wait...wait...wait...hurry, hurry, HURRY!

What a week! Wow! This whole adoption thing is like hurry up and wait. Actually, it's been more like wait. wait. wait. hurry! HURRY! Faster!!

I had some paperwork to send overseas, but the notary stamp wasn't correct. James was out of town, so I couldn't get his signature all last week. *sigh*

When he got home Thursday night the race was on! The forms had to be signed, notarized, and then emailed to our wonderful helper to be thoroughly checked. When I got the OK from her I needed to get them apostilled.

New word: apostille. This is a certificate issued by the state that the notary is legitimate, or something like that. I needed to drive up to the state capitol on Friday morning to get my documents apostilled before sending them overseas.

The problem was that I had insurance physicals scheduled for Friday morning and adoption physicals scheduled for Friday afternoon! No room for error because the doc would be out all next week. I couldn't wait another week because the forms are needed for the home study as well as the dossier.

So I got weighed, blood drawn and peed in a cup for the insurance lady, grabbed the baby and documents and drove to Topeka. There I got my doc's apostilled, grabbed a snack and headed for home. When I got home I found that my new computer arrived! Yay!

No time for fooling with a new computer, we had to get to the doctor. We had to choose a different doctor than we normally see, because our physicals had to be signed by an M.D. and we normally see a D.O. Absurd, huh?

After the doctor appointment it was time to go home and assess the situation there. James made dinner while I drove our 14 year old son to a neighboring town to weigh in for a wrestling tournament. Our home study visit was scheduled for Saturday morning and the place was wrecked, naturally, since I had not been home all day long. We all pitched in to do the kind of chores that don't always get done regularly.

I have one child who is really into cleaning. Oh, if I could only clone him! He was getting sort of tired at one point, but I heard him muttering to himself, "it's worth it, it's worth it." How sweet is that? The kids all know that we have to sacrifice some things to be able to bring these new boys into our family. I'm glad to know that at least one of them feels that it is worth the trouble!

The home study visit went well, I think. We will know for sure when we get the whole thing done, I guess! Our social worker seemed to be very relaxed and we were at ease, too. We have a few more things to provide her and we hope to get it wrapped up before the end of the month.

After she left I got ready to drive to Tulsa. Yep, another road trip. Dreading it. My 10 year old son is spending Spring Break with my mother and grandma. Jordan and Ruby came along for the ride. After a nice dinner of chicken noodles made by my amazing grandma we had a little birthday party for Ruby.

Ruby will be one on Thursday. (I can hardly believe it! I sort of feel like I'm still recovering from her birth.) She learned to open a present on Saturday night and got some cute new clothes, and a couple of musical toys which she loves.

I was intending to drive home Saturday night but I was just feeling a bit pooped. Wonder why! I needed to be to church by 9:30 am to work in the nursery on Sunday. I would just have to leave real early in the morning. Then my mom reminded me of the time change.

Stupid time change. What a farce. What an utter scam. Is anyone really stupid enough to believe that we are somehow "saving" daylight by playing mind tricks and moving the hands of a clock? Who's idea was this anyway?

So I had to get up at 4:30 am (which we now call 5:30 am) to drive back to town and get to church by 8:30 (which we now call 9:30). I hope I didn't scare anyone by not wearing any makeup! I didn't have time to go home first. After church I was glad to go home and relax for a while and play around with my new little computer.

Today ended up being a little crazy too. We needed our TB skin tests read this morning. I picked up some letterhead for our medical forms and then went home to shrink and print them out. I had to run them back into town for the doctor to fill them out. I also got to mail our freshly apostilled documents overseas, finally.

Now, more waiting. I could really use some down time about now anyway.