I've been a bad blogger so far.
And that's okay. I never claimed to have been a good one to begin with...
To re-cap the last month's worth of adoption activities:
1) We got the official application completed back in early August and we were officially accepted into the Ethiopian adoption program with Adoption Associates. That's a big step right there.
2) After getting various and sundry papers together, we had our Home Study visits with our social worker, which is a huge part of the adoption process. However, for as huge as it is, it was relatively painless.
Actually, it was completely painless.
See, the home study is one of those major hurdles you have to overcome toward being given the stamp of approval to adopt a child. Your house and your family have to been deemed suitable for placement, so the typical inclination would be to get your house shinier than Mr. Clean's forehead and make sure your kiddos are dressed in their Sunday best and then to slap a coat of Antique White (Sherman Williams #6119, for that "Pinterest-y" look) on the ol' picket fence to be sure that you put your best foot forward.
But here's the deal: That's not reality, and reality is what the social worker is looking for.
Oh, sure, we ("we" = Amanda) cleaned up and made sure the girls didn't have PB&J remnants all over their chubby cheeks, but for the most part, they just got a good healthy dose of "us".
During our first visit, we just let the girls piddle around, so there was a healthy audience of inquisitive stares and Disney princesses. The younger girls were feeling a little restless that night, but like I said: that's reality. To be honest, I thought the interview was pretty run-of-the-mill. I had been expecting the hard-hitting questions about our backgrounds and discipline styles, but the requested information ended up being pretty basic.
Our second visit (the individual interviews) was probably even more relaxed. We even got off on a tangent about SEC football. (I think that's what eventually got us the "all clear", by the way...)
Not counting our chicks before they hatched, since the official home study report hasn't come back yet, but I think we passed that little test. Hopefully she saw that our girls were all happy and healthy and that our house was a good atmosphere to bring in a new kiddo.
3) We've begun (and nearly finished) the paper chase for our dossier, the giant "book-o'-Higgy-knowledge" that Ethiopia will use to deem us worthy of a child.
Can I just say, Amanda has been completely amazing with this thing. Because of the nature of the documents and all of the seals/jurats/acknowledgments/signatures/holy writs/necessary inferences/divine ordinances needed to verify their authenticity, the dossier is probably the most tedious portion of the whole process. But she has compiled document after document and run through the checklist like a madwoman. All while working as a nurse, rasing/homeschooling our girls, managing an e-mail list at church, and now helping to organize an adoption fundraiser for another family!
I couldn't have picked a more amazing woman if I'd tried (thank You, Lord, for picking her out for me!)...
And that's where we are at the moment.
(whew!)
And that's okay. I never claimed to have been a good one to begin with...
To re-cap the last month's worth of adoption activities:
1) We got the official application completed back in early August and we were officially accepted into the Ethiopian adoption program with Adoption Associates. That's a big step right there.
Actually, it was completely painless.
See, the home study is one of those major hurdles you have to overcome toward being given the stamp of approval to adopt a child. Your house and your family have to been deemed suitable for placement, so the typical inclination would be to get your house shinier than Mr. Clean's forehead and make sure your kiddos are dressed in their Sunday best and then to slap a coat of Antique White (Sherman Williams #6119, for that "Pinterest-y" look) on the ol' picket fence to be sure that you put your best foot forward.
But here's the deal: That's not reality, and reality is what the social worker is looking for.
Oh, sure, we ("we" = Amanda) cleaned up and made sure the girls didn't have PB&J remnants all over their chubby cheeks, but for the most part, they just got a good healthy dose of "us".
During our first visit, we just let the girls piddle around, so there was a healthy audience of inquisitive stares and Disney princesses. The younger girls were feeling a little restless that night, but like I said: that's reality. To be honest, I thought the interview was pretty run-of-the-mill. I had been expecting the hard-hitting questions about our backgrounds and discipline styles, but the requested information ended up being pretty basic.
Our second visit (the individual interviews) was probably even more relaxed. We even got off on a tangent about SEC football. (I think that's what eventually got us the "all clear", by the way...)
Not counting our chicks before they hatched, since the official home study report hasn't come back yet, but I think we passed that little test. Hopefully she saw that our girls were all happy and healthy and that our house was a good atmosphere to bring in a new kiddo.
3) We've begun (and nearly finished) the paper chase for our dossier, the giant "book-o'-Higgy-knowledge" that Ethiopia will use to deem us worthy of a child.
Can I just say, Amanda has been completely amazing with this thing. Because of the nature of the documents and all of the seals/jurats/acknowledgments/signatures/holy writs/necessary inferences/divine ordinances needed to verify their authenticity, the dossier is probably the most tedious portion of the whole process. But she has compiled document after document and run through the checklist like a madwoman. All while working as a nurse, rasing/homeschooling our girls, managing an e-mail list at church, and now helping to organize an adoption fundraiser for another family!
I couldn't have picked a more amazing woman if I'd tried (thank You, Lord, for picking her out for me!)...
And that's where we are at the moment.
(whew!)
