Question most asked of me lately - "how is the adoption coming along?!"
My answer - "We're getting there! And staying busy in the process!"
The last blog post was a month ago and my goodness we have stayed busy since then... well, other than when we were "lazing" around the house on all our cold/snow days! We have had way too many of those this year... Weeks of -40 degree temps and now we have at least 5.5 feet of snow!... but I digress. We've been busy - what have we been up to?
This weekend I will be performing in the musical "The Last Five Years". It has been a fun and challenging show to learn. I am one of two people in the cast and sing every other song - that's a lot of memorization! But I very much have enjoyed the challenge, especially since Jon has joined me! Jon is playing the drum set in the pit. This is the first show we have done together since we were in Jr. High - lol!! He has played for a bunch, and I have sung in a bunch, but not together in this capacity. Brings back some fun memories - even though we only maybe said "hello" to each other during the whole show in Jr. High. :)
The only downside was Caleb getting cold on the trek there (and on the way back to the car), as he was on a sled and not working up warmth like us. He was so upset at one point, he started yelling "You are making the ice caves up! There is no such thing!" He is yelling this as HUNDREDS of people are walking by us, but still, the kid truly did not believe us.
Sure enough though, as soon as we got to the ice caves, Caleb was in heaven. I absolutely love these natural playgrounds, it is just so much fun to see him crawl, slide, jump, climb, and run without a moment of hesitation. I was in Mommy-heaven watching him.
Dossier paperwork is coming along and is almost finished! Hallelujah!!! The goal is to send it to our agency next Monday or Tuesday after getting everything notarized. We are waiting for a couple reference letters, but expect them to be here soon and we have a couple small things to finish writing up and it is done. The last month was full of two-hour trips to St. Paul so we could have psychological evaluations. This was not necessary for our Ethiopia dossier, but is asked of us for our Philippines dossier. The hard part about it was that two very specific evaluations had to be completed. After asking about five different professionals if they could conduct the evaluations and then were denied, we found out that in the USA most psychologists are trained in one or the other evaluation, not both! Therefore, we were on a cat-chase, but we finally found someone which in turn added quite the gas & travels costs.
The evaluations consisted of personality type tests and then one-on-one interviews with the Dr. The tests seemed easy enough. Felt too much like taking the ACT since we felt a lot was riding on how we answered the questions. We were as truthful as we could be and tried not to over-think our answers, but that's hard to do! The hardest part for me was my interview with the Dr. Overall, it really did go just fine, but there were times where I felt I was being questioned about being a good person, like I had to have some sort of fault that he was trying to find. He had determined by my tests that I was possibly "a out-going, friendly person, but not very deep with those around me." That comment hit me in the gut. Hard. Still not sure why this comment is bothering me so much, but I really felt awful at that moment. I began blubbering how I feel that is not completely true and that I am quite transparent for many things in my life, but I'm sure I looked quite unsettled after he made this comment. Thinking about it more I suppose there are times that I do hold things back, as I feel that it is not the time to share, or I don't want to "burden" others around me. I hold these things back and then when they come out, it ends up in a short burst of crying some night before bed and letting it all out, and then I'm good. But does this mean I'm not a "deep" person? Does a person HAVE to be "deep" with All people around them? My argument to the Dr. was that I was indeed deep just maybe not with every person I come in contact with, but I think that is normal... just didn't feel like that during the interview. Jon was also nervous about his interview but felt it went well. When all was said and done, the Dr. wrote some very good and professional reports for our dossier. And more than anything, we are happy that part of this process is OVER and DONE!
In our trips to the cities for evals, we were also able to get our Fingerprints done! It worked out quite nicely. Now we are just waiting for the Immigration office to send us our A-ok notice, which could take anywhere from a couple weeks to a couple months! But we found out we will be able to send the dossier regardless of having the notice in hand, and then when we do get it we will send along the information to the Philippines.
Phew! Just talking about it all makes me feel tired! Not looking forward to the upcoming waiting for the Philippines to put their stamp of approval on the dossier (a process that could take about 4 months), but I will be so terribly happy when this dossier is complete and sent.
Today is again a blasted snow day. Was wondering if we should send this picture to the Philippines in our dossier... think they would still want Little C to come!?! lol!
Hope you are all safe and sound in your houses! It's time for me to go get ready for tonight's performance. Hope to "talk" to you again soon! Have a couple ideas in mind for some upcoming posts... :)
In Christ,
Mara
My answer - "We're getting there! And staying busy in the process!"
The last blog post was a month ago and my goodness we have stayed busy since then... well, other than when we were "lazing" around the house on all our cold/snow days! We have had way too many of those this year... Weeks of -40 degree temps and now we have at least 5.5 feet of snow!... but I digress. We've been busy - what have we been up to?
This weekend I will be performing in the musical "The Last Five Years". It has been a fun and challenging show to learn. I am one of two people in the cast and sing every other song - that's a lot of memorization! But I very much have enjoyed the challenge, especially since Jon has joined me! Jon is playing the drum set in the pit. This is the first show we have done together since we were in Jr. High - lol!! He has played for a bunch, and I have sung in a bunch, but not together in this capacity. Brings back some fun memories - even though we only maybe said "hello" to each other during the whole show in Jr. High. :)
We have had a couple family outings into our snowy world. Our favorite one this year was heading a couple hours north to see the ice caves on Lake Superior. They were absolutely amazing!
The only downside was Caleb getting cold on the trek there (and on the way back to the car), as he was on a sled and not working up warmth like us. He was so upset at one point, he started yelling "You are making the ice caves up! There is no such thing!" He is yelling this as HUNDREDS of people are walking by us, but still, the kid truly did not believe us.Sure enough though, as soon as we got to the ice caves, Caleb was in heaven. I absolutely love these natural playgrounds, it is just so much fun to see him crawl, slide, jump, climb, and run without a moment of hesitation. I was in Mommy-heaven watching him.
The evaluations consisted of personality type tests and then one-on-one interviews with the Dr. The tests seemed easy enough. Felt too much like taking the ACT since we felt a lot was riding on how we answered the questions. We were as truthful as we could be and tried not to over-think our answers, but that's hard to do! The hardest part for me was my interview with the Dr. Overall, it really did go just fine, but there were times where I felt I was being questioned about being a good person, like I had to have some sort of fault that he was trying to find. He had determined by my tests that I was possibly "a out-going, friendly person, but not very deep with those around me." That comment hit me in the gut. Hard. Still not sure why this comment is bothering me so much, but I really felt awful at that moment. I began blubbering how I feel that is not completely true and that I am quite transparent for many things in my life, but I'm sure I looked quite unsettled after he made this comment. Thinking about it more I suppose there are times that I do hold things back, as I feel that it is not the time to share, or I don't want to "burden" others around me. I hold these things back and then when they come out, it ends up in a short burst of crying some night before bed and letting it all out, and then I'm good. But does this mean I'm not a "deep" person? Does a person HAVE to be "deep" with All people around them? My argument to the Dr. was that I was indeed deep just maybe not with every person I come in contact with, but I think that is normal... just didn't feel like that during the interview. Jon was also nervous about his interview but felt it went well. When all was said and done, the Dr. wrote some very good and professional reports for our dossier. And more than anything, we are happy that part of this process is OVER and DONE!
In our trips to the cities for evals, we were also able to get our Fingerprints done! It worked out quite nicely. Now we are just waiting for the Immigration office to send us our A-ok notice, which could take anywhere from a couple weeks to a couple months! But we found out we will be able to send the dossier regardless of having the notice in hand, and then when we do get it we will send along the information to the Philippines.
Phew! Just talking about it all makes me feel tired! Not looking forward to the upcoming waiting for the Philippines to put their stamp of approval on the dossier (a process that could take about 4 months), but I will be so terribly happy when this dossier is complete and sent.
Hope you are all safe and sound in your houses! It's time for me to go get ready for tonight's performance. Hope to "talk" to you again soon! Have a couple ideas in mind for some upcoming posts... :)
In Christ,
Mara
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