Updates on 5

New Baby A

Our adoption. Here's how it goes from here.

Last week, we received our referral for A. Another AZ. :) I cannot post his picture or his name here, but I can tell you that he is very cute, that we are keeping his Ethiopian name, and that much to our surprise, it fits perfectly. See, we were planning to give this child a new first name, maybe keeping their original name as a middle name, but when we saw A's Ethiopian name, we were sure that this is his name. So it will stay.

Now we wait for our court date. Holt says that the wait for a court date is anywhere from 1 to 3 months, and that the wait begins when the dossier is recieved in Ethiopia. Our DTE (Dossier To Ethiopia) date was 2/22/10. That means that our court case could be scheduled anytime between now and the end of May. Of course, we hope that there is just one court date, but many families don't pass court the first time and have to be rescheduled. If we are rescheduled, I believe it is usually 6-8 weeks later.

Another hiccup in the plans is this recent two-trip thing. There is a new "rule" that adoptive parents have to be present in court, which makes for two trips. So far, no one has actually done that because the new policy was to take affect in 30 days, and 30 days haven't passed yet. There is a rumor that the new rule will be revoked, but Holt has not commented on that yet, nor have they told us to be prepared to travel for our court date. So we're really up in the air on that one. We are not getting too attached to either idea.

All drawn out, this timeline could still be several months. But one thing that I appreciate about Holt is that they are conservative with information and with timelines. I would rather be prepared to wait awhile and have it go more quickly than the other way around.

In the meantime, I am working on a Life Book for Little A, or Yene Konjo. I am his historian, gathering every detail that I can about his village, his family and his birth. I hope to gather all the details about his life pre-adoption in a book for him.

Matea

She's still working on potty training. She has had some accidents, but she has also stayed dry many times when I didn't expect it. Today might be the day that Daddy takes her to get some big girl underwear. The first of many father-daughter shopping trips, I'm sure. :) I have been using bloomers as stand-ins, and I think real underwear will be a good thing!

Isaac

Isaac is working on his letters and numbers. He is also learning lots of Spanish words through Elijah. Today Isaac is helping me with Passover preparations (we are having a Seder tonight) and drawing pictures in A's adoption journal.

Elijah

Lije is still plugging away at Spanish. He gets readers from school every week, and I have enjoyed those more and more as we're able to talk about them in Spanish pretty easily. Lije is also working on learning how to ride a bicycle with no training wheels. Since the weather has been so beautiful, Elijah has been playing basketball outside with Samuel most days.

Samuel

The Popcorn Man is already making plans for the big 1-0 birthday, which is still 5 or 6 weeks away. We are going to try to take Samuel to Ethiopia when we go to pick up A, and he is enjoying those preparations. It is so sweet to see him saving up his loose change and extra dollars to put toward his plane ticket. He is very motivated to bring this baby home as soon as possible!