The Jade Panda

With a log in date of August 3, 2006, we are through the review room!  That means someone has at least LOOKed at our paperwork. Now, we wait to see if they have any questions for us.

I have been really good about NOT buying baby related items. Today, I had my first breakdown — we were at the Washington Nationals Game for the final game at RFK stadium. All of the baseball merchandise was 1/2 off… so, I bought a toddler-sized jersey.  I have a vision of daddy and baby going off to games for quality time, while I get some quality time with myself!  Will it happen? Probably not, but I still have time to dream.

We started to paint the nursery… only to decide half-way through that we should have fixed the ladybug problem (ya’ know… the piles of dead ladybugs that show up from time to time in that room).  I contacted five companies and had 4 estimates on ripping out a corner of a room, looking for a nest and then re-drywalling. The estimates range from $425 to $3000!  To be fair, that also include powerwashing the house and caulking the all 14 windows in the house. But wow — what a difference! We are going to ask the $425 guy to do it for us… so… hopefully the room will be fully painted soon. In the meantime, it remains a work in progress.

About a year ago, my husband, out the clear blue, decided to take up jogging. This — after years — of laughing at me as I would lace up my sneakers after work for a quick jog. His favorite quip was “I do not run unless someone is chasing me.”

Now, I am not very fast or do a go particularly long distances, however, if did feel a little proud (or maybe it was smug)  when he suggested signing up for a 2nd 10K (we did one earlier in the summer). Hmmm… has he converted to the dark side? Yes!  He actually signed us up for two 10k’s. One at the end of September and one at the end of October.  Ha!

In today’s Washington Post, there was a great running (or biking, walking) website. http://www.mapmyrun.com/ allows you to map out a route and gives you mileage! Brilliant! Give this site a try… it is a lot of fun.

When we decided to adopt, we made some life choices. For example, we would stay in our suburban home (vs. buying a condo in the city). We would travel less to save money to fund the adoption. We would stay in our jobs to make the transition process easier (since people would know us at work, we would be secure in our jobs and we could save up a lot of vacation time).

Things change.

I accepted a new position. I am about to give up 134 vacation hours. My gut tells me that I am going from a challenging job to an even more challenging career. There in lies the difference — I am choosing a career path versus just doing my job. Do I have bad timing? Yes. Is this the right decision? Yes.

So, here I go… jumping into the deep end of the pool again. Hopefully I’ll swim.

A little bit of good news… we are next in line to be in the review room! This means that someone from the CCAA will be looking at our application (yes, over a year later) to ensure that it is complete.  If the CCAA has questions about our app, they will contact us and we may need to send updated info.

China has announced its next batch of referrals… they have referred through November 25, 2007.  In the 4 weeks, China has only processed 4 days of referrals. While frustrating, it is not unexpected.  What does that mean for our wait — what else? It continues.

We heading out to the links for the first time this weekend. It took u s almost three hours to play nine-holes. Tiger Woods has nothing to worry about. In fact, the first Par 4 hole took me 11 (yes, double digits) shots. The good news — we enjoyed it. The bad news — we need a lot of practice!

We finally did it — we started working on the baby’s room this weekend. Since we have bought the house, the empty upstairs bedroom has been the “junk room”. It has been cleaned out and we started painting. It has a great built-in bookcase. Unfortunately, it is eating paint. So, this looks like a multi-weekend project. Ugh! It was a lot of work and we have a ton left to do. But, I think the room will look really cute when we are done.

Thanks to Lori for sharing this Washington Post Article “The Dawn Of Their Bond: Five American Families Who Adopted Chinese Infants a Dozen Years Ago Journey Back To the Very Beginning“.    The article talks about five girls, adopted from China, who return to China with their parents for a heritage tour. This will be something we do – perhaps a few times. We feel that it is important for our child to understand where they come from. You can only do so much from the US. It will be important to visit the country.

There were a few interesting factoids in the article – “More than 50,000 Chinese babies have been adopted in the United States since 1989. Last year alone, the State Department issued 6,493 visas to orphans from China.”