A Month in a Minute

I noticed this morning that it's been nearly a month since I updated my blog. One reason is that I've not been able to log into Google to access my Blogger account. I've reset my password several times and tried a number of things, but everytime I tried to log on, the path appeared to go somewhere, but it would never log on. I downloaded Google Chrome this morning, and surprise -- all my Google accounts work again. I have only a minute, so I'll give a quick across-the-board blog update now.

Adoption: We are in process. The social worker from our agency drove up on Valentine's Day to complete our home study. We've honestly worried about this process for years. The first home study we had (before we adopted Bub) felt so long and invasive that we just dreaded the one we'd have to do for this adoption. But, because we had all the information on that first home study and because we were very thorough in completing our very long adoption questionnaire, the actual home study interview was a piece of cake. The social worker did want to clarify some things and to get a bit more information, but for the most part, he just clarified his understanding of the answers we provided. He toured our house, interviewed the kids, then interviewed us all together. At the end of the day, he said he was excited to welcome us into the program and encouraged us to begin working on our life book while he wrote up the first draft of the study.

As of today, he's about 75% through with that first draft, and we should get a copy by Friday. We're at the early stages of our life book. We've completed all the documents to be included in our life book, we've devised an outline of the photo layout, and we've scanned and printed photos to include in the book. We'll have to print a few more photos down the line, but we have enough to get started. We just have to find/make the time to get started! I was hoping to complete and submit the life book by the end of February, but I've revised that goal and now hope to ship it off by the end of this month.

School: Part of my absence can be attributed to my busy school schedule. I'm at the midpoint of the spring semester, so things are REALLY busy. Additionally, I've been trying to work a bit ahead so that I can go to New York later this month and not have to log in to class (at least not as often as I generally have to log in to class). Three of four classes are going well. The fourth class is awful. I'm taking a Family Science class called Family Resource Management, and while the information is great, the instructor is terrible. She doesn't log in to the online classroom, she doesn't open discussion links or assignment shells, she doesn't grade work, and she doesn't reply to e-mails -- all problems in a 100% online course. I called the department head last week to address some of the issues we all were having and a couple more grades have posted, but there are still a number of issues to work out. Hopefully things will improve by week's end.

In other news, I picked up my cap and gown and ordered graduation announcements this week. Though I won't officially graduate until August, I'll commence in May -- just two more months! I met with my grad advisor to map out the last nine hours I'll need to complete after this semester. If all works out as we hope it will, I'll take one class during the "Maymester" and two more classes over the first half of summer. I'll complete my coursework by July 9th, and then I will take a long and much needed nap. For a while, I was thinking about continuing on with school, taking advantage of the routine I'm already in, but with the adoption looming ahead and some other things we have going on, I think it's a really good time to take a break from school and just focus on my family. I honestly feel a little bit anxious about how I'll fill the time now filled with British Literature and Sociology exams, but I'm sure I'll manage. I'm hoping a good bit of my new free time will be spent in the hobby room.

Kids: Everyone is pretty much the same. Even though we have nothing planned, the kids are excited about Spring Break next week. I'm excited to have them home and hope that we can do a few fun things around town. We're all ready for summer. We just ordered season passes for a new waterpark opening in a nearby town. We also registered the kids for summer camp -- their first ever. They're so excited to go, but we feel a bit nervous. We're confident Gracie will have fun and do well, but Bub is our wild card. I keep reminding myself of the fact that these counselors are excited to work with kids and they have experience dealing with kids who require a bit more attention. I think if he can focus and think about that action-to-consequence sequence, he'll have a really great time.

Brystol is growing. At nineteen-months-old, she's way too big for her britches. She's such a fun kid, but lately she's been working on developing her big, bad attitude. She tries to have a fit when she gets frustrated, but many times she gets distracted by the fact that we're laughing at her and the whole situation diffuses. Her vocabulary is increasing rapidly and she's working on forming sentences and using commands. Last night, she patted the edge of the bathtub and said, "Mommy, sit." She also pretends to read books by talking about all the pictures in the books, and when she's through, instead of saying "the end," she says "amen." It's so fun to watch her grow!