Adoption and Laina Update

I'm pausing to come up for air. During the past few weeks, I have been completely and totally buried in adoption paperwork--I mean it's been nutty. I don't know if it's really more paperwork than our Rwanda adoption; I don't think it's really more. But it feels like it is! Maybe it's the fact that I have been doing adoption paperwork for three solid years now. Seriously. I've had this insanely crazy job of writing essays, filling in blanks, calculating funds, gathering papers from every available source, hounding friends to write us recommendations, and getting us to fingerprint appointment after fingerprint appointment--for three years.

Whew.

And while last time around, I was doing it with two kids, now I'm doing it with three, including one very active toddler. More on her later.

So here's where we are, if you've been wondering:

--we've applied to three agencies and two adoption attorneys

--we have two more to go

--we're almost done with one of our (many) grant/loan applications. I'm not sure how many we can apply for this time around since we don't yet have an agency (and won't until we're matched)

--we are, thanks to my dear friend Lauren, about to unveil our big fund-raiser. It may not be our only one, but it's the big one. Stay tuned!!

--speaking of fundraising, we will need about $25,000 for this adoption (hopefully a bit less). We're about a third of the way there. We're trusting Jesus to provide to bring this little girl home, just as He did for her big sister!

--making the family profile was challenging. The profile is basically a book about your family, addressed to a potential birth mother. You're trying to give a clear, accurate picture of who you are to help her decide if you're the right family for her baby. Hard to do! I'll do a whole post on that later.

--My kids are the best. Just saying. They are so excited about the baby sister, coming up with names all the time, praying for her, praying for money to come in, etc. Love their hearts.

So to sum up, adoption paperwork is intense, we're possibly seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, we need to fundraise like mad, my kids are great. Got it?

Speaking of kids, there's a certain almost-two-year-old who is talking up a storm. She says three or four word sentences now, and is as funny as her brothers. A sampling:

--When we saw a dog she didn't care for: "Scare you! Scare you! Scary dog! No thank you!"

--When I took away her empty bottle: "Mom! Gimme dat!"

--When she was mad at another baby in nursery: "Mama! Grammy bite you!" (okay, a little explanation: the boy's name was Remy, not Grammy. And he didn't bite Laina or me. She was mad because he got the toy she wanted.)

--When she's in a silly mood, she mimics the audio books in the car. Yesterday she started not only mimicking the words, but also the voices. Hearing her say, "Where's my treasure?" in her best pirate voice cracked me up.

--She loves knowing people's names and using them. She's very into calling people by name, and sometimes she just goes through lists of people she knows. Her favorites are herself and her brothers, of course, Benjamin (Ben-ya-min), Sam and Kate, Hannah, Abbey, James David and Bryar, and her cousins (Addie, Penny, Isaiah, Baby Titus). She also makes sure to yell out "Bye Dad!" whenever we leave him, even if it's, ahem, in the middle of the opening prayer at church.

One other funny Laina story, though it doesn't involve talking: at the grocery store, she spends her time trying to open packages. She's quite good at it. I've learned to stack the groceries at the back of the cart, but sometimes, when I'm not looking... So last time at Aldi, she reached behind her into the cart, grabbed a carton of eggs, and flung them. Yes, she did. The carton opened and all the eggs fell into my cart, most of them cracking and dripping all over the groceries, the cloth grocery bags, and the floor. Thankfully, Jeremy was with us (he doesn't usually come grocery shopping, but thanks to the mountain of paperwork, I've been doing that kind of stuff at night and on the weekends, so he's been jumping in), and he grabbed a roll of paper towels and we mopped it up. And bought a dozen broken eggs, and some slightly sticky groceries. 

But she sure is cute.

These guys are, too:

Don't worry, they'll get their own post soon. :)