I haven't been posting lately because there isn't much to write. We've been officially waiting since April 22. Our dear social worker has been so nice to us! She sends us an update at the end of each month with all the statistics. I have really appreciated her during the whole process so far.

On Friday I went to a yard sale that was a benefit for a family adopting from Ethiopia. It turns out they are using our same agency. They seemed really nice and I gave them our phone number. You can never have too many friends.

Vienna was sick again this last week. She is doing much better but we still gave her a breathing treatment last night because she sounded like her lungs were rattling. She went to the doctor last week and had grown 2 inches in 3 months! She is still just over the 10th percentile for weight but gaining in the height department.

We all went to our camp open house this weekend. There were some girls her age there and they were enormous! She was very friendly with them and tried to play. I need to find some kids her age for her to play with.

Getting a little closer

We got an email from our social worker saying that our background check finally came back! Our homestudy is almost done so we should be officially waiting by next week!

I took Vienna to Baby Time at the library today and she was enthralled with a 4 month old. She kept wanting to go over and see her. I bet she'll like the baby when he or she comes home.

A funny thing happened the other morning. The kids were waiting for the bus. Zoe was wearing a skirt that used to be Erin's. Erin was not happy that Zoe had that skirt because she felt she wasn't done with it yet. Fitz said, "Well, Erin, that's how it goes. Zoe gets your old clothes, Elise gets Zoe's old clothes and Vienna gets Elise's old clothes." And Isaac said, "And Marcella gets Vienna's old clothes!" And I said, "And maybe the baby will get Marcella's old clothes." Isaac asked, "Why would HE want to wear girl's clothes?"

Still waiting to be waiting

Our clearances are not back from the state! Our sweet and patient social worker is getting really frustrated because it's taking forever! I think that she really wanted us to be officially waiting by now. It's completely out of our hands. The agency checked with the state and they do have our stuff, they just haven't finished it.

Once our clearances come back, our homestudy has to be approved by a few people and then we pay our bill. Then we're officially waiting. And I'm ok with that. I'm not in a huge hurry. I have always thought that our baby is coming the first week of May. We'll see if I'm right.

Almost waiting

We're just waiting for our state clearances to come back. Our poor social worker has been checking every day. She's so great at communicating with us. On Thursday I took our profiles over to the agency because I was afraid that something was going to happen to them. They were sitting on the counter and I kept thinking that someone (I think we all know who) might spill coffee on them. Now they are safe at the agency, ready to be distributed to their offices.

It's possible that we'll be officially waiting within a week. Oh my goodness! When we get a call, we're going to just go shopping. Since we don't know if it'll be a boy or a girl, we'll just wait and see. There's a Target on the way to the agency so we can swing by there for diapers and a carseat.

Vienna is getting her bottom molars so it's been difficult in the sleep department. It just serves to remind me that soon I'll be up in the middle of the night again! I'm trying to picture myself with two babies when I go places. Lucky for us, Vienna is finally big enough to face forward in her carseat! That makes such a big difference in travelling.

We've been busy with our adoption paperwork. There is so much to think about and to sign! Our homestudy visit was last night and I think that all of the reference forms have been mailed in. Our fingerprints are done. We did livescan this time instead of going to the police station. We got our medical forms done. We mailed in a rough draft of our profile and today I got all the pictures printed out. Our social worker helped us decide what photos to use.

All that is left to do is wait for our profile proof to come and wait for the social worker to write our homestudy. We're hoping to be in the waiting pool by the second week of April!

Shea butter!

I'm a huge fan of Craig's List. I've even sold some stuff on there. Yesterday, I discovered that there is a lady who is selling 6 lbs of shea butter for $25. Since I use shea butter for everything but my toast (just kidding) , I talked to John and we decided to buy it. I'm meeting the lady in a few hours at a park and ride off the freeway.

When Vienna had diaper rash from her antibiotics, I melted some shea butter and put some tea tree oil in it and put it on her and it worked wonders. It's also good for dry skin and winter chapped cheeks. I usually rub coconut oil into Vienna's skin but sometimes she needs something a little thicker and that's where the shea butter comes in.

Baby Steps

We're moving a step closer to renewing our homestudy. We've talked about it a lot! Ok, we haven't done any paperwork but I keep thinking about printing out the application. That's a step. And we are talking about names. It took so long to come up with Vienna's name that we thought we should start early.

The biggest thing we have to do is get Erica to go out of town once our homestudy is done. She was in Chicago when Zander was born. She was in Mexico when Zoe was born. She was on her way to Lousisiana when we brought Vienna home. Clearly, she needs to plan a vacation for sometime in April! That would work out nicely for us!

One thing I kind of worry about is that Vienna is such a good baby. She doesn't cry much. She's easy going and laid back. Oh, do I dare to pray that the next baby is just as easy?

Curry Pad Thai

Vienna has developed an obsession/craving for curry pad thai. She had a few bites of John's when we had lunch on Saturday. Today, he came home for lunch to eat the leftovers. She kept begging for noodles. Then she'd screech if he didn't dig one out fast enough. He didn't want to burn her with the peppers but she didn't seem to care. She got one bite of hot and covered her mouth quick. We got her a drink of sassafras tea and she went right back to screeching for more. He tried to turn her around but she kept wiggling over to the curry.

Cultural Experiences

In a few towns over, there was a church today having the Uganda Children's Choir singing during their worship service. It would have been a great opportunity for us. We really wanted to go but we ended up going to our own church instead.

I would have loved to have gone but I need to get over feeling guilty about missing our church. There were 3 non-caucasian people in church today and Vienna was one of them. That's not enough. I know it's not enough. It's hard to leave a church because there aren't enough people of other races. We get a lot of support from our congregation.

At what point is it more important to be in a diverse crowd than it is to continue to be part of the people we already know and love? Which is more important and how do we know?