Saturday, November 21, 2009

We're all doing fine

Our son "C" is doing well. He called me on his way home the other day and was happy to be out and about. His doctors will have to ascertain whether it is best to keep him "in" and work with him or put him before a medical board and perhaps medically retire him. We'll see what the Lord decides.

Thank you all again for all of your prayers.

Our landlord had to pull the carpet out, and Pam talked him into just leaving the old vinyl flooring the way it was. We'd much rather put out area rugs that we could roll up in future flood situations. We finally got the kids computer hooked up and running last night, they missed it terribly. We had moved it out of the family room and didn't have anywhere to set up a temporary station for it.

We lost a lot of momentos in the garage. That was the thing that hurt the most. We've been slow about moving things into the house to hang up, and had much less room to put them around to display...now they're gone. Oh well, on to making more memories!

Report cards came out. We got 2 honor roll kids, and 1 that had all highest marks (too young for honor yet). We have one that's struggling fiercely. The new ones are all progressing well and working hard.

Funny story:
"A", our 8th grade daughter, was in line to get her H1N1 flu shot at school. The person at the desk asked for her name. For most people in 8th grade that's normally not a problem. Well, we changed all of the children's first names when we brought them home. However, we'd been dragging our feet about re-adoptions, so their legal names are still their birth names. They have to remember that when asked. The school uses their legal name. Ok, still not a problem, if you've spent your life spelling your name in English letters...which she hadn't. She hesitated first because she couldn't remember it, then again when she was asked to spell it. She saw the name on the paper and pointed to it and said, "There, that's it." What made it even more difficult for her is that the school had had it misspelled for the first couple of months before we finally got someone to correct it, so she wasn't sure if they had it right or not. Then the lady asked for her birthday! LOL She knows what day her birthday is, but couldn't remember what year it is because she just used to responding with how old she is. LOL (With the Ethiopian calendar being nothing like ours, it makes it hard for her to transition)

By the way, we just finished our re-adoption of our first 3 (L, H, & J) and are waiting for some letter from the Dept of something or other that allows us to get their new birth certificates.

We have to start on our next three. We did the 1st 3 in NC, the next 3 will be in VA. Is there anyone out there who've done re-adoptions in VA by themselves? I found this one web site that tell you how to do it (for Norfolk residents) and I just need a little help in understanding some of the steps and documents.
Thanks
Juan

3 comments:

Aus said...

Morning guys - thanks for the update! Yeah - we've been kind of dragging our feet on #5, and now with #6 on the way - well that's a good excuse to continue the delay on #5....fortunately our school district is pretty small (you can actually call and ask for the superintendent and get her on the phone - so their good with the chinese doc and translation....but that can't last forever!

Just another 'one of those things' that only adoptive parents can kind of get their heads around!

Glad the flood issues got taken care of as well - hope that it's really to your satisfaction!

hugs - aus and co.

Irma said...

Glad for the post, but the accountant in me can't get my head around the adoption paperwork of the "first three vs. the second three"....when there are seven, lol !

I take all this to mean that the Chinese paperwork and birth dates weren't as complicated. I feel for "A", I can almost see her standing in front of some lady with papers at a desk, trying to figure out the right answer.

And so so happy to hear that "C" is okay for now. I know it will be a long road for him and for you as his family. God will give you all strength!

Pamela Dawn said...

Yes, "D" from China was readopted a long time ago, and it was relatively easy.