Red Beans & Rice Noodles

I know, I know

I suck at posting... I know.

Wee one is keeping me uber-busy. She definitely knows I'm mommy, and some days she's not happy unless she's on the same eye level with me (either me holding her or sitting down with her). Which, of course, is fine, but it makes tasks like doing laundry or dishes take 20 x the amount of time they used to, and make going on the computer practically impossible. I'm on now because Chuck is home from work and my dad is in town and they are entertaining her for the moment.

Some things I've learned so far about our peanut:

• Cheerios are the shit. They calm, they distract, they enable mommy and daddy to eat dinner at restaurants. My heartfelt thanks and highest praise to Mr. or Ms. Cheerio.
• This kid learns fast. Today I taught her to kick her Hello Kitty soccer ball.
• She hates being constrained: she is no fan of the car seat, highchair, stroller, crib, bouncy chair unless its on her terms. She's getting used to all these things slowly, except the highchair, because I figured it was more important to get food in her belly than to have her sit in the chair.
• She is very bouncy.
• Scabies suck. All the babies in the orphanage have them. They're gone now, but nobody told us about the post-scabies itching that is likely to continue for months until all the layer of skin where they were living grows out. They're horribly itchy at night.
• Playgroups/playdates are awesome.
• Kids her age don't have much to do at the playgrounds but eat sand.
• She gets really bouncy and perks up whenever she sees cats, dogs, pigeons, ravens or squirrels around the neighborhood. So we've taken her to a zoo and an aquarium in the past three weeks. I thought her head was gonna explode for the meerkats.
• The cartoon "Courage the Cowardly Dog" absolutely mesmerizes her.

I'm so freaking happy these days. I can't believe I finally made it to parenthood, yet it feels so natural. Loving every minute of it.

Some recent pics:

More pics

Getting ready to go out on the town

First playdate

At the Giving and Receiving ceremony -- in the eyes of the Vietnamese government, the li'l Peanut is ours!!!!!! (I did not -- I swear I swear -- dress us both in pink intentionally!)

No words

Hang on to your hats

We're in Hanoi. I haven't been holding out on you. Really! We've just been uber-busy since we got the okay. We got it a week ago Tuesday, after 99 days of waiting, 64 or so "business days".

Our flight was this past Tuesday, we arrived Wednesday, and now, it's Friday morning at 6:12 am. We're heading to the orphanage with some folks from our agency in two hours and three minutes.

Couldn't sleep much last night. We're here. We're here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Our lives are all about to get turned upside-down forever. And we wouldn't have it any other way.

Updates to come soon.

Seven months old today!

Happy birthday, baby girl! Our wee one turns 7 months old today, and today is also day 77 of our wait. As I was commenting on all of the sevens to Chuck while we were out at dinner last night, I turned my head and there was this guy at the restaurant bar wearing a jersey with a big 77 on the back. I'm taking it as a good omen--or synchronicity if you're a fan of Jungian psychology.

I'm a fan of Jung's thinking. Sure, why not, I dig it. And a huge fan of a book called Good Omens (the full title of the book is Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch) by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. Neither of these latter two details are either good omens or synchronous, just, uh, tangents... But tangents and distractions are some of the things keeping me sane during the wait to bring Dep home. It'll be soon. To paraphrase a post on one of the yahoo groups yesterday: each day is a day closer to having our sweet baby in our arms.

For the occasion of her birthday, I'll leave you with a dose of cuteness:

Dep's Sean Penn impression

"No cameras! I said no cameras!!"

Patience

The waiting is hard, we desperately hope to hear some good news soon. But it is all out of our hands at this point, and its no good driving myself crazy about it. Nope, no good at all.

Dep, come home soon! We're ready for you!!

Day 57

... and counting. The USCIS told us to expect to wait 45-60 days for approval. We had our hopes up because a couple of families were notified in about 20. So if we don't get the approval email from USCIS by Friday, we are supposed to get a different email giving us a status update on the processing of our case.

Any day now we'll get the okay, and will be on a plane to Hanoi before we know it. Right? Right? Maybe even today??? That'd be super! Thanks, USCIS, you're the best!!

There have been several articles written lately about the Vietnam adoption process and denied visas. Here's a sampling:

Families Adopting in Vietnam Say They Are Caught in Diplomatic Jam - New York Times

Excerpt:

“Everything we know now says the State Department is, frankly, using these babies as a tool in a battle that has nothing to do with these families or the children themselves,” Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California, told the three families who met in her office last week.

The State Department says it is making sure babies are legitimately available for adoption.

Operation Identity - Ethica

Excerpt:

The Problem: The U.S. Embassy in Hanoi is reporting that 85% of all adoptions being filed at this time are for "abandoned" children. The Embassy believes that many of these abandonment cases are staged.

Ethica believes that other factors could be influencing the trend, and there is no clear evidence on why the trend is occurring.

Diplomatic jam with the US or fraudulent practices in VN? You decide!! All I know is that so far when I've heard the mention of "concerns" from the USCIS regarding specific cases, it seems very unclear as to what the specific concerns are, and they're not being very upfront with the families with that information. If there are real red flags, they really should give the families more (or any!) information. Otherwise it does end up looking like the babies are being played as pawns in a larger political game, however valid the investigations are.

Seacrest out.
(Why doesn't he ever say that anymore? Such a shame.)

Nail biting time...

I haven't written much lately because we're in full chewing on fingernails (not really) eating ice cream (sadly, this I have been doing) anxious waiting mode. No news of when we travel, just waiting. Should be getting the "all clear" from the USCIS in Hanoi ANY MINUTE NOW. That Any Minute Now has been going on for two weeks, and will continue indefinitely until we actually get our notification. It's driving me absolutely crazy. And to compound it, I finally see the need for those shirts at caf.epre.ss for adoptive parents that say things like "No, we don't have any news yet"... Ugh... Waiting waiting waiting and everyone asking and asking and asking. All the anxiety is getting to me! And I totally need one of those shirts.

I haven't written since around the holidays, so I haven't mentioned our very sad news. Pirate's cancer -- turns out it was cancer -- came back suddenly and with a vengeance. He got really sick right before Christmas, and the prognosis was very, very bad. He didn't survive the week.

He was the best doggy in the world, and I'm sure he's in some doggy heaven eating mountains of pig ears and rawhides when he's not running at top speed through the fields. He is and will be greatly missed, and we're sorry our little girl will never get to meet him. :-(

So that, I guess, is another reason for my silence on this blog, haven't really wanted to talk about that.

But one thing I'll happily talk about---more pics of our wee one! We got two new pics on Dec 26, and they're sooo beautiful! Come on, email, phone call, whatever... we're ready to bring our girl home!!!

Happy happy Christmas!

Mornin' blogworld... just want to wish everyone a merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, happy new year and all the rest! Here's hoping 2008 brings a baby or two to you!

And though I've had a pretty great 2007 and am definitely not complaining about it, I just can't resist reposting this card I stole from Beagle who nabbed it from The Infertile Fertile:

Another step closer

Our paperwork is being has been received, and our case is being reviewed by the USCIS in Vietnam! If all goes well, we're less than a month or two away from bringing home our daughter! I can't wait!!!!

Busy bee

This past month has absolutely flown by. Work is keeping me way too busy, so it's been hard to focus on the important things like baby gear shopping and wondering when the I600 will be approved by the USCIS. Oh, wait, it's good I haven't had time to think to much about the latter.

Weekends have been filled with baby shopping. We have tons of clothes already, but fortunately(for Dep)/unfortunately(for our wallets) we've gotten massive protect-the-environment bugs up our asses, so we have been researching organic, healthy, environmentally friendly baby stuff. I blame living in CA for too long, and my husband's job, oh, and the two days we spent at the Green Festival in San Francisco in November. So, we've decided to go the cloth diaper route, and a combination of glass and Bisphenol-A free plastic bottles. We got a super deal on a used organic + chemical free crib mattress, and all organic cotton bedding. And another super deal on a used Pali Sabrina crib (50 bucks!!).

The cloth diaper idea seemed a little intimidating at first, but the diapers today are much more advanced than the ones my mom used on my little brother in the late 70s, and seem much easier and more practical then they once were. There's all kinds of cool eco-friendly stuff out there, costs more, but I figure if all these chemicals I ingested growing up (from living just outside "cancer alley" in Louisiana, to the nightly neighborhood dousing in DEET while we were out playing to who knows what else) helped to cause my endometriosis and infertility, well, I want to do whatever I reasonably can to prevent all those chemicals from going into Dep. And we want to get a fair amount of used stuff too, you know to try to do our share to minimize our carbon footprint / overconsumption yada yada so on and so forth.

Like I was saying, I've found some cool stuff. I think we're gonna get some Green to Gro.w bottles with silic.one nip.ples. I just downloaded a pdf from cosmetics.database.com on "safe children's personal care products" (lotions and wipes and soaps and such). And I found these biodegradable diapers called g diap.ers that break down in 2-6 months. But then you have to buy the diaper cover for those too... or I wonder if you can use the cloth diaper cover for those. Probably, huh?

In spite of all of the above, I don't plan on being a neurotic mama, just want to figure out all this stuff before Dep comes home, so the time to research is now.

And in case your wondering... no updates except that we should receive confirmation that the USCIS recieved and is processing our I600 within the next week or two. The earliest we could possibly be traveling is late January, but it could be March... who knows? That was rhetorical--I know you don't know either. ('scuse me, I'm a bit giddy these days) But we're getting so excited! It'll be soon now!