Well, we sent in our initial home study paperwork last week and had been waiting to hear from the home study agency to find out the next steps. Yesterday, we got a call from them telling us the name of the social worker assigned to do our home study. YIKES!! Now the panic is setting in!!! We've gotta get our house in tip top shape and SOON!! We're shifting gears now to work on painting the basement and having carpet installed down there so we'll have more living space. Oh yeah, we still need to get beds for the children!!
We also had our first hosting orientation meetings this week and got to meet some of the other host families. It's neat to hear about the paths that others traveled to arrive at the same place we did. Who knows...maybe some of us will wind up traveling to Latvia together for adoption court dates. That would be too cool! I can't think too far ahead though or I get stressed, so back to our projects at hand. I need to remember we're focusing on the hosting right now.
We learned all kinds of interesting tidbits about the children like some will speak Latvian, others will speak Russian or both. Many of them get car sick when riding in cars, so we'll need to have baggies on hand for them when driving around. They probably won't like our fast food, but most love chicken cooked just about any way. Families who hosted before told us to have lots of fruit on hand because the children will eat it by the pound since they don't get much fruit in Latvia. Most of the children only own two outfits: a dress outfit and a play outfit. We'll need to be careful not to go overboard and buy them too many things while they're here. We will, of course, get them a couple of outfits and some toys but if we do too much it gives them the wrong impression that this is what America is all about. We were reminded that the purpose of this program is to give them the sense of what it's like to live in a Christian family and to basically, love them unconditionally.
This week, we're also sending away for our vital records (apostilled birth/marriage certificates) from Florida to be used in our dossier. I'm told that those documents won't expire so that's one thing we can do now and cross off the list. Many things expire within a year so we have to wait until we're absolutely positive we're adopting to do those things. We're so thankful to have met new friends who have already traveled this path before us. All of the adoptive parents we've met have offered so much valuable advice and they're all so eager to help guide us through the maze of paperwork and red tape. Rob and I have no doubt that divine intervention guided us towards hosting and adoption.
It's starting to hit us that the children will be here before we know it. Now that it's May, that means they'll be here next month!! YIKES!! Now I need to figure out how I'm gonna tell my boss I need to take a big chunk of vacation soon. We'll worry about that later. :-)
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