Veda and Neena

We had a delightful weekend. Friday David and I had our last Mandarin class together. He graduates to kids only classes this summer. It will probably be a great transition to preschool for him, but I am a little sad I won't get to go to class again until Max comes home. It's back to Rosetta Stone for me.

Saturday we went to the zoo with the lovely Veda and Neena and their parents. We saw the new Great Bear Wilderness plus other zoo highlights including a misting station, the carousel and a playground (because why pay attention to the exotic animals when you can go down the twisty slide?). David had so much fun that he slept four hours after we got home.
David and Veda (with Neena in the third picture)

Today we finally painted the steps that the boys repaired a month ago. David enjoyed helping and didn't even seem to mind that we painted them blue instead of orange as he had requested. Let the record show, Uncle Stanley, those steps are not Carolina blue. It is definitely darker than that...though I've already been harassed by one neighbor so far, and he's not the UNC alum. Maybe we should have gone orange.

We got to hang out with our friend Nickie this afternoon, and David skipped his nap. The second picture below is him at 5:30 sound asleep at the dinner table. He is still asleep, and we have our fingers crossed he makes it until at least 5:30 tomorrow morning. If he wakes up at 2:00, we are in for a long night.

And here are your pictures

Here is the post with pictures as promised. As usual, I was slaving away at work while the boys went out to play. Kevin, David, Uncle Dave and Grandpa went to White Sox Family Field Day this morning. They got to go out onto the field and play catch, though apparently David really just wanted to throw the ball and chase after it himself more than play with anyone else.

After Family Field Day, the group minus Uncle Dave took the red line to the north side for the Cubs game. Here are David and Grandpa enjoying the Friendly Confines.

Clear as mud

First, for those of you disappointed with all these boring words, I promise the next post will contain cute pictures of David. And now I will bore you with more adoption abbreviations. If you want to know why we don't know when we'll be leaving for China, here you go...

LSC -- We are currently waiting for our LSC (letter seeking confirmation, aka LOA or letter of approval). This letter is a huge step. It indicates that after reviewing our dossier, the CCAA approves us to adopt Max. The review process could take 2-3 months.

I-800 -- Here is where things are a little more involved than last time, and at this point I'm a bit fuzzy on the details. Once we receive our LSC, we have to file our I-800 (not to be confused with the I-800A from the paperchase) with USCIS. The I-800 is our petition to adopt Max specifically (where the I-800A was a request to adopt a child from China in general). Supposedly, it takes about 2-3 weeks for I-800 approval which is then cabled to the NVC (National Visa Center).

NVC letter -- After the NVC receives our I-800 approval, they will send us a letter a few days or weeks later saying so. We then send a copy of this letter and a visa application to our adoption agency who forwards it on to Guangzhou.

Article 5 -- We then wait to receive our article 5, which indicates Max will be granted a visa to enter the US. Again, this usually takes about 2 weeks

TA (travel approval) -- When we have our article 5, our agency sends it to Beijing where they will FINALLY issue our travel approval about 2-4 weeks later.

Once we receive TA, finally finally finally, our adoption agency can set our appointment at the US consulate and Guangzhou which determines our travel dates which are usually within a month of our travel approval date, but once again who knows? If this makes any sense to any of you, please feel free to explain it to me.

Surprise?

Kevin and I knew it wouldn't come as much of a surprise to anyone that we were adopting again, so we decided to see how far in the process we could get before we shared our news. After spending the last ten months sneaking around, we are thrilled to tell you that David's little brother Max is waiting for us in southern China. We aren't allowed to post any photos or identifying information until we have received our official approval from China to adopt him, so stay tuned for that. For now I can tell you that he is almost 10 months old and adorable.
Many thanks to the Derdozos, the Mazhars, godfather Steve, Mike and Donna who helped with the necessary paperwork and kept it quiet.
So, even though I know this will likely only interest my mother, here is the run down of what we've been doing behind your backs:

The Paper Chase. This is the part of the adoption process designed for those of us with OCD. It takes months to gather all the necessary paperwork for 1) the homestudy 2) the I-800A application that is required for the US government to approve us for international adoption and 3) the dossier which is our huge stack of paperwork that goes to Beijing for the Chinese officials to review. Not only do we have to gather proof that we were born and are married, US citizens, healthy, not criminals according to the FBI and every state we've ever lived in, employed, have life insurance, health insurance, retirement savings, a house, cars, etc., etc., etc., but most of these documents have to be notarized then certified by the Secretary of State in the appropriate state then authenticated by corresponding Chinese consulate. Good good times. Highlights of our paperchase included but were not limited to:

• July 1, 2009 -- Our official start date. We ordered up some birth and marriage certificates and called our social worker to get the ball rolling.
• July 14 -- True to form, Snoopy adds an extra level of difficulty to the paper chase by eating the aforementioned birth and marriage certificates.
• July 30 -- Our first (of four) visit with Jacque, our social worker for David's adoption. We got off to a fantastic start. In the dogs' great excitement to see Jacque, Pete escaped but fortunately was coralled by a neighbor. David screamed the entire visit, and we found out Jacque was leaving our agency. So far so good.
• September 10 -- The last of our homestudy paperwork (or so we thought) arrives at our agency. Stephanie (the new Jacque) emails to let us know she has no idea what to do next. Fantastic.
• The next couple of months are filled with confusion and a seemingly endless string of paperwork and forms that Stephanie discovers she needs that no one mentioned before.
• November 25 -- Finally, after a lot of me banging my head against a wall and 3 rounds of editing, we have a completed homestudy, approved by our adoption agency and off to DCFS for their approval.
• December 22 -- We receive official approval from DCFS which means we can finally send our I-800A application in to USCIS (US Citizen and Immigration Services).
• January 27, 2010 -- Our third and final (we hope) set of fingerprints. These are for our USCIS approval.
• February 1 -- We celebrate David's 3rd birthday and the arrival of our I-797C, our official response to our I-800A. It is our approval to adopt a child from China from USCIS and the last piece of paper we need to send our dossier to Beijing.

DTC (dossier to China) -- March 5, 2010. The official end of our paperchase. After one last round of notarizing, certifying and authenticating documents (and making about a million photocopies of all of them), our dossier finally left for Beijing.
LID (log in date) -- March 12. The day our dossier is officially registered by the CCAA. We didn't actually find out our LID until March 25. From then on we were eligible for a referral any time a new waiting child list was issued (about once a month).
Referral -- April 24. One Saturday, while Kevin and Dave were taking a break from various home improvement projects to watch the Blackhawks thrilling overtime win in game 5 of their series with the Nashville Predators, we got the call from our adoption agency. We accepted the referral on the spot. That night we told David that he has a little brother. We showed him Max's picture, and he said, "We get that one?" and kissed the computer screen.
LOI (Letter of Intent) -- April 27. Our letter officially requesting permission to adopt Max was submitted to China.
PA (Preliminary Approval) -- May 6. This step is pretty much meaningless. It indicates that they have our paperwork and will process it, but the real approval will come in 2-3 months with any luck.
There are several more steps between now and Gotcha Day, even more than last time due to the Hague, an international adoption treaty designed to protect children from abduction, child trafficking and other badness. I will bore you with these steps in a future post for anyone who wants to play along at home. They all involve initials that make little to no sense and waiting on government officials here or in China to do something. We hope to travel in 6-8 months, but it could be a little less or a lot more depending on how quickly or slowly everything is processed. Whatever the time table, we can't wait to follow that red thread again!

Disney album is done

Here it is...

Disney May 2010

Gotcha Week at Disney World

We celebrated David's Gotcha Day all week long at Disney World. There are way too many pictures for a post, so I'll put a few highlights here and work on a Picasa album with the rest. Keep an eye out for Pandy the panda who came to the parks with us every day.

We arrived last Saturday late afternoon. We stayed at the All Star Sports resort. It was an excellent choice. David loved the over the top sports decor and was particularly fond of the statues of Huey, Duey and Louie playing baseball.

Saturday evening, we met up with a family who lives in the area and is in the process of adopting a little boy through China's waiting child program. They have three kids, and David had so much fun running around like a nut with their girls. Good luck to Katie, Josh and their family as they prepare to bring their di di home!

Enjoying dinner with Gracie. Annie and David took turns letting Donald eat their heads.

Sunday the three of us went to the Magic Kingdom in the morning. David loved Small World (which we ended up riding eight times over the course of our trip) and the trolley tracks down Main Street (which we spent a painfully long time walking on). Nahnee and 'Ramma arrived in the afternoon, and we all went to Epcot where we enjoyed some a really good Mexican dinner.

David "driving" the Small World boat, following the trolley tracks and cruising on a boat at Epcot with Nahnee

Monday we went to the Animal Kingdom first thing. The safari ride there is one of my favorite things, and the one we went on that morning was amazing. We saw so many animals, including a mama and baby white rhino running full speed right past our truck and three cheetahs who were very interested in what the rhinos were up to. We went back to the Magic Kingdom that afternoon. On this trip, David fell in love with the Swiss Family Robinson tree house.

On Safari with 'Ramma, completely enamored with the tree house water collection system, the 3 of us at the Magic Kingdom

Tuesday was Hollywood Studios. The Toy Store ride there was probably the consensus favorite of the entire group. You go from screen to screen playing virtual carnival games (ring toss, throwing darts at balloons, etc.). That night David used his powers of persuasion to get some merchandise from the Lego store at Downtown Disney, and we made our obligatory pilgrimage to Chick-fil-A.

Toy Story ride and Sci-Fi drive in lunch at Hollywood studios

Wednesday was May 5--Gotcha Day! We celebrated two years as a family of three. At the Animal Kingdom, we started off checking out the Asian jungle trek and then went to the glorified playground that is Dinoland USA. We went back to Epcot in the evening, watched the Chinese acrobats and had a really delicious dinner at the Nine Dragons restaurant there. We also went to the movie at the China pavilion and let David pick out a Gotcha Day gift. The winner was a little panda. I'm not sure if Pandy is jealous or what because he spent the rest of the night involved in paw to paw combat with the new little panda bear. David capped off the evening by drenching himself in some fountains and asking if he could come back to Epcot wearing his bathing suit.

The 3 of us in the China pavilion at Epcot. Billions of dollars in entertainment surrounding him, and the water was the most fun.

So Thursday we went back to the Magic Kindgom in the morning and then to Epcot with David is his swimwear in the afternoon. The three of us made a loop of the world showcase for dinner sampling such deliciousness as nachos, brats and gelato. Sadly, Canada no longer serves beaver tails.

David was very pleased to acquire a sword from the toy store in Germany. Back at the fountains in his bathing suit, completely oblivious to the large fireworks display.

Friday was our last day at the parks. We wanted to get David back on the Toy Story ride, so we started at Hollywood Studios. We made a mad dash for the ride, which is relatively new and insanely popular. Kevin grabbed fast passes before we hopped in the regular line. We went on the ride, went back to a Disney Playhouse show that he had really enjoyed earlier in the week and then back on the ride with our fast passes. We hopped a boat to the Boardwalk area where Kevin and I stayed for our honeymoon, had lunch, raced through Epcot to get to the monorail (exclusively for the purpose of riding the monorail), took the monorail to the Magic Kindgom and then bussed it back to the hotel for nap time which was followed immediately by one more trip to the Magic Kingdom where we rode rides until they kicked us out. We were literally the last people to go on the Winnie-the-Pooh ride last night.

Sucking on a lemon at lunch, Tomorrowland Speedway and waiting for the carousel with Kevin

This morning before we left we took one last dip in the pool and bid Huey, Duey and Louie adieu.

It was a super fun vacation. Thanks to Nahnee and 'Ramma for coming with and providing a 4:1 adult to child ratio that was still barely enough. I've left a million little stories and several dozen really cute pictures out. I'll try to include as much as I can in the album, so stay tuned if you're interested...