Tuesday, February 27, 2007

All Quiet on the Western Front

So Stu has been bugging me to add a new post to the blog, but the truth is I don't have much to talk about. Things in our household have been remarkably calm and quiet (knock on wood). Usually we are in constant state of chaos, sickness, or are just plain busy. Recently things seem to have settled down into a nice quiet routine. We've had a lot of down-time and Stu and I have both really enjoyed just hanging out with the boys each night. We've hung out with our families. This past weekend we took the boys to an indoor pool with my MIL, niece and other family members. It was so much fun and the boys had such a good time! It was a great way to get rid of the cabin fever we've all been suffering from, and the boys were completely worn out by that night. Yeah! I did get a little freaked out while we were there. Both of the boys enjoy the water and S. is getting to be a very good swimmer (with a life jacket on). But he's getting really brave so I have to keep a constant eye on him to make sure he's not getting "too brave". M. still wants to be held the entire time he's in the water. But I couldn't help thinking, "What the hell am I going to do when we bring Hot Dog home this summer?" Chances are we'll be spending a lot of the time at the pool (our cousins have a really nice pool in their backyard that we go to constantly). How am I going to watch S., hold M., and hang onto Hot Dog too?? While we are absolutely ready for a third child, I still have moments where the actual logistics of having a third child scare the heck out of me! But I guess we'll deal with that when the time comes.
For now, I'm enjoying the calmness that has enveloped my family, because chances are it won't last for long!

Thursday, February 8, 2007

Current status

It seems as if everyday someone is asking what the status is with our current adoption. I think that things went so fast with the adoptions of S. and M. that they are expecting us to bring home HotDog* any day now. But things have slowed in the Russian adoption world due to some regulatory changes. And since we are requesting a girl this time around, we expected to wait longer for a referral. We think we'll be traveling in mid-April at the very earliest, more likely May/June. I'm actually hoping for later for several reasons: 1. Stu's sister is getting married in late April and I would hate to miss all of the celebrations. 2. April/early May is Stu's busiest time of the year for his job. 3. We've been to Russia 4 times, all in the winter; I'm really looking forward to traveling during warm weather this time. I can't imagine how much easier it will be to travel without winter coat/gloves, bulky sweaters, etc!
And honestly, we're in absolutely no hurry this time. M. is doing so good with his weekly OT (for his sensory issues) and I think he needs to be the "baby" for a little while longer. His little personality is really blooming right now. Poor S. has been ready for a little sister since the day we brought M. home. But he's going to have to wait a little bit longer.
The only downside I see to traveling during that time is that the second trip will now require me to be in Russia (by myself, yikes!) for almost a month...I'll do an entire post on that soon. Which means that I'll miss the nicest part of summer with my boys. May/June is when it's warm, but not humid, and we can stay outside literally from the time we wake up until we go to sleep. The boys are such outdoor kids. By the time we get home and settled with the new little one, it will be the HOT and HUMID. Yuck!
So anyway, we'll hopefully hear some good news by late March/early April; that sounds like so far away but looking at the calendar shows that it's really not too bad of a wait at all.

*HotDog is the name that S. came up with when we mentioned the idea of a little sister to him. He is adament that is her name regardless of what other names we've suggested we might call her. We have no idea where he came up with it but so far (4+ months) it has stuck and she's officially called HotDog by friends and family.