Sunday, April 22, 2012

The Adoption Process: The Trying Part

After Dallin's birth I did a baby tag post fitting our adoption into questions about pregnancy.  It was fun so I thought I would do it again this time describing the adoption process because really the process is its own kind of labor!  And yes, the reason for our thinking so much about the process is because we are putting our papers in again!

Every agency does things a little different, so this is just our experience with our agency.

When I commented on Facebook that Zane and I had spent a lame date night doing three hours of paperwork, I had a couple of comments about that seemed like a great date night.  Let's just make it clear that the trying part when trying to have a baby is a lot more fun than paperwork, but of course as any couple knows that has tried for months on end with monthly failed pregnancy tests, the trying part can also get frustrating.  The same can be said for paperwork.  We filled out eight pages of answers to questions about our backgrounds, our likes and dislikes, our talents and achievements, our wants and dreams...all while trying to sound sincere but showing personality.  Then we answered questions about our parents backgrounds, how they parented, our childhoods, and what we learned from our parents.  Since Zane's childhood has some interesting parts to it, this got a little tricky.  These followed with more questions about our marriage relationship, how we parent, info about our kids, and then our medical history specifically focusing on how we handle our infertility.  After answering all those questions about ourselves, it was relief to get to easy questions about Zane's employment, our financial situation, description of our house, neighborhood, and a bunch of other questions that you usually keep private, but with adoptions, everything is an open book.  You can imagine that it was a relief to be done with this document and we didn't want to look at it again for awhile!

And yet we were still not done.  There is a bunch of smaller documents that were much easier to fill out and four reference letters to hand out with friends with cookies to help motivate them/say thank you for taking the time to answer a bunch of questions about us (they deserved the cookies!).  We actually started this part in January and just turned it in so you can see it is like month after month of trying without success of a pregnancy.  This part of the adoption though is less emotional since there is never hopes raised that there could be a baby coming.  Instead you feel this thing constantly hanging over you knowing you can't bring another baby into your family until you finish answering all the questions!

Another part in preparation for our home study, is getting our fingerprints done.  This really isn't a big deal except that it became a problem since the nearest place for us to get fingerprinted is 30 minutes away the opposite direction of Zane's work.  I scheduled mine first, paid online and was in and out in five minutes and on my way home.  When Zane scheduled his, something weird happened and his paperwork that he printed out didn't look like mine.  He had an email confirming his appointment, but he never had the screen pop up asking if he wanted to pay online.  He tried calling twice, but after being on hold for awhile, he gave up.  When he went to his appointment, the lady didn't have any of his information that he had typed in.  It wasn't a big deal though and she added it in.  She then asked how Zane was going to pay since they didn't take credit card or cash.  This was a surprise to Zane since he didn't have a check on him.  After some discussion on what to do, Zane finally had to leave without getting fingerprinted.  He couldn't go home and come back (wasting his entire morning) because you can't reschedule an appointment for the same day.  Zane left very frustrated and went into work (driving an hour and a half to get there).  In their defense, it says on the form that only check or money order were accepted.  In Zane's defense, he didn't read the form since the morning of his appointment, he helped me get ready for preschool and I told him to just sign the paper.  In my defense, I skimmed the form, but that part didn't pertain to me since I paid online and so I ignored it.  Really it is the computer's fault since it never gave Zane the opportunity to pay online. 

The next week Zane was crazy busy with work and didn't have time to take two hours doing fingerprinting so he didn't reschedule until the next week.  We had all the paper work done and ready to turn it except for this one part.  I was pretty frustrated with the whole situation.  Zane finally got in, was in and out in five minutes since he paid online, and then drove the long trek to work.

The first papers are turned in and our excitement is growing.  Unfortunately though this is just another month of trying because we still have to be interviewed by our caseworker, physicals done, and more paper work to fill out.  At least we have started and it didn't involve shots, ultrasounds, or blood being drawn like it would if Zane and I were really trying to get pregnant.  So even with all the laborious paperwork and frustrations, I prefer this over the shots!

Saturday, April 21, 2012

The Test

Dallin has always been a little wild and crazy in swimming pools.
At 17 months, he was jumping off of diving boards and going down slides.


 Last summer, he tried to do a flip off the diving board.  He loves water and loves trying crazy things.  Because of this, we decided that learning to swim was really important for Dallin and his survival.  We found out about Ms. Gail and her swim float swim safety class.  After one lesson last summer, we were hooked.  Ms. Gail is wonderful with Dallin.  He tries to get her off focus by distracting her with his non stop talking...she will have none of it.  She is kind but forceful and pushes him hard.  At the end of last summer, he wasn't quite ready for his swim test, so we started up again this spring.  Dallin again picked everything up quickly and passed his test!  

If you listen closely in the clip below after Ms. Gail tosses him, you can hear Dallin saying he doesn't like this.  We are proud of him for not giving up!  
(Because I had Gavin with me, I missed the jumping into the water part.  Also, Gavin was trying to help me video tape so beware.)


Ms. Gail made him swim in his clothes and shoes the entire lesson.  He was exhausted by the end but really proud of himself!  He will now move to group classes and focus on learning strokes. 

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Easter

We have been talking about Christ's atonement and resurrection more throughout the last few weeks during our scripture study with Dallin.  These topics can be so difficult for a four year old boy to understand.  His comments give you some glimpse into what he is picking up:

After a discussion about death and going to heaven, Dallin asked, "Mom, can you kill me so that I can go to heaven and see Heavenly Father, Jesus, your grandma, and Kelsie (his birthmom)?"

I was a little shocked by the statement until I realized he was very innocently expressing a desire to be with God again.  We then had a bigger discussion about how we don't die and go to heaven and then come back to earth the next day to live our life.  We also discussed all the wonderful things he will get to do in his long (hopefully very long) life here on earth before returning to Heavenly Father someday.

The above conversation gets confusing when talking about what Christ's resurrection means.  You can see where Dallin gets confused about going to heaven and coming back.

Whenever we are reading about Christ's crucifixion (while looking at pictures), Dallin focuses on looking for nails in Jesus' hands and any blood.  Reading scriptures with Dallin is pretty fun because he really gets into the stories especially action packed ones like David and Goliath, Jonah and the Whale, and his new favorite, Teancum from the Book of Mormon (although Ammon is right up there).  The story of Christ's death keeps Dallin very entertained and he is full of questions, mostly about the violent parts though. 

On a positive note, Dallin says really sweet prayers and can be heard telling Gavin, "Don't worry, Jesus loves you and I love you."  His understanding is coming little by little, and I love his interest and excitement about the scriptures.

We have early church, so we started our Easter morning with a quick Easter basket hunt with a few eggs to find before getting on our way to church.  Dallin was very excited about his new scooter (he has perfected his three wheel scooter and has been ready for a two wheel for a month now.)  Gavin was just excited about candy, seeing a new Finn McMissile car, and candy.  (Ignore all the insect decorations.  The Easter bunny came to the preschool room.)


Finding a few eggs



That evening, we had family come over for an Easter dinner and Easter egg hunt.  Gavin picked up his first egg, opened it up and ate the candy. That candy consumed his attention for awhile and I had to keep refocusing him on finding more eggs.  Needless to say, he found very few eggs, but he was as happy as can be.

Dallin was also a very happy boy with his finds!  He looks forward to the Easter egg hunt all year and asks periodically throughout the year if we can put some candy in eggs and have another hunt.


Caught red handed sneaking candy!

Monday, April 9, 2012

Easter Egg Artists?

The boys were mostly in the color mixing mood.  Each egg probably went into 4 different colors.  We still turned out with some nice ones though and the boys loved it as seen below!



Yes Gavin is trying to drink the dye.  I kept him from doing it for a little bit, then gave up figuring he wouldn't like the taste and would stop trying to drink it.  Apparently though he likes vinegar.

Gavin's say cheese face

Dallin's intense color mixing

So proud of the end products!

Sunday, April 1, 2012

And Proud Of It!

 Gavin is very popular with the ladies...and teenagers, and kids, and well actually everybody.  He plays it up waving and saying hi to everyone that passes us by.  When someone waves hi back, then he will continue playing the waving/saying hi game until I can pull him away.  He loves the attention!  When we are shopping, strangers first stop to talk to us about his eye lashes and then comment on his curls.  Gavin knows exactly what they are talking about and will start pulling at his curls.  He is pretty proud of them.

The back of his hair is still pretty short (at least he no longer has the bold spot!) but the top of his hair is getting pretty long.

 We may have our first hair cut soon.  I'm sill not sure how long I will hold out.

Shoes

 Shoes can bring so much entertainment!