our file and it would be on her supervisor’s desk on Monday morning.   Hurray!

And that brings up to last week.  Whew!   

We began the week waiting for our I-800 file to clear the supervisor’s office so our letter of approval could be sent to us.  That letter arrived on Thursday - a GIANT step forward.  I quickly had my neighbor scan the needed document so that I could email it to CCAI and mark that off my list of things to do.  Then, on Friday morning I called the National Visa Center (NVC) to verify that the same paperwork had been delivered to them for the next step of processing.  It had.  Yeah!  Their copy arrived the same time ours did so now it is a matter of waiting for them to input the information into the “shared computer” so it can be accessed by the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou.  The woman I spoke to on Friday said that this should be done “today or Monday” so right now, at 2pm on Monday, I am waiting once again – hoping that the “DONE” email will show up in my inbox before I feel the need to call them back later this afternoon.  Whew!  Again.  =)

And there you have it, you are all caught up.  Oh, wait!  One more thing…. This morning I made one final early morning run to the State Department to have our adoption Power of Attorney authenticated so that I can sign all of the necessary paperwork in China on Dan’s behalf.  Before he deploys Dan always provides me with a general POA which allows me to do just about anything here in the States, but apparently to adopt in China I must travel with this very brief, very specific version.  Needless to say, I am asking no questions and will simply do as I am told.  And now you really are caught up.

I apologize for the dryness and length of boring details in this blog, but it is basically just a chronicle of the hoops we’ve jumped through over the past five weeks.  Not a whole lot of action perse, but many steps in the right direction.  I promise the next posting will be a bit more personal – and hopefully fun - so stay tuned.  Until then…