Is Shannon a polygamist?

The answer is NO, thank goodness! But...we were wondering for a few days. T, our paper helper, has been trying all week to find his divorce decrees, to no avail.* When asked to provide the dates and counties of his divorces, Shannon came up blank. Eventually he "remembered" the YEAR (no month--the year itself was a struggle), and provided the counties where he thought they were filed, and T (and the county clerk) found nothing! This was a little disturbing. Then he proceeds to tell me that for #1 he doesn't remember signing a marriage certificate, and that his ex-wife's brother performed the ceremony. Cause for pause. Then, he says for #2, his lawyer told him he didn't need to show up for court, so there's no proof (although I'm sure he received something along the way in the mail) that it went through. Things that make you go hmmmm....

Fortunately, T turns out to be somewhat of a sleuth and looked up a map of counties in Oklahoma. She picked several surrounding his original guesses, and lo and behold, the decrees exist. Whew! Another hurdle overcome. Unexpected, but nevertheless.

Speaking of polygamy, I must mention a newly-found-TV show-to-me, Big Love. It is interesting. Check it out if you are so inclined. Some of you (Mom and Dad!) would hate it.

Picture Test

Here's a cool picture from KL. This is one of the Petronas Towers. Mainly I want to see how the picture function from Picassa works.

House Invasion--One month from today...

Adoption stuff has been moving along, but I feel kind of out it since I've been away since last Thursday. I did finish There is no Me without You, and agree with the consensus: it is a must read. I can't wait for Shannon to read it so we can chat about everything. A lot of the stories are about "older" children adoptions, and they are really great stories. It has made me think about re-considering our age request, but...no definites. I may be open if Shannon is, but we'll see.

All paperwork has been ordered, I believe. T (our paperwork helper) is doing a fabulous job keeping us updated, but I'm not sure if anything has arrived yet.

The main thing we're waiting for now is the Homestudy, which we have set for one month from today. Oh boy. I'm actually sort of looking forward to the interviews and talking part, mostly so that I can ask some questions myself and get advice. I'm not so excited about having our apartment ready. It's not like we're supposed to have a baby room ready, but I assume there should be certain liveability aspects to our humble abode that I'm not sure we have yet. For one, her room is now a storage room. We have no real storage, so suitcases line the wall and there are stacks on the guest bed (which has pink padding as a head board, btw). And, there's the kitty factor. He officially became an "it" last weekend, and has calmed down a little, but not enough. Pet expert/friend C says that it may take 5 weeks for the testosterome to leave his body. The question is whether we can wait that long.

Shannon told me that he read the Program Manual (BSBinder) while I was gone, so I'm anxious to hear his thoughts. It's good to be home!

Check!

Lots of checks, actually! So this week...

We received our contracts to sign and send back. Since we are SO lucky to have several lawyer friends, we sent it to faithful B (thank you!!) and she promptly responded with helpful questions and comments. We hope to send that off tomorrow, or at the latest, Friday. Along with that, we get to pay, and then everything is finally super official.

As for our dossier, our agency has a service that will help us, so we're going for it. It is VERY reasonable (price-wise), and I think SO worth it. I THINK that this will help avoid a bunch of papers going back and forth the Pacific for silly reasons. Also, they "get" to be in charge of requesting all of our documents and obtaining all the stamps/seals/appostiles anyone could ever want.

But today, we had a real geterdone experience. We, along with friends I and K who are also adopting from Ethiopia (I know, lucky, right?) made our way to the Chinese PoPo, and then to the Chinese Notary for our criminal clearance. As far as we know, we all passed. Hurrah! This potentially could have been one of the most difficult boulders to hurdle, but thanks to J and B (expecting Baby M any day!!!), we had no problem. Our school Chinese liaison had already gone through the motions once, and took us straight through everything.

So--so far, everything is on track, or ahead of schedule. I originally decided that next March or April might be our Gotcha Day, but now I'm wondering...will we bring'er home sooner? Keep your fingers crossed!!

Big Scary Binder...

Big scary binder is not so scary! It actually has TONS of useful information, is well-organized, and color-coded. Going through it meticulously was my super fun evening last night. It was also very exciting to receive a package, as it always is, no matter where you live...but, if you live in China, they are few and far between. It's way expensive to send them, and a bunch of trouble.

There was also a copy of There is no Me Without You by Melissa Fay Greene in the package. This was a lovely, unexpected surprise. I have heard so much about this book and had resigned myself to wait until the summer to find and read it, but my luck is better than that! Hurrah!

If anyone on Facebook reads this blog, here is the bus/snake story:

Dear Baby Girl,

There are some facts about China that I can't wait to teach you , and others that scare me to even think about. One of these involves dogs, which I will try my best to not have to tell you until we are long gone from this country. Another has to do with crossing the street. Someday far from now when you are 15, you will take Driver's Education (if we live in the USA). In this class, you will likely be very bored most of the time, but you will learn that the pedestrian always has the right-of-way. This is how it should be, since a person is more fragile and delicate than a big heavy car, or worse...a bus.

When crossing the street in China, there are blinking red and green men that tell when you should and should not cross the street. Usually, you would think that on green you can cross, and on red you cannot cross. This is not true in China. Here, you must check carefully both ways before crossing the street no matter what the color of the blinking man. Your mom made a terrible mistake the other day while jogging and crossing on a blinking green man signal. She was not careful enough, and a big bad bus almost ran into her. Not only that, but whereupon barely missing the big bad bus, a slimy stinky snake was slithering right towards her on the busy street! You may think I am making this up or exaggerating, but I am not. This is just the way here in China. Even in the city, you may encounter amphibious creatures out to attack helpless humans. Luckily, you mama is super speedy and agile and was able to leap over the snake with no time to spare. Whew!

You must promise me to exercise the utmost caution when crossing the street. Okay?

Love always,
Mama