Tuck And Roll!

Wow - I can't believe that Christmas is so close.... less than a week away!

I have been getting some calls and emails about our Christmas cards we sent out so I'd like to say "HI!" to anyone that has logged in to see what we are up to today!!

Our last package was shipped out on Saturday and we only had to stand in line for 30 minutes! We addressed the last few cards to send out to friends and we're done! Well, I'm done.... Bill is still shopping and brave enough to enter the malls. He is tougher than me, that's for sure.

Saturday we went to our friend's annual Christmas party and gift exchange. They have a pretty big family and they are Italian so there was lots of food!! I actually had pager for work on Saturday but one of my co-workers covered for me while I was out so we didn't go until later in the evening. Most people started leaving fairly early, for a party anyway, and we helped get their house back together. These are our cruise buddies too, so we are pretty close to say the least. We brought all our gifts for the family and I officially have another Bare Escentuals convert!

The last time they were over at our house, I gave T a "make-under". I'm kicking myself now for not taking any pictures because she was absolutely glowing. She doesn't wear a lot of makeup to begin with and this just lit her face up - she was gorgeous! We have been talking about BE for a long time now and I had got a few pots for her during the year that I was saving for Christmas. When I did her make-under, I used the same colors that I was going to give to her and I made the perfect choices. I gave her everything to do her face up in a BE bag with a cruise ship on it... perfect - I know! She was so excited.

Our friends are very supportive of our adoption plans and we asked them if they would mind writing one of our reference letters for us. I never wanted to assume that anyone would write one for us, but they said they would love to! They have assured us that they will be babysitting for us and that we should not come over if we don't bring Little Roo with us!

We had to leave the party because I had to get back home to do an install at midnight. I didn't plan on the install going very well, and it didn't as expected. I got to bed around 4am. Oh well, this is why I get paid the big bucks. Well, this is what I tell myself anyway. The next afternoon T left me the nicest message ever on my cell phone thanking me for the BE. I was so happy that she was so thrilled. She said she was just glowing and that everything looks so beautiful on her. Her husband doesn't think she needs makeup, and really she doesn't, but it enhances her. You can see the confidence and I think that anything that makes you feel better about yourself is a bonus. I'll have to plan my BE for the cruise carefully.... I'm sure we'll be playing quite a bit in my stash!

We worked some more on our next mountain of paperwork and gave out the rest of our reference letter forms. We decided to ask friends and not get referrals from family since they would probably say nice things about us anyway. Well, we did ask Bill's cousin to write one for us, but they have young children that we have been around recently so we knew that would help our cause. Actually it was their children that gave Bill the final tug on the heart to go forward with adoption and not turn back. So it seemed natural to ask them to help us! I got the letters sent out that needed to be mailed. One of my co-workers is writing one for us since we know each other so well. We've worked together for almost 7 years and we have seen their family grow over the years. The other letters went to our close friends who are happy to help us out in any way possible. We are so lucky to have so many people that love us.

Another trip to the county jail this morning! Hahaha!! I had talked to our social worker for the homestudy and the on-line background checks we did only went back 5 years. We needed something better even though our instructions said we could do the print-outs. Oh well. We know this is bound to happen and we are just going to tuck and roll with it. We know it is not a big deal and they are very quick and helping everyone that is waiting for something. The clerk took our ID's and came back in about 3 minutes with our reports on official letterhead from the county sheriff. Can't get any better than that. Here's the really funny part.... she charged me $0.30 total for both reports!! I guess I have gotten used to shelling out a lot more money for any part of this adoption work. I'm probably NOT going to itemize this $0.30 charge on our taxes!

We have gotten our employment verifications done, our new insurance cards showed up earlier than expected, and all our licenses and certificates have been copied for our growing file. I had an appointment with my normal physician Dr. N to sign the physician's report that I am healthy enough to be a parent. I think it is pretty funny all the things that adoptive parents have to do to prove they are mature adults to be parents when any yahoo with a car seat installed in their vehicle can take a baby home from the hospital with no questions asked. Well, I think it is funny now.... not too long ago it made me pretty angry. This is the path we are taken so we do it but Dr. N and I had a pretty funny conversation about it. She has signed these forms for people in the past. Dr. N means well, but she tells me that she knows that I will instantly become pregnant now because we are going through this whole process. Then I guess we will be blessed with two babies! Good for us and we'll be done! She filled out my form and laughed at the questions and I was on my way. Bill goes in next week to have his filled out by his doctor in the same practice. We are always able to get appointments pretty quickly and we don't have to wait months to be seen for routine things. They only thing they have a hard time doing are referrals and stuff like that, but now we have a PPO plan at the start of the year, so that will be done with.

So we are really rocking and rolling with all our paperwork. We hope that we will have our in-home visit right after the beginning of the year and we'll be just that much closer to having our baby. Over the Christmas holiday, we'll be at my parents and I need to collect some pictures from my dad's camera that he has taken of us. I'm sure there are some good ones that we can use for our family profile. We have to look as cute and fun as possible!

OK, true confession time.... I was off from work on Monday. I cleaned up the house and ran a few errands. I went to Babies-R-Us. In the past, I have avoided that place at all costs. I think I did go in there once to get a baby gift for someone, but it was years ago. My real intention of going there is because they are a Britax dealer and I wanted to see the Companion infant seat in person. I am going to buy a good baby seat for obvious reasons but I wanted to see it for real. The cheap seats seem very scary to be in an accident with. They didn't have it, they only had the convertible ones which we will still eventually buy but I won't put a young infant in one as I don't believe there is enough padding to keep them from bouncing around. We'll probably need 2 carseats anyway. I was a little disappointed but I decided to check out the rest of the store.

I found the Dr. Brown's bottles that my friend K told me to get and yes, they cost a little more but if they have the benefits they claim, I'll pay it. They had a wall of formula but I didn't spend much time there. Never did I think I was going to be buying formula, but this is a reality now. I'll do more research and figure that out later, but there literally was a whole wall of cans. Yikes! I skipped the diapers too. The strollers were back by the car seats and of course, they don't have the Britax strollers either that fit the Companion. Again, some of the travel systems are nice, but the car seats that come with it really scare me that people put their babies in those. But this is part of being a parent, and you make these choices to the best of your ability. We will buy a jogging stroller but you can't put a young baby in that either since they have to be able to sit up and have neck control. Next I walked through the pack-n-play aisle. I don't see how anyone, big or little, would be comfortable sleeping on the board covered with a bare minimum of fabric and padding. I know you don't want it to get squishy, but geez. I left there pretty quickly after I ran into all the bouncy seats. They all make music and sounds - it was a little overwhelming.

I think I went and looked at the crib bedding next. I'm not sure how much we are going to purchase before the adoption takes place, but we have discussed purchasing the car seat and a baby bed since there is a possibility that we will be asked to travel very quickly without much notice (48 hours). Realistically, there is time to purchase some items like diapers, formula, etc. I probably will have some sort of bag ready with a few onsies and such that are washed and ready. I don't see how to do some of these things when you are far from home and in a hotel. We'll probably start doing this after our homestudy is completed or we are on active status with the agency. I'll be able to watch for sales and whatnot. Anyway, the bedding section was even crazier! Some are cute, some are ugly, but most are so darn expensive! Yes, the crib quilts are so cute and they match the bumpers and the bed skirt, but who in their right mind would put the quilt and the baby together? That's a recipe for disaster and ruining the nice pretty quilt.

I'm not even going to go into the actual crib.... most are the convertible ones that turn into adult beds later so they are more expensive because of this. I have my old bed that my parents bought for me when I was 3 and that is waiting for our child. It's a good concept I guess, but yikes. Parents can literally spend a fortune in this store on all this "stuff". I had lunch with K yesterday and I told her about my stroll through Babies-R-Us. The best word I had to describe the whole store is "excessive". It seems like so much. K has 2 young children and she wants to go shopping with me. She is my "mommy advisor" and can tell me what you really get use out of and what you don't. A lot of it I know, but she turned me on to the Dr. Brown's bottles which I didn't know anything about. This is going to be an interesting ride!