Adoption Update

I honestly didn't think that I would ever be writing this post. I assumed that by now I would be splashing our referral news across these pages. Unfortunately, it looks like we may be in for a longer wait.

Our program has undergone a lot of changes in the past few years. When we started the process for Maelyn's adoption, it took an average for two years to complete the entire adoption. Then, shortly after we got home with Maelyn, the program changed into more of an online referral system, speeding the process up to just under one year. The program then became the fastest international adoption program available.

Paul and I decided to start our second adoption journey at the earliest possible moment, getting our paperwork ready for our one year mark home with Maelyn. At the time, it felt fast -- and we were a little worried that we were going ahead too quickly. We had barely had time to get used to being a family of three. Still, we knew that international adoption programs change all the time, and since we knew that we wanted to add to our family, we decided to go ahead right away.

We are now thankful that we did go ahead. This past November there were rumours that our program had suddenly slowed down. The process, in some ways, came to a grinding halt. Why? Who knows. Unfortunately, that is the way it goes with international adoption.

We have been waiting for a referral since September and at this point, we may be waiting quite a bit longer. We are crossing our fingers that our agency is going to be able to match us with our child when they receive a batch of referrals mid-February. If we are not matched at that point, then we will have to wait until April/May. After that, it would be September.

On one hand, we are not stressing in the same way we would if we were waiting for our first referral. Luckily, parenting Maelyn and enjoying our time as a family of three is a wonderful distraction. On the other hand, I feel like our child will be waiting longer to join our family, which saddens me.

We are crossing our fingers for a referral mid-February -- and our eyes, arms, and legs!

Xin nian kuai le!

Happy New Year to all of our friends and family! It is the year of the dragon and the celebrations have begun! Today we swept the house to get rid of last year's bad luck and we decorated the house to welcome in the new year.

Today we prepared Maelyn's hongbao to bring to daycare tomorrow.

Xin nian kuai le to our family and friends!

CNY with Jennie and visit

 

 

 

Maelyn's Musings...

I love, love, love Maelyn's ability to chatter like mad lately -- and the hilarious things she says, daily. We have spent a lot of time giggling about the funny things she comes up with.

The following musings are at poor Paul's expense....sorry, Paul!

"Daddy, I want you to go back to work. I want Mommy to come back home with me."
    -said as a reaction to Mommy going back to work last week

********

I was cutting Paul's hair one afternoon and Maelyn wanted to help. I pulled the chair closer so that she could reach the top of his head and help me brush his hair. All of sudden she turned to me and said the following:

"Mommy, I mad at you! Where you put Daddy's hair? Where is it? (Looking on the floor at the hair I had already cut up). "Put it back, Mommy!"

It took me a minute, but I finally realized that she was talking about Paul's newly expanded bald spot thin area of hair -- she thought that I had cut his hair completely off!

********

When my sister was visiting for Christmas, she kept patting my sister's tummy, after we explained to her that there is a baby in there. The next day Paul was getting dressed and after he tucked in his undershirt, Maelyn came over, rubbed his tummy and said,

"Daddy, you have a baby in there?"

He was not impressed.

Hehe -- I love three year olds and their view of the world! At least I did, until this morning, when she rubbed my belly and asked me if I had a baby in there. :S

Drawing and cutting...

Over the past few months our little miss has been very interested in anything to do with arts and crafts -- especially if it has to do with cutting. She has worked tirelessly to master the art of cutting paper and loves practicing whenever she can!

Maelyn's colouring/drawing has also started to evolve over the past few months. In the summer she was still scribbling when she would draw something. Now, her pictures are more purposeful and people are starting to look like people -- that is, if the people only have heads.

Doesn't this drawing look eerily like the painting 'The Scream?'

Maelyn drew the letter 'M' for the first time -- so proud of her!

A Perfect Day

Paul and I are trying to make a big effort to carve out quality family time every weekend. It is amazing how much needs to get done in two short days and it is hard to keep up with everything and everyone in our lives.

We started off the day today with a full breakfast. We invited my Dad to join us and Maelyn set the table -- she was very, very proud of herself!

After breakfast we cleaned the house and then decided to spend our afternoon together shopping at IKEA -- good quality family time. :)  We let Maelyn explore the huge store and we took our time browsing. We came away with a bookshelf and bedside table for our new little monkey's room.

For dinner we cooked a full roasted chicken meal...

After dinner it was time for pyjamas, cuddling on the couch, then books and bed. A wonderful end to a much-too-short weekend.

A long week...

In November I had surgery to help relieve my Crohn's symptoms, which had gotten increasingly worse over the past few years. I had a small bowel resection and they removed just over a foot of my small intestine. Needless to say, I was off work while I was recovering. Thankfully, I am feeling better than I have in years!

This past Monday was my first day back at work and I was nervous about balancing home and school life. Crohn's gets worse with stress, so I have been trying to take things slower -- which is not normally a strength of mine! I went to bed Sunday night feeling happy that I was organized and ready to start a new work week.

Unfortunately, our little miss had other plans for me. I woke up to her crying at 1 am and when I went into her room, I immediately knew that she had a fever. Maelyn and fevers scare the crap out of me. I gave her Advil and snuggled into bed with her -- although she didn't sleep another wink for the rest of the night.

I knew that there wasn't any way I could possibly miss the first day of school after being away for so long, so Paul stayed home with our little miss and promised with fingers and toes crossed that he would keep a diligent eye on her temperature.

After a doctor's visit to make sure the fever wasn't due to an ear or bladder infection, we have spent the rest of the week trying to make Maelyn as comfortable as possible as she fights this nasty cold. How one little kid could produce that amount of boogers mucous is beyond me.

I haven't slept in four nights, but our little miss has a typical cold -- and for that I am grateful. I know that life will return to normal shortly (if there really is such a thing as normal), and I find that because we have been through worse, I am not stressing as much about the small stuff. Who knew that the stress of this past Fall would teach me such an important lesson?

Here is hoping that 2012 is a happy and healthy year!

Grandpa Green's B-Day

Xmas with Julia

Although at times it is difficult to find the time to get together, it is always a happy day when we get to visit with some of our favourite people, Auntie AM and Julia. Before heading back to school after the Christmas break, we were able to exchange gifts and catch up with one another.




I love the look of admiration on Maelyn's face - precious!

Chatting with Auntie AM...

Lucky girl -- a remote control car!

Auntie AM and Maelyn -- sending the car through the 'bridge.'

Showing off her new skates...

Holiday time spent with people you love -- does it get any better than that?!