Happy Halloween

The kids got really into trick-or-treating this year!  I wasn't sure what to expect since we went out after dinner - prime melt-down time - and Soren is so afraid of costumed people and spooky Halloween decorations that one run-in with a mask-clad kid could have ended trick-or-treating on the spot.  Instead, we were able to visit most of the houses on our block and the neighbors loved seeing the kids.  Chris's brother and girlfriend joined us too, so Soren always had his uncle's arms to retreat to if the scene got too overwhelming.  We still had to coach them through saying trick-or-treat and thank-you, but Oliver otherwise understood what to do and Soren got bolder about approaching houses with the other kids. 

Oliver went as the much-anticipated chicken.

 Soren recycled Oliver's old Charlie Brown costume. 

 

Uncle Andy dressed as Burt Macklin, the alter ego of Parks and Rec character Andy Dwyer.

Oliver's Chicken Costume

Oliver is at an age where he could pick his own Halloween costume.  For weeks we've been asking him what he wants to dress up as.  At first he said a "scary moose."  I researched moose costumes and had figured out a basic, but doable, moose costume I could make for him.  I was just about to start collecting the pieces to his costume when he suddenly changed his mind.  He wanted to be a chicken.  I have no idea where that idea came from! 

Nothing was going to change his mind, because trust me, I tried.  I had suggested ideas that were more practical for him to wear, cheaper to make (given he was going to wear it for a max of an hour), and easier for me, a person with no sewing skills, to construct. But he stuck to his dream to go as a chicken, so I spent the next weeks stalking blogs on Google for directions on how to make a chicken costume and worrying that I wasn't going to pull it off.  The costume design I thought was the most doable involved what I learned was going to be about $30 in boas.  And the investment in the boas wasn't even going to guarantee that Oliver would actually look like a chicken and not, well, a kid with a bunch of boas wrapped around him. 

Meanwhile, I still hung to hope that Oliver would change his mind and suddenly Halloween was a week and a half away and I hadn't even started on his costume.

A co-worker with a son a year older than Oliver heard about the chicken costume dilemma and had two pieces of advice for me.  First, make the chicken costume happen, she told me.  Second, forget the DIY.  Just buy the costume and pay for the express shipping if I have to. Her reasoning was that there are only so many years where kids get so excited about Halloween, so if Oliver wants to be a chicken, make it happen for him. 

A half an hour later, I ordered the costume, and yes, even paid for the express shipping.  Oliver was one happy little chicken and I learned my lesson.  Next year there'll be no second-guessing about a store-bought costume. 

USCIS Clearance

We received our appointment notices from the U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) to have our "biometrics" taken on November 4.  While I have no idea what to expect for a timeframe for Immigration approval, the fact that we have our biometric appointment scheduled for less than a month after I submitted our I-800A feels quick.  It gives me hope that approval, which is critical for the completion of our dossier, might happen in a timely manner. 

But Immigration approval isn't all we need for the dossier.  We have a bunch of paperwork nearly ready to go, but a lot of missing pieces still.   

Paperwork

Oliver loves coloring and making creations from his collection of supplies he stores in what we refer to as his "art cabinet," which sits in our dining room.  Last weekend he pulled markers and construction paper out of there and happily announced he needed to do paperwork.  When pressed, he clarified he was doing paperwork for the party.  And he had to label them so we knew in which order they needed to go. 

Sigh.  It's totally normal for kids this age to play pretend.  Then there's my kid who plays pretend paperwork.  But can you blame him?  That's what he sees his parents (well, his mom) doing.  Paperwork has been and will continue to be a fixture in our lives.  It comes with the territory with adoption.  The "paper chase" is officially on as we work towards completing our dossier. 

Hopefully Oliver doesn't grow up thinking everything good in life requires paperwork, even birthday parties. 

Wellness Visit Updates

Oliver and Soren really love me right now.  They had back-to-back doctor's and dentist's appointments.  But they survived and came home with clean bills of health. 

Oliver was a lot more comfortable at the dentist than last year.  He cried about having to sit in the special chair, but settled down, let the hygienist take x-rays and then didn't freak out when I left the room to take Soren to have his teeth cleaned.  When I came back in to check on Oliver, he was following the hygienist's instructions - and gripping the arms of the chair with dear life.  He cried again when the dentist came in to inspect his teeth and apply fluoride, but his mood took a 180 when he was finally allowed to climb down from the chair.  With tears still staining his cheeks, he happily proclaimed, "It's Soren's turn!"

I reconfirmed that Soren does NOT like having his teeth cleaned.  I'll just leave it at that.  He has 15 teeth now and the only fun fact that came out of his visit is that he'll probably only end up with 19 of 20 baby teeth.  He's missing a lateral incisor and those usually erupt before age two and they're one of those most common baby teeth a kid could be missing, so the dentist's hunch for now is that he won't get one. 

The next morning the kids visited the doctor for the respective four-year and two-year wellness visits.  They were happy as could be in the waiting room, but as soon as the nurse called their names, Soren started to cry and that prompted Oliver to be clingy and anxious.  We hadn't even made it to the exam room and, let's just say, my kids had already announced their presence!  The nurses just chuckle when they see us coming.

Oliver is in the 25th percentile for both height and weight, at 39 inches tall and 32 pounds, 8 ounces. 

Soren is supposedly in the 25th percentile for height at 33 3/4 inches, but I was confident in the nurse's quick measurement on a kid who wasn't lying still, so I think he's more like 33 inches.  At 24 pounds and 2 ounces, he's in the 5th percentile for weight. 

I asked the doctor about Soren's monthly fevers.  He was in again last week and the doctor he saw it's normal for kids over the age of six months to catch a virus on average once a month.  I followed up with Soren's pediatrician at his wellness visit, because while I understand young kids can seem like they're constantly sick, like they have a running nose or unsettling cough that seems to last all winter, Soren's illnesses come at regular intervals of three to four weeks.  He has a high fever for about three days, with few other symptoms, and then it's gone.  The doctor says for kids experiencing what I described, there might be something more serious going on than just catching another virus.  But he ruled out anything too concerning given that Soren is following his growth curves perfectly and he rebounds quickly and well from each episode.  So instead of putting him through extensive test for something he'll probably grow out of, his doctor and I decided we'd take a wait-and-see approach. 

Balancing Birthdays

How do you make birthdays for kids meaningful?  It's a delicate balance between making the day special and not over-indulging or over-whelming them.  And our family has an extra challenge of celebrating three birthdays (and one anniversary!) in one month's time.  That's a lot of cake!  We want to celebrate each individual in the family without experiencing birthday fatigue.  So how do you find the balance?  I think the answer is going to evolve from year to year depending upon what's going on in our lives and what the kids (and we) want.  Some years we'll get it better than others - and that's okay. 

When we asked Oliver what he wanted to do this year for his birthday, he chose to spend an afternoon at an amusement park over having a birthday party.  At first I was a little disappointed.  My Pinterest board was full of four-year-old-birthday party ideas and I wasn't going to get to use them.  Eventually disappointment gave way to relief.  Oliver had just given me a birthday gift - I wasn't going to have to plan a party!  Because, honestly, Pinterest-worthy birthday parties are not my forte.  More importantly, Oliver should get to celebrate his birthday the way he wants to. 

And he did.  We went to Como Town with his best buddy, the little guy he used to see daily, but now only gets to see when his mom and I manage to arrange a playdate.  He got to request what he wanted for breakfast (waffles!) and ate them off a special birthday plate.  He finished his day off at a Twins game, where his dad let him eat every possible bad-for-you kind of food his heart desired. 

With Oliver content to have a birthday outing instead of a party and Soren not old enough to provide much input, (his wants were simple - cake - that much I was sure of) we opted for a family party.  I did what I thought I wouldn't do for kids whose birthdays are so close together and that's hold a joint party and have, gasp, one cake!  But it worked out.  Really, the kids are at an age where it doesn't matter to them.  They were both happy to have family come over, open a couple gifts and eat cake.  They didn't care that it was the same cake and they weren't counting who got more presents.  This is one where I was finally going to let myself relax and truly "enjoy it while it lasts." 

Happy Birthday Soren

Soren turning two years old is especially nostalgic because Oliver was the same age when Soren was born.  I look at Soren and think he looks younger than I remembered Oliver at two.  But perhaps that's because, expecting a new baby, I saw Oliver older than he actually was.  He was about to become a big brother and as much as I had wanted him to stay a baby, I also needed him to grow up.  So Soren's second birthday, an otherwise exciting and joying time, triggered a sense of feeling off, like something was  missing.  At this point in my life, as my youngest ascends from baby to toddler, I felt like I should be bringing a new baby into the world, just as I had when Oliver was two. 

With no new baby to come after him, Soren's second birthday was bittersweet.  I've always called Soren my little baby, but as I kissed him goodnight on the night before his birthday, I realized that was probably the last time I could call him that. 

While I was feeling pretty sappy and nostalgic that night, I woke up excited the next morning.  I had taken the morning off work so I could do something fun with Soren to mark his birthday.  I was thankful I had those few hours off since Oliver's birthday had fallen on a Sunday and he had gotten a weekend's worth of birthday celebration with mom and dad and other family. 

After dropping Oliver off at preschool, we took the bus downtown to the Science Museum.  Soren loves trucks, buses, cars and trains, so riding on a bus was quite a treat!  I really think he enjoyed that more than the museum.  We spent the rest of the morning taking in the sights of downtown, running up and down the sidewalks, watching the boats and trains pass by along the river and even taking in some of the museum, our original destination.  Time flew and we hopped back on the bus to Oliver's preschool. 

Birthdays are a time for reflection and I look at Soren and see a kid with tons of personality and his own interests.  Here's a boy who loves to dance and clap his hands. Soren got a CD player and a CD of kids dance music for his birthday and he started clapping his hands and stomping a foot when he saw what was underneath the wrapping paper.  We plugged in the CD player and Soren danced in circles until he was too dizzy to dance anymore.  I always listen to the radio in the car and sometimes a song will move him to bop his head and clap his hands.  He moves to the music like no one's watching.

Soren is really getting into pretend play and especially likes mimicking what he sees mom and dad do, like cooking or cleaning.  He got play kitchen for his birthday and loves it!  It drives me nuts that a pretend kitchen has been deemed a "girl" toy by toy marketers and that it's difficult to find one not splashed in pink.  But obviously Soren doesn't care about the color. I joke that both my kids are man enough to take on pink, and in all honesty, the pastels of Soren's new kitchen do complement the greys and whites of our basement walls quite well. 

Soren is saying a ton of words - more than I can count - and is still working on combining two words together for some semblance of a sentence.  Who knows if "Daddy work" means "Daddy is at work," "Daddy went to work" or "Daddy is going to work," but it's clear from his emotions that he misses Chris and knows he's at work. 

A lot of the words he says are a result of our direct conversation with him, as opposed to words that he says to us initiated on his own.  But it's clear he knows what he's talking about instead of just completely mimicking us.  Sometimes we go out to eat on a Friday evening and since it was Soren's birthday, we decided to let him pick.  Of the two kid-friendly restaurants we often go to, one is a pizza place and the other has mac and cheese on the menu.  So we asked Soren if he wanted pizza or mac and cheese and to our surprise, he answered us.  "Pizza!" he exclaimed with a smile. Since Oliver was lobbying hard for the mac and cheese, we asked Soren again and a third time and his answer was always pizza.  So that's what the birthday boy got. 

My kids' birthdays always trigger raw memories of their births and as I was getting Soren ready for bed the night before his birthday, I remembered two years before being in labor and wondering who this new son of mine was going to be.  Of course I could have played over in my head all possible scenarios for who this new little baby was going to be and still couldn't have imagined such a sweet, beautiful and loving boy.   

This will be the last of my monthly Soren updates.  It's not to say I won't post any more updates, just not on a regular basis.  It's been a joy to write about Soren's growth and development and I'm thankful I have this record of his first two years of life since they change so much at this stage.

Home Study Finished!

Our home study is finished!  We can check the first big milestone in the adoption process off our list.  Although there are many more steps ahead of us, finishing the home study feels not only like an accomplishment (even if a small one on an otherwise long road), but like adopting a child is really going to happen. 

The next two steps occur simultaneously - I-800 approval and dossier completion.  We'll get started working on our dossier, which is a set of legal documents we'll send to the Chinese adoption authorities.  Because of the volume of paperwork involved, this process is often referred to in the adoption world as the "paper chase." 

But before our dossier can go to China, we need approval from the United States Citizen and Immigration Services (USCIS) of our "Application for Determination of Suitability to Adopt a Child from a Convention Country," or the I-800A.  Oh, and before we could mail in our I-800A, we had to wait for copies of our approved home study to arrive from our agency since the home study has to accompany the I-800A.  The timeframe on approval from Immigration is unpredictable, so as recommended, we sent our I-800A the day after we received our home study. You can probably start to see how the adoption process is not simply a checklist of tasks needing to be completed, but really a puzzle of tasks that need to fit together in a certain order with one step contingent upon one or multiple previous steps. 

At least while we wait on the I-800A, we can collect the documents needed for our dossier.  With the government shut-down and the later-than-anticipated completion of our home study, I'm not sure if we'll make my original goal to send our dossier to China by Christmas, but there's no reason to do anything but keep plugging ahead. 

Bureaucracy

Everyone warns you that the adoption process is long and full of situations out of your control, but like a lot in life, I don't believe it until I live it.  And then I experience a set-back and I reel from the powerlessness to make things right, or at least improve the process for the parents who come after me.  We're not even through the first major step, the home study, and a federal shut-down, the unaccountability of a state employee and the departure of our social worker left me actually wondering if this is all worth it. 

Our home study has been inching towards completion for a few weeks now.  The unfortunate timing of work travel, vacations and then our social worker's call to jury duty caused delays in scheduling the required interviews for the home study.  I kept myself busy with paperwork and training and for the most part felt like I was making progress. 

Eventually there was nothing left to do.  Our home study had been written and approved by our agency's Minnesota branch and the national office.  Back in July we had requested child abuse background checks for all the states we have lived in and they came back in a few weeks, (clear of course!) with the exception of New Jersey's.  Our social worker repeatedly contacted New Jersey's Department of Human Services, but either couldn't get a hold of a live person, or a person who was helpful.  A week and a half ago, she finally learned that my request hadn't been processed because we had used the wrong form.  A no one was going to bother to tell us. 

I mailed in the correct form, but a week later panicked when I wondered if I had filled the form out correctly and if I'd have to wait another two months to find out.  After consulting with our adoption agency, I ended up calling DHS and actually got a hold of the woman our social worker had talked to the week before.  I thought I was going to get an answer about the status of my background check, but instead got an extra dose of frustration.  Even though I explained we had been advised of the wrong form back in July and were never contacted, (and my social worker had explained this to her the week before) the DHS worker snidely informed me that many others were waiting ahead of me and that they were waiting much longer than a day.  A day, I wanted to scream!  I have been waiting since July! I wanted to reach through the phone and shake some sense into this woman that without this one clearance, our entire adoption process was at a standstill. 

The next day I opened the paper and read about the inevitability of a federal government shut-down.  The two-paragraph article mentioned that Immigration would shut down and visas and passports wouldn't be processed.  Even if I had the clearance from New Jersey and we could move ahead to starting on our dossier, we need preliminary approval from Immigration before our dossier can go to China.  Nothing was going right and I felt so powerless to do anything to help the situation. 

The following Monday I received an e-mail from our social worker.  Her husband had accepted a job in New Hampshire and her last day at Bethany would be in two weeks. 

Then the truly unexpected happened.  The woman from DHS I had argued with the Friday before called that evening during dinner.  She wanted to let me know that my background check had been processed and had been put in the mail that Friday.  I was overjoyed, but confused.  What had that attitude been all about since she must have gotten off the phone with me late that Friday afternoon and immediately processed my background check?  She surprised me more by telling me that she's all about forming families and she had heard me loud and clear during our last conversation. 

Our social worker e-mailed us back the next day thrilled to hear DHS in New Jersey had changed its tune.  She had a bit of more good news for me.  Yes, unfortunately, she's still moving to New Hampshire.  But, the USCIS has not shut down.  There will still be delays in processing our I-800A as a result of the federal shut-down, but there still remains hope that we can keep moving ahead, even if at a slower pace. 

It was such a weight off my shoulders to learn that we may actually be able to complete our home study after all and that we can start on our dossier.  However, there's still a part of me wondering how much stamina I'm going to need.  In the latest e-mail I got from our social worker, she kindly said, "You were a great advocate for yourself and your family.  Don't forget to keep doing that though the process."

It was more bittersweet than I thought it would be to give away Oliver and Soren's old baby clothes even though I knew there was no reason to keep it all.  Although Chris and I hope to have more children, the reality is that we'll never have another newborn. Yet it was still sad thinking that no other baby of ours is going to wear those teeny tiny sleepers, the winter hats with the bear ears or the onesies with the sassy sayings printed on the front.  As I dug through the boxes, I looked at clothes I hadn't seen in a long time and yet could still picture each of my children wearing every single item of clothing. I recognized the Robeez shoes with the dogs on them a friend had given Oliver when he was born, the sunhat Chris thought made the kids look ridiculous, but which I thought made them look adorable and the outfits my stepsister had mailed me that had belonged to my nephew.  There were my favorite outfits I had dressed the kids in and all those sleepsacks I had tucked them into at night.  As I looked everything over, I thought, wasn't it just yesterday that Soren was wearing or using these things?  And there I was resorting and repacking it all to give away.

The clothes carry memories for me, but they're not going to do anyone any good by staying in boxes. 
Instead of going through the hassle of selling everything, or donating to Goodwill, who'd turn around and sell it, I decided I'd feel better letting go of everything if the items could go to someone who'd have a real use for them.  So many people have helped us provide for our kids and this is one small way of paying it forward. 

After asking around, I found a church near my office that has a Karen congregation made up of mostly new refugees who come to this country with few physical possessions.  Along with helping these families with household items to set them up in their new homes in Minnesota, the church hosts baby supply giveways throughout the year.  Anyone in the community is welcome to come and pick out as much as they need of the donated clothes, toys and gear. 

With the adoption essentially stalled for the time-being due to government bureaucracy, the process of sorting through what we don't need to keep gave me something positive to do, even if it didn't put us closer to bringing our next child home.  Parting with my kids' baby things was an act of acceptance that the newborn stage is behind us and we're off on a new journey.