The kids are enrolled in their new daycare and are scheduled to visit next Friday to meet their teachers. I've thought through our new morning routine and conducted trial runs. They are technically ready to go. I am ready to go. And then I realize that I'm in denial that our nanny only has one week left. One more week of me being able to dash out the door even if the kids are still in their pajamas because I know our nanny will finish dressing them and getting them ready for the day. One more week of asking the nanny to do me a favor and run an unexpected errand for me or put dinner in the oven. One more week of the kids seeing the friends they've gotten to know over the past year and a half and one more week of soaking in the beautiful Portuguese language. I hope our nanny stays a part of our lives, but I'm in denial that her presence in our everyday lives is coming to an end.
What I learned about having a nanny, at least a good nanny, is that she doesn't just take care of your children, but your whole family. Our nanny brought our kids to see me while I was in the hospital and drove me home after I was discharged so Chris wouldn't have to miss yet more work. She took care of my children when they were sick and was thrown up on, not once, but twice. The only one childless among her friends, she shows off pictures of my kids and boasted their accomplishments as if they were her own. Her mom back in Brazil even displays a framed picture of one of Oliver's drawings. (For the record, I don't have a framed anything of Oliver's.)
Having a nanny means giving up privacy. Ours knows the dynamics of our family - good and bad - better than anyone else. She's seen my kids' worst behavior and me in my pajamas. She knows we're not very organized, we have a sweet tooth for chocolate and cookies and that we wait until the trash can is overflowing before we take it out. There are no secrets. But in exchange Chris and I gained someone we trust with her kids as much as each other. There are few people who love and know your kids as well as you as you do and the more people you have in your life who you trust without question, the better off your whole family is.
I'm feeling sad and anxious when I think of this upcoming week. I hope it goes by quickly because I hate drawn-out goodbyes, but not too quickly that I can't see this final week as a week to be enjoyed.
Kiera, Matteo, Oliver and Soren
Saturday, November 30, 2013
Monday, November 25, 2013
USCIS Update
We are still waiting on our I-800A approval. It's been silence from the USCIS since we attended our November 4 biometrics appointment. To calm my anxious nerves, I tried contacting the USCIS and learned that the next step is for our application to be assigned an immigration officer, which has been averaging 60-75 days since they first received our application back on October 8. We can receive I-800A approval in as little as one to two days after it's been reviewed by the immigration officer - or the dreaded "pink slip" requesting more information.
We need 1-800A approval to complete our dossier, so as I was on the phone with USCIS, my mind was updating our timeline and I realized it's unlikely we'll be ready to ship our dossier to China before Christmas. I had hoped to get our dossier off U.S. soil before the holidays when work slows down as people take time off.
At least my conversation with USCIS confirmed that they had our application and the process, albeit moving at its own place, is inching forward. One of the hardest parts for me about the paperwork and applications is dealing with the anxiety of going about the process incorrectly or missing a vital document. I feel like I'm mailing irreplaceable documents into a black hole with nothing more than crossed fingers to guarantee arrival on the right person's desk. There's no person I can contact to make sure my envelope arrived and turnaround times, if they're offered, are often quoted in weeks. Some days are harder than others to remind myself that I have to let go and be comfortable that the process is out of my hands.
We need 1-800A approval to complete our dossier, so as I was on the phone with USCIS, my mind was updating our timeline and I realized it's unlikely we'll be ready to ship our dossier to China before Christmas. I had hoped to get our dossier off U.S. soil before the holidays when work slows down as people take time off.
At least my conversation with USCIS confirmed that they had our application and the process, albeit moving at its own place, is inching forward. One of the hardest parts for me about the paperwork and applications is dealing with the anxiety of going about the process incorrectly or missing a vital document. I feel like I'm mailing irreplaceable documents into a black hole with nothing more than crossed fingers to guarantee arrival on the right person's desk. There's no person I can contact to make sure my envelope arrived and turnaround times, if they're offered, are often quoted in weeks. Some days are harder than others to remind myself that I have to let go and be comfortable that the process is out of my hands.
Friday, November 22, 2013
What I've Learned About Adoption (So Far)
We're only part-way through the adoption process and nowhere near being matched with a child and yet what I've learned has vastly changed how I think about adoption. As with parenting in general, the reality is different than what I had previously imagined. It's been a humbling ride so far and when I think back six months ago, all I think is how naïve I was.
One of the reasons I'm writing about the adoption process is that I hope that others with an interest in adoption can learn from our experiences. As sobering as the reality is, I feel empowered by what I've learned. When I first learned about the challenges kids and families in adoption face, I panicked and wondered what we had gotten ourselves into. But the feeling of panic turned to increased passion for adoption.
Birth Order
The concept of birth order was a concept I first heard about when I filled out a pre-application form with the adoption agency. I was surprised to read that the adopted child had to be at least 12 months younger than the youngest child in the home. I had already learned that it is nearly unheard of to adopt an infant internationally, and now this birth order rule meant that there were no children we'd be eligible to adopt given how young Soren was.
The more I researched about maintaining birth order in adoption, the more I understood why it's considered best practice. Adopted children, especially those raised in orphanages, come from hard places. They need a chance to be the baby and have as much attention as possible, just like any newborn. Children raised in orphanages are going to arrive with developmental delays. It's not a great situation to have a child who's chronologically a six-year-old, but developmentally a four-year-old "looking up" to a two-year-old. It's also a dangerous situation if that child, who may have experienced physical or sexual abuse, deals with this trauma in a violent way.
We ended up contracting with our current agency because, while they also think it is a best practice to place children in homes where the new child will be at least 12 months younger than the next oldest child, they acknowledge that the length of the adoption process means that Soren at that point will be 12 months older than children eligible for adoption. So on we proceed, but still committed to preserving the birth order of our children.
Trauma
Kids who've been adopted have suffered trauma on some level. I used to think that trauma meant you had been abused, but I didn't understand the long-lasting effect neglect, lack of stimulation, attention, lack of attachment can have on a child's emotional, psychological and physical development. A child adopted at a young age may not remember her early life and the fact that no one rocked, shushed and comforted her when she cried, or that no one played silly games of peekaboo with her, talked to her or sang to her. She hopefully doesn't remember not getting enough food or having to compete for attention. But earlier experiences do shape a person, especially when they happen during such formative years, and children take those experiences with them even if they don't "remember."
Despite what our child will or won't be able to remember years after being adopted, at the time of their adoption, they're forced to process a hard past while adjusting to being with unfamiliar people in an unfamiliar place, eating unfamiliar food and being spoken to in an unfamiliar language. No matter how young they were when they were adopted, it takes time to learn what it means to have parents who will love and protect them or to have all the food they need .
It isn't all smiles on "Gotcha Day"
I read a lot of adoption blogs. Mostly about international adoption and many specifically about adoption from China. I'm especially interested in reading about their trips to pick up their children and "Gotcha Day," the day adoptive parents are united with their children. Before I embarked on the adoption journey, I imagined the day children are united with their new parents as a happy sort of homecoming. However, there's a theme I noticed in the Gotcha Day photos - the child is never happy. He or she is usually crying or screaming. At best, he or she looks shell-shocked.
I'm almost embarrassed to admit that it never occurred to me that the day we meet our new child might be one of the worst days of his life. He'll have no idea he's getting a new mom, dad and two older brothers who will love him and take care of him. As a toddler, he'll be way too young to comprehend what's going on. All he'll know is that he's in the arms of someone he DOES NOT know. I remember what Oliver and Soren were like as babies and young toddlers. If you tried to hand them to anyone, even for a second, they would SCREAM. It was exacerbating. It's not like I was leaving them. Now it breaks my heart to think my future child will feel that same terror and desperation. Except his nanny really is leaving him in the hands of two strangers.
Adopting older children isn't easier
When we say we're adopting a toddler, sometimes we hear that we're lucky we'll be skipping the up-all-night, needy newborn stage. Heck, Chris and I believed that too. Oh how wrong we're learning that assumption is. We may not be up multiple times a night feeding a baby, (and I obviously won't be dealing with breastfeeding) but we could be contending with a toddler whose fears, grief and anxiety shine brightest in the middle of the night. We'll have a child whose sleep routine in our little house in Minnesota is much different than it had been on the other side of the world. We've been trained not to expect to put our new child to bed on his first night, or 100th night, and expect him to sleep like our older kids had at his age.
That's just the issue of sleep. The things I'm appreciating about a newborn (that due to lack of perspective, I didn't appreciate when Oliver was born) is that you can get to know them gradually. They don't need much in the beginning - just milk, sleep, diaper changes and someone to cuddle them. They can't go anywhere, it doesn't matter that they don't understand you and they don't have many interests beyond staring at ceiling fans.
Now imagine if you were handed a two-year-old. He has his own interests and personality, but you have no idea what they are. He doesn't speak your language and like any two-year-old, he's going to have energy he needs to expend. He'll be able to get into things and will want to run and play. I imagine that my maternity leave with an adopted toddler is going to be a lot more engaging than with a newborn, but it's also going to be a lot more challenging - and exhausting!
As excited as I am to adopt a toddler, I'm still sad we'll never have another newborn. Yes, we're skipping the tough and mundane parts that come with the territory with newborns, but all the things I loved about my kids when they were babies, I won't have with our next child. I grieve those lost experiences.
I also grieve that lost time with my own child. We'll never know what our third child was like as a newborn or even a young toddler. We will be able to tell him very little about the beginning of his life and we will most likely know nothing about his birth family. I look at Soren and think about all the memories I have of his life so far and what I will be able to share with him. So much has happened in his short life! It's hard to imagine not knowing anything about the beginning of my own child's life.
International adoption has changed
I'm sure I have friends and acquaintance who wonder why the adoption process is going to take so long for Chris and me. Or why we think the process is hard. Or they're suspicious of my explanation that infant adoption is virtually unheard of anymore in international adoption. They'll bring up second-hand stories of a neighbor's friend's granddaughter who was adopted from another country as an infant as proof to the contrary. Then I ask when the adoption took place and they say ten years ago, or maybe even early as seven or eight years ago.
International adoption has changed. In addition to the more stringent requirements and processes that just take longer to complete as a prospective adoptive parent, countries with adoption programs have changed who is eligible for adoption. Children have to be legally documented orphans and often must be available for adoption domestically before being eligible for international adoption. Bureaucratic red tape means that even when you are matched with a child, it may be six months (or longer) before you travel to bring him or her home. You could be matched with a baby, but will be bringing home a walking (and maybe talking) toddler.
"Just adopt" doesn't exist
The solution for everything from infertility to not wanting to deal with the unpleasantness of child-bearing is to "just adopt". You hear about the thousands of children in our foster care system and the millions of orphans around the world and there's this belief that you have your pick of children if you decide to adopt.
Anyone who utters those words doesn't know anything about adoption. The process can be long, frustrating, unpredictable, heart-breaking, intrusive and expensive. Countries close their adoption programs due to politics or scandal or add new eligibility restrictions, a birth parent might not pick you or decide to parent or a foster child could go back to his or her biological family. The financial cost is real as social workers and lawyers need to be paid, paperwork processed and orphanages supported. You're forced to plan for an unknown wait and open up your lives to social workers, doctors and government officials. There is nothing easy about adoption. You have to really want it.
One of the reasons I'm writing about the adoption process is that I hope that others with an interest in adoption can learn from our experiences. As sobering as the reality is, I feel empowered by what I've learned. When I first learned about the challenges kids and families in adoption face, I panicked and wondered what we had gotten ourselves into. But the feeling of panic turned to increased passion for adoption.
Birth Order
The concept of birth order was a concept I first heard about when I filled out a pre-application form with the adoption agency. I was surprised to read that the adopted child had to be at least 12 months younger than the youngest child in the home. I had already learned that it is nearly unheard of to adopt an infant internationally, and now this birth order rule meant that there were no children we'd be eligible to adopt given how young Soren was.
The more I researched about maintaining birth order in adoption, the more I understood why it's considered best practice. Adopted children, especially those raised in orphanages, come from hard places. They need a chance to be the baby and have as much attention as possible, just like any newborn. Children raised in orphanages are going to arrive with developmental delays. It's not a great situation to have a child who's chronologically a six-year-old, but developmentally a four-year-old "looking up" to a two-year-old. It's also a dangerous situation if that child, who may have experienced physical or sexual abuse, deals with this trauma in a violent way.
We ended up contracting with our current agency because, while they also think it is a best practice to place children in homes where the new child will be at least 12 months younger than the next oldest child, they acknowledge that the length of the adoption process means that Soren at that point will be 12 months older than children eligible for adoption. So on we proceed, but still committed to preserving the birth order of our children.
Trauma
Kids who've been adopted have suffered trauma on some level. I used to think that trauma meant you had been abused, but I didn't understand the long-lasting effect neglect, lack of stimulation, attention, lack of attachment can have on a child's emotional, psychological and physical development. A child adopted at a young age may not remember her early life and the fact that no one rocked, shushed and comforted her when she cried, or that no one played silly games of peekaboo with her, talked to her or sang to her. She hopefully doesn't remember not getting enough food or having to compete for attention. But earlier experiences do shape a person, especially when they happen during such formative years, and children take those experiences with them even if they don't "remember."
Despite what our child will or won't be able to remember years after being adopted, at the time of their adoption, they're forced to process a hard past while adjusting to being with unfamiliar people in an unfamiliar place, eating unfamiliar food and being spoken to in an unfamiliar language. No matter how young they were when they were adopted, it takes time to learn what it means to have parents who will love and protect them or to have all the food they need .
It isn't all smiles on "Gotcha Day"
I read a lot of adoption blogs. Mostly about international adoption and many specifically about adoption from China. I'm especially interested in reading about their trips to pick up their children and "Gotcha Day," the day adoptive parents are united with their children. Before I embarked on the adoption journey, I imagined the day children are united with their new parents as a happy sort of homecoming. However, there's a theme I noticed in the Gotcha Day photos - the child is never happy. He or she is usually crying or screaming. At best, he or she looks shell-shocked.
I'm almost embarrassed to admit that it never occurred to me that the day we meet our new child might be one of the worst days of his life. He'll have no idea he's getting a new mom, dad and two older brothers who will love him and take care of him. As a toddler, he'll be way too young to comprehend what's going on. All he'll know is that he's in the arms of someone he DOES NOT know. I remember what Oliver and Soren were like as babies and young toddlers. If you tried to hand them to anyone, even for a second, they would SCREAM. It was exacerbating. It's not like I was leaving them. Now it breaks my heart to think my future child will feel that same terror and desperation. Except his nanny really is leaving him in the hands of two strangers.
Adopting older children isn't easier
When we say we're adopting a toddler, sometimes we hear that we're lucky we'll be skipping the up-all-night, needy newborn stage. Heck, Chris and I believed that too. Oh how wrong we're learning that assumption is. We may not be up multiple times a night feeding a baby, (and I obviously won't be dealing with breastfeeding) but we could be contending with a toddler whose fears, grief and anxiety shine brightest in the middle of the night. We'll have a child whose sleep routine in our little house in Minnesota is much different than it had been on the other side of the world. We've been trained not to expect to put our new child to bed on his first night, or 100th night, and expect him to sleep like our older kids had at his age.
That's just the issue of sleep. The things I'm appreciating about a newborn (that due to lack of perspective, I didn't appreciate when Oliver was born) is that you can get to know them gradually. They don't need much in the beginning - just milk, sleep, diaper changes and someone to cuddle them. They can't go anywhere, it doesn't matter that they don't understand you and they don't have many interests beyond staring at ceiling fans.
Now imagine if you were handed a two-year-old. He has his own interests and personality, but you have no idea what they are. He doesn't speak your language and like any two-year-old, he's going to have energy he needs to expend. He'll be able to get into things and will want to run and play. I imagine that my maternity leave with an adopted toddler is going to be a lot more engaging than with a newborn, but it's also going to be a lot more challenging - and exhausting!
As excited as I am to adopt a toddler, I'm still sad we'll never have another newborn. Yes, we're skipping the tough and mundane parts that come with the territory with newborns, but all the things I loved about my kids when they were babies, I won't have with our next child. I grieve those lost experiences.
I also grieve that lost time with my own child. We'll never know what our third child was like as a newborn or even a young toddler. We will be able to tell him very little about the beginning of his life and we will most likely know nothing about his birth family. I look at Soren and think about all the memories I have of his life so far and what I will be able to share with him. So much has happened in his short life! It's hard to imagine not knowing anything about the beginning of my own child's life.
International adoption has changed
I'm sure I have friends and acquaintance who wonder why the adoption process is going to take so long for Chris and me. Or why we think the process is hard. Or they're suspicious of my explanation that infant adoption is virtually unheard of anymore in international adoption. They'll bring up second-hand stories of a neighbor's friend's granddaughter who was adopted from another country as an infant as proof to the contrary. Then I ask when the adoption took place and they say ten years ago, or maybe even early as seven or eight years ago.
International adoption has changed. In addition to the more stringent requirements and processes that just take longer to complete as a prospective adoptive parent, countries with adoption programs have changed who is eligible for adoption. Children have to be legally documented orphans and often must be available for adoption domestically before being eligible for international adoption. Bureaucratic red tape means that even when you are matched with a child, it may be six months (or longer) before you travel to bring him or her home. You could be matched with a baby, but will be bringing home a walking (and maybe talking) toddler.
"Just adopt" doesn't exist
The solution for everything from infertility to not wanting to deal with the unpleasantness of child-bearing is to "just adopt". You hear about the thousands of children in our foster care system and the millions of orphans around the world and there's this belief that you have your pick of children if you decide to adopt.
Anyone who utters those words doesn't know anything about adoption. The process can be long, frustrating, unpredictable, heart-breaking, intrusive and expensive. Countries close their adoption programs due to politics or scandal or add new eligibility restrictions, a birth parent might not pick you or decide to parent or a foster child could go back to his or her biological family. The financial cost is real as social workers and lawyers need to be paid, paperwork processed and orphanages supported. You're forced to plan for an unknown wait and open up your lives to social workers, doctors and government officials. There is nothing easy about adoption. You have to really want it.
Saturday, November 16, 2013
Natural Playground
On a very frigid November day, I took the kids to the playground. I guess only in Minnesota do we head outdoors as if the windchill weren't registering at 14 degrees. I had the day off though and a saving grace with young kids is to be able to get outside. And besides, cold or not, there was a particular playground I wanted to see for myself.
Two years ago, the Tamarack Nature Center in White Bear Township built a "natural play area" on 2.5 acres. Our local Pioneer Press wrote this article that sums up the experience.
Part of me questions whether the existence of this play ground is sad sign that our kids are so nature-deprived that we need to construct a "natural" play area for them. According to the Pioneer Press article, the motivation behind the natural playground is that kids didn't know what to do in nature.
I've shoved aside my own nay-saying, though, and have declared the playground awesome. There are practical reasons to love this particular set-up. It's fenced in (without feeling enclosed since the area is so large), so I don't have to worry about my kids wandering off. My biggest worry at playgrounds is not that they'll fall and hurt themselves or have sand thrown in their eyes, but that I won't be able to keep track of them. Also, we live in the city, which has its perks, but the reality is that we have to drive to experience a more natural setting, such as prairie. And lastly, if you put a lot of cool things in one spot and call it a playground, kids will come. There's a need for kids to have the opportunity to interact with other kids.
Ultimately, I find nothing wrong with a contrived "natural" environment that gives kids a starting point for play and creativity with other people their age. If our kids' generation is experiencing the nature deficit described in Richard Louv's book Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder, we have to start somewhere. At least my kids don't fit the demographic the much-ridiculed Toy 'R' Us ad, which depicts nature as dull, is aimed at. (If you haven't seen the commercial, check out this bit from the Cobert Report where Stephen Cobert sarcastically reports, “Nature is boring. I played in it once. There was nothing to buy. It sucked.”)
What I've taken away from the natural play area is that this is just one of many fun ways for kids to experience the outdoors. Kids need a mix of experiences. They have every-day experiences of going on stroller walks, visiting traditional playgrounds and kicking up leaves in our yard. Then they have summers at the lake cabin, bonfires at Grandma and Grandpa's and the occasional trip farther afield to a national park or the ocean. It's not much different than the time my mother-in-law and I took the kids out to lunch near a local college and then let them run around on the campus quad instead of taking them to the mall for lunch and the indoor playspace afterward. We weren't in the woods or on the prairie, but the kids made their own fun with what they had available. They experienced fresh air, sun, chased squirrels, delighted in listening to their voices echo off the buildings and tried to climb on everything they could pull themselves onto.
Two years ago, the Tamarack Nature Center in White Bear Township built a "natural play area" on 2.5 acres. Our local Pioneer Press wrote this article that sums up the experience.
"Aside from the greenery, it's these rocks and sticks and sand - what playground designers call "loose parts" - that make naturalized playgrounds different from traditional playgrounds. In a traditional playground, children mostly slide, swing or climb and run on the play structures. They use their big muscles. Naturalized settings offer more variety and more things to manipulate, which means kids tend to slow down and use their minds and imaginations more."
Part of me questions whether the existence of this play ground is sad sign that our kids are so nature-deprived that we need to construct a "natural" play area for them. According to the Pioneer Press article, the motivation behind the natural playground is that kids didn't know what to do in nature.
"Tamarack has five miles of trails that wind through 320 rolling acres of restored prairie, oak savannah, tamarack swamps and cattail marshes. But few children were playing there."The nature center's director observed that patrons of the park with kids didn't know what to there besides hike.
I've shoved aside my own nay-saying, though, and have declared the playground awesome. There are practical reasons to love this particular set-up. It's fenced in (without feeling enclosed since the area is so large), so I don't have to worry about my kids wandering off. My biggest worry at playgrounds is not that they'll fall and hurt themselves or have sand thrown in their eyes, but that I won't be able to keep track of them. Also, we live in the city, which has its perks, but the reality is that we have to drive to experience a more natural setting, such as prairie. And lastly, if you put a lot of cool things in one spot and call it a playground, kids will come. There's a need for kids to have the opportunity to interact with other kids.
Ultimately, I find nothing wrong with a contrived "natural" environment that gives kids a starting point for play and creativity with other people their age. If our kids' generation is experiencing the nature deficit described in Richard Louv's book Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder, we have to start somewhere. At least my kids don't fit the demographic the much-ridiculed Toy 'R' Us ad, which depicts nature as dull, is aimed at. (If you haven't seen the commercial, check out this bit from the Cobert Report where Stephen Cobert sarcastically reports, “Nature is boring. I played in it once. There was nothing to buy. It sucked.”)
What I've taken away from the natural play area is that this is just one of many fun ways for kids to experience the outdoors. Kids need a mix of experiences. They have every-day experiences of going on stroller walks, visiting traditional playgrounds and kicking up leaves in our yard. Then they have summers at the lake cabin, bonfires at Grandma and Grandpa's and the occasional trip farther afield to a national park or the ocean. It's not much different than the time my mother-in-law and I took the kids out to lunch near a local college and then let them run around on the campus quad instead of taking them to the mall for lunch and the indoor playspace afterward. We weren't in the woods or on the prairie, but the kids made their own fun with what they had available. They experienced fresh air, sun, chased squirrels, delighted in listening to their voices echo off the buildings and tried to climb on everything they could pull themselves onto.
Friday, November 15, 2013
Transitions
We knew the day would eventually come when our nanny would leave our family and move on to bigger and better things. She's been in school since we met her and has a goal of finishing her business degree. When you're in a really good routine and so comfortable with someone, it's easy to forget it won't last forever, so it still took us by surprise when she announced her last day would be December 9.
As much as we loved having a nanny, we decided to enroll our kids in a daycare center. I surprised myself by how quickly I warmed to the idea. Considering how we're in the middle of the adoption process, a daycare center is a better childcare option for the time-being over finding a new nanny. We don't have to worry about the nanny leaving us close to the adoption, which will be a time of huge transition that we don't want to also have the transition of a new daycare provider too. It had also become overwhelming to think about not only what kind of nanny would be the best fit for our family now, but also who would be the best fit for three kids, one of whom we don't know anything about, such as age or health needs. The daycare center meets our kids' needs now and we can reevaluate hiring another nanny after we adopt. Meanwhile, we have the flexibility to pull the kids when we go to China and during my maternity leave without worrying about impacting a nanny's livelihood.
At ages two and four, I feel so much more comfortable with the kids going to a daycare center than when they were younger, just as I felt more at peace with the decision to go back to work after Soren was born than after Oliver was born and I was adjusting to being a first-time mom. They're at an age where I think they'll adjust to the transition to attending daycare and they'll really enjoy it. I took the kids with me when I went to check the place out and they loved all the new toys and activities they had available in each classroom. I know there'll be tons of tears at drop-off in the beginning, but I also trust there'll be a lot they like about their new daycare.
As much as we loved having a nanny, we decided to enroll our kids in a daycare center. I surprised myself by how quickly I warmed to the idea. Considering how we're in the middle of the adoption process, a daycare center is a better childcare option for the time-being over finding a new nanny. We don't have to worry about the nanny leaving us close to the adoption, which will be a time of huge transition that we don't want to also have the transition of a new daycare provider too. It had also become overwhelming to think about not only what kind of nanny would be the best fit for our family now, but also who would be the best fit for three kids, one of whom we don't know anything about, such as age or health needs. The daycare center meets our kids' needs now and we can reevaluate hiring another nanny after we adopt. Meanwhile, we have the flexibility to pull the kids when we go to China and during my maternity leave without worrying about impacting a nanny's livelihood.
At ages two and four, I feel so much more comfortable with the kids going to a daycare center than when they were younger, just as I felt more at peace with the decision to go back to work after Soren was born than after Oliver was born and I was adjusting to being a first-time mom. They're at an age where I think they'll adjust to the transition to attending daycare and they'll really enjoy it. I took the kids with me when I went to check the place out and they loved all the new toys and activities they had available in each classroom. I know there'll be tons of tears at drop-off in the beginning, but I also trust there'll be a lot they like about their new daycare.
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
Soren Update: 25 Months
Soren's independence continues to grow, but in true toddler fashion, he still needs his hugs of reassurance. He often gives impromptu hugs. He breaks from his play just long enough to give you a hug, pauses for another moment and then continues what he was doing. If he falls or hurts himself, he seeks our arms and wails for a minute or two and then is wiggling out again wanting to return to the fun. I just love that feeling of being the one who can soothe him. I can literally feel him relax in my embrace.
Although his little toddler hugs remind me how sweet Soren is, he's picked up some naughty behavior from Oliver. It's amazing how much he copies Oliver, even when Oliver misbehaves. Oliver swatted at Chris in anger about being told no and before Chris even had a chance to reprimand Oliver, Soren gleefully swatted at Chris too. We spend a lot of time telling Soren, "hands are for hugging" and if we see him look like he's going to hit, we repeat our mantra and ask him to show us what he's supposed to do with his hands. It works - if we can catch him in time.
Soren is one of those kids who loves his stuffed animals. He's so cute when he play pretend with them. He got a Snoopy to go with his Charlie Brown costume and he tries to have Snoopy drink from his sippy cup or suck on his pacifier. One day he read his stuffed animals a bedtime story, which consisted of him tucking the animals in then just holding up an open book in front of their faces. Not only do his stuffed animals sleep in bed with them, but he's got to tuck his favorites under the covers with him when I tuck him in at night.
The penguin run has all but disappeared. Just in the last month we noticed that Soren runs with his arm up-right instead of straight down and slightly back. I'll really miss that run.
Although his little toddler hugs remind me how sweet Soren is, he's picked up some naughty behavior from Oliver. It's amazing how much he copies Oliver, even when Oliver misbehaves. Oliver swatted at Chris in anger about being told no and before Chris even had a chance to reprimand Oliver, Soren gleefully swatted at Chris too. We spend a lot of time telling Soren, "hands are for hugging" and if we see him look like he's going to hit, we repeat our mantra and ask him to show us what he's supposed to do with his hands. It works - if we can catch him in time.
Soren is one of those kids who loves his stuffed animals. He's so cute when he play pretend with them. He got a Snoopy to go with his Charlie Brown costume and he tries to have Snoopy drink from his sippy cup or suck on his pacifier. One day he read his stuffed animals a bedtime story, which consisted of him tucking the animals in then just holding up an open book in front of their faces. Not only do his stuffed animals sleep in bed with them, but he's got to tuck his favorites under the covers with him when I tuck him in at night.
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| Soren sometimes insists we set a place for Snoopy! |
The penguin run has all but disappeared. Just in the last month we noticed that Soren runs with his arm up-right instead of straight down and slightly back. I'll really miss that run.
Monday, November 4, 2013
Biometrics Appointment
Chris and I had our appointments this morning with USCIS to have our biometrics taken, which is part of the approval process for our I-800A application. "Biometrics" we learned, is Immigration's fancy term for fingerprinting done with a scanner. I wasn't sure what to expect from the appointment, but they scanned our fingerprints and off we went. It was easier than going to the DMV!
The immigration office was located in a non-descript storefront in a strip mall next door to a Wal-Mart. Our appointment was at 9:00 a.m., but we showed up a few minutes early. We presented our driver's licenses and filled out a short form. After a clerk reviewed our forms, he handed us numbers and pointed us towards a room where we waited to be fingerprinted. It was 9:06 a.m. when I got back in my car to go to work.
With the biometrics appointment behind us, all we can do is wait. I still don't know how long we can expect to wait for approval. Two weeks? Or possibly weeks longer. With less than a month between the date we mailed our I-800A application and our biometrics appointment, I'm hopeful final approval won't be too far off. It's exciting to think we can see the finish line on completing our dossier, but I also know pulling together the loose ends can take longer than the initial work. We still have plenty of documents to complete and notarize, passport photos need to be taken and then we have to visit the Secretary of State's office to have everything state-sealed. Meanwhile, my Pennsylvania birth certificate still hasn't arrived yet!
The immigration office was located in a non-descript storefront in a strip mall next door to a Wal-Mart. Our appointment was at 9:00 a.m., but we showed up a few minutes early. We presented our driver's licenses and filled out a short form. After a clerk reviewed our forms, he handed us numbers and pointed us towards a room where we waited to be fingerprinted. It was 9:06 a.m. when I got back in my car to go to work.
With the biometrics appointment behind us, all we can do is wait. I still don't know how long we can expect to wait for approval. Two weeks? Or possibly weeks longer. With less than a month between the date we mailed our I-800A application and our biometrics appointment, I'm hopeful final approval won't be too far off. It's exciting to think we can see the finish line on completing our dossier, but I also know pulling together the loose ends can take longer than the initial work. We still have plenty of documents to complete and notarize, passport photos need to be taken and then we have to visit the Secretary of State's office to have everything state-sealed. Meanwhile, my Pennsylvania birth certificate still hasn't arrived yet!
Friday, November 1, 2013
Happy Birthday to G-Ma
There's someone very special in my family with a birthday today! For decades she was known as Mom, and of course I've only known her as Grandmother Partenheimer. With the birth of her great-grandson a few years ago, she earned a new title, G-Ma. Whatever name she answers to, she's the best one could ask for.
She's been a wonderful grandmother to me and one of the most beautiful things about our relationship is to witness the unconditional love she has for me extended to my sons. She thinks they're the neatest little kids and can honestly do no wrong in her eyes. I'm blessed to have a family that spans four generations.
From your sons, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, we send you all our love on your birthday!
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