Memorial, Renovations, Vacuum & Perfection

Last night we attended our friend's memorial. It was perfect and I know he would have been touched to see all those people there (188 apparently). The funeral talk was so personal, it's like we could picture Mike right in from of us. We finally found out what he died from and that he died peacefully so that brought many comfort. It's still such a shame at such a young age, 35.

On another note, the renovations are moving along. Our contractor is supposed to come on Monday and discuss moving forward. I'm pretty excited. I just want all our old furniture out of storage and to decorate this house to look like a home, our home. As much as I appreciate my in-laws decor, anyone that knows me, knows that shiny, oil paints and frilly, Italian decor is just not me. I love flat, simple...basically, modern country. Today I was looking forward to cleaning up our place, yes, I know it's odd, but I love cleaning. It's like a stress release. I literally get a high on it. Anyways, after fighting with the 1962 vacuum cleaner and it's lack of ability, my sweet, dear hubby gave me the go ahead to buy a new vacuum cleaner. I know it sounds ridiculous but this was definitely the highlight of my weekend thus far. Even better than getting rid of 5 bags of stuff that wasn't being used. Thank you Value Village!

Sunday morning Alex surprised Portia with a new pair of adjustable skates.  Now finally someone invented a pair that makes sense.  They adjust from a size 12 to 2 so now we don't have to purchase another pair for a few years.  Alex and Portia, along with her friend and dad got some good quality father and daughter time.  They all headed to a local outdoor skating rink, actually in the very same park that Alex grew up playing at.  Portia was ecstatic and apparently didn't want to leave.  

We also added Perfection to our collection of family games. It brought back so many memories. I even vaguely remember the words to the song on the commercial...Press the plunger down, set the timer, fit the pieces in , don't be slow. In Perfection, you gotta move on fast, move on fast.... Oh, the odd things we remember.

Weekend, Loss & Life

Friday nights have notoriously become "Finger Fridays" which means we get to eat finger foods for dinner and watch a movie. It's one of my favorite days of the week, where everything is relaxed and everyone gets in their cosies. We break out the paper plates so there is no mess to clean and enjoy eachother's company. Portia is starting to add her own traditions to the evening which includes playing Trouble or putting together some Disney puzzle. I'm trying to find the game of Perfection for her since I know she would love it, but for some odd reason both the Walmart and Toys R Us near us don't carry it. I guess I'll have to just keep looking.

On Saturday Portia was a brave, little girl. I took her to a Travel Medical Clinic and she got her 1st Hep A shot, the next one is scheduled for 6 months from now, and also a Typhoid shot. She didn't shed a tear. We are hoping to get away for a week down south so we are taking some precautions. Apparently Puerto Vallarta is the place to go this year, although we are quite open to just about anything. I just can't seem to find a good deal, and especially not one that leaves from Ottawa. Our little one has become quite the world traveller. She's been to Vancouver, Dominican Republic (twice), Mexico, Italy, New York and of course (China). We are hoping to add Vietnam to that list soon, VERY SOON.

Portia had one of her close friends, Connor, come over for dinner and play on Saturday. They were so adorable. Their attention spans don't last long so by the end of the night, I was pooped. They went from playing Trouble, to making a crown and getting dressed up like a little prince and princess, dancing, arts & crafts, dancing, watching the Berenstain Bear, more dancing, Simon Says, reading books, etc., and then finally crashing. Actually we all crashed. By the time Marianne came in to pick up Coonor, we were all fast asleep on the couch.

Today, Portia had a playdate with another one of her friends, Alina. The two love getting dressed up in Disney costumes and playing house. Too cute! It's convenient since most of Portia's friends live so close by so setting up a playdate has become part of regular weekly routine, and of course it's always nice to sit and chat over a coffee with other moms. I much prefer this over hanging out with someone who doesn't understand that yes, children get ants in their pants.

And how goes the list? Well, we got our RCMP checks, Portia has had her vaccine, the agency has received our update and as well as a copy of our sponsorship. So all that we have left is our medicals. And of course The Proposal. We continue to wait and stay busy.

On a sad note, we had a friend pass away yesterday. He was only 34 years old and likely had some complications with Diabetes, surgery he had and other medications. I was so shooken up. Here was a nice guy who went through so much in his life and it ended in tragedy. It's moments like this that we need to appreciate all that we have since he had nothing and nobody, just some friends.

My nonna is doing better. Her sugar levels were very sporatic so she ended up in the hospital and was starting to slip into a diabetic coma. Unfortunately her siblings have all passed away in a diabetic coma so we fear the same will happen to her. I love her so dearly. I was able to talk to her a little last Monday, when she was conscious. She put her hand on my cheek and said "You are such a good girl." I started to cry and told her that she was the good one and that she has done and sacrificed so much for me. She said that I was good and everyone has told her that. I told her that she was like a mother to me. She smiled and then fell asleep. I feel like she is slipping away and the thought of losing her is just too much to bear. For everything I've had to go through, she was always there. I never would even have to say a word and she would know when something wasn't right. God has kindly blessed me with the great priviledge of having this beautiful, kind soul in my life.

Museum, Adoption & Renovations Update

Portia and I got to spend some good quality mother/daughter time at the Nature Museum. We've been to the Science Museum and the Agriculture Museum quite a few times, so we decided to try another one for a change and she LOVED it.  There is even a section where she gets to dress up and pretend she's a veterinarian that needs to save birds.  She played in there forever.  As well we headed into the cafeteria to eat lunch and they have these incredible aquariums with a huge variety of fish.  She wasn't crazy about the dinosaur bones.  She felt too frightened so we left that section.  We've been reading "Franklin Visits The Museum" so I'm confident her fears will soon subside.  I think next time we are going to try the Museum of Civilization.  We've been before but she was way to young to enjoy it and apparently they now have an incredible Children's section. 

Okay, so as it stands we will have to wait until early February to find out if we will be proposed either one of these 2 children. If not, we will be next but they can't give us a timeframe. These 2 children still need a medical so they must wait for the orphanage to bring them to the doctor. We were told that we have to be prepared for any time...so this could be it...or not. We were told that families usually travel 2 to 3 months after proposal. So now I have to figure out a way to stay occupied until early February. This week we are hoping to:

1) Get the updated homestudy into our agency's hands. This will still need to be reviewed and approved by the Ministry
2) Send the sponsorship papers that we had originally done since we are still waiting for our citizenship papers part 1 to be completed. Apparently it will be another 8 weeks.
3) Get updated medical.
4) Our RCMP check has not come in yet. They say it takes 7 - 10 days but I recall that it took something like 6 weeks once.

Portia got to enjoy some good old toboganning with her friend Logan (see photo).  He happens to live next door and has this awesome driveway that is slightly slanted so you can imagine the loads of fun they have on it year round.  

 
The basement has been demolished and is practically bare bones. Now we wait for the contractor to get started. Have I mentioned how tired I am of waiting for everything.

Adoption Update

Our agency said that they have 2 special needs cases right now but they don't have all the particulars. One child has clubbed feet and the other they are not sure. They will need medicals done which will determine exactly what the issues are. They also do not know the genders. Our contact has to speak to the director first since although we are # 1 for Ontario, we may not be #1 globally since they have another adoption agency and the proposals are split. So we left off that:

1) I have to call back on Tuesday and they are hoping they will have more answers.
2) In the meantime, they need the update of our homestudy. Our social worker called and said she would have it to them by next Friday.
3) We were told to get another RCMP Interpol check with fingerprints, which we did today and with that another $140.00 spent.
4) We will have to get another medical (one-page form) done at the time of proposal.
5) We also must send a copy of the sponsorship form in for now. We also applied for Citizenship but we won't hear back for another 9 weeks.

If a proposal is issued before the ministry gives approval then our agency can have it expedited if a proposal comes in for us. I'm still trying to not get ahead of myself.

Tomorrow we start renovations and I'm excited since for the next little while my mind will be occupied, at least a little.

Adoption Presentation

Portia's teacher was kind enough to allow me to come and talk to the class about adoption. Portia was so excited and asked if she could sit right beside me at the front. The next thing I knew she was carrying this fair size chair over to me and almost knocked out one of her classmates. There were all these little faces staring and wondering what I had to say. I must admit I was nervous. I decided to keep it simple. I began by telling the class that it was a special week for us since it had been 4 years since Portia's adoption day or the day we became a family. I explained Portia came from China and that we travelled there to meet her and then became a family. The teacher pulled out a globe so we could point out the location. I read the class "I Love You Like Crazy Cakes" since it was similar to our experience. After the story, the teacher asked if anyone had questions for me. One little girl said she liked the book and asked where we got it. And then another little boy said that he was adopted too. I was surprised since I didn't realize there was another adopted child in the class. He said "My mom is from the Phillipines and when she was there, I was in her belly." They are so innocent. Obviously he confused adoption with coming from far away. Too cute. After that Portia handed out Dunkeroos to each classmate. That made all the kids really happy. Portia was so happy and proud of her story. And that alone made my heart happy.

Adoption Update

We FINALLY completed our Citizenship forms (Part 1) and have couriered them over. We should have had this done ages ago but we just kept on procrastinating. Anyways, it's done and it was received on the morning of December 31st. Apparently the average wait time to hear back is approximately 11 weeks. Yikes, that's about 2.5 months! We also had to contact our social worker and get our homestudy updated. It wasn't too bad. We had to e-mail the details of the changes and on Monday I will need to call and schedule a home visit since we've moved. Too bad about the move, otherwise we could have just popped in for a quick visit/interview. Hopefully this time it won't be so painful. It worries me that the renovations haven't even begun yet. Mind you we hired a professional contractor that has given us a 5 week turnaround from start to finish. We've already had a designer come in and she came up with an amazing layout. It practically doubles the space, sunlight, etc. It's literally been one thing after another but so far everything is falling into place and we are taking each day as it comes. We've been through renovations before so we know it's not an easy road. Add to that a move, adoption, vehicle accident and it leaves you thinking, okay, what's next? It's always good to keep a sense of humour at times like this. We watched Planes, Trains and Automobiles (my favorite movie) and Rat Race the other night. Now that is good quality down time.

Adoption Update

We called the agency and found out that there are still about 35 to 40 families ahead of us, all waiting for a non special needs child. In respects to timelines, the best estimate that our agency could provide, at least at this time, is approximately one year before we would receive a proposal. We also just found out that we are number one on the list for parents open to special needs. That being said, I believe that the 3 year old boy that I had mentioned in my last update, was likely accepted by the other couple that was ahead of us on the list. I don't know this family but I can only imagine how excited they must be. So what does this mean for us? Well, unfortunately, the agency can not provide any approximate time lines at this point, although they feel fairly certain that a special needs proposal will come sooner than waiting another year for a non special needs. After experiencing a longer wait than was orginally expected, we are trying to be patient and not get excited or ahead of ourselves.

As mentioned before, Portia had some bloodwork done and we found out that China did innoculate her with the Hep B vaccine however she does not have any Hep A antibodies. We briefly discussed this with Portia's pediatrician and although he feels that we shouldn't have any concern, Alex and I did some research, and feel more comfortable having Portia innoculated. My sister-in-law will be travelling with us as well and has started the vaccination protocols. On that note, once Portia has been vaccinated, we will all be ready to travel. Now to complete some more paperwork...We are waiting for our social worker to come home from holidays to have some changes made to our homestudy. This will then have to be sent to the Ministry for approval. We also need to check on the Citizenship papers. It seems like just when you think it's over, there's always something else to think about.