Brotherly Love

One thing that makes me feel super blessed as Elijah and Anna's mama is that they truly love each other so much.  They have their own separate rooms but choose to bunk together.  They call each other their best friend and love playing together and never understand why their friends don't want their sibling included.  One of their favorite games is pretending their hands are baby monsters (kind of like sock puppets without the socks)...Anna is " Little Sister Monster" and Elijah is "Brother Monster."  I have been a little worried how "Brandon" would be included, but on the way to the library yesterday I heard them include "Baby Adopted Monster." and realized that all is good.

Homestudy

Its a little after the fact, but we had our homestudy on May 4th and our 2nd interview is coming up on the 31st.  It was not nearly as intimidating as I thought it would be.  The social worker was very nice and really only wanted to get a feel for what type of people/parents we are.  We have been going through an extermination process in our building, (welcome to NYC!) so half of our belongings are sealed in plastic bags and were in the middle of the floor until about 10 minutes before the social worker arrived.  Brad and I spent many frantic hours trying to shove and stuff then in to closets and dresser drawers so that our house would not look like a tornado had just hit.  Thankfully, she never felt the need to look inside of anything. 

We are entering the long stretch of this process where we are waiting for certain things to show up before we can mail other things off.  (Like our marriage certificate...can't figure out how we don't have a copy of that anywhere!)  If any one reading this is ever considering adopting, I would strongly suggest having several copies of everyone's birth-certificates, your marriage license, passports (for international adoption) and online accounts with all your financial institutions (bank, retirement, medical insurance, life-insurance, savings accounts, etc...) so that you can get copies of everything quickly.  Also, make sure you keep the last year of your tax return.  We have everything but our marriage license and hope that it is in the mail and on its way as I type.

Fingerprints

Did you know that getting your fingerprints taken does not necessarily involve inkpads and cardstock?  It sure was news to me.  Brad and I got our electronic fingerprints taken today.  It was surprisingly quick and efficient and only involved putting your hands on a miniature computer scanner.  We actually had loads of time to spare today.  We would have had a date except we are trying to save money for a certain handsome little devil.  Here's to hoping that the rest of the adoption "hoops" are as easy to jump through as this one was!

Paperwork anyone?

We just got our load of paperwork for our homestudy and decided to have a paperwork party.  My Mom, Dad, Brad and I all got together and worked on it after the kids went to bed one night.  I wish I could say that we are done, but no such luck.  We did make a good dent in it though and if I could just remember all the addresses of every place we have lived for the past 28 years, we would be in good shape.  (Did I mention that we have moved 10 times in the past 5 years?)

We're Official!

Check us out at http://reecesrainbow.org/?s=brandon&x=0&y=0

January 9th

January 9th has always been a significant day in our family...it is my birthday. The past two years however it has taken on quite a new significance. January 9, 2008 was the day that we received Elijah's diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder. We tried to eat cake and Brad bought me orchids, but at that time I made a mental note to never celebrate my birthday again. By the time January 9, 2009 rolled around Brad and I paused to reflect on how much our lives have changed in just a year. Last year I spent my birthday with a confused, frightened and out of control son who gave me a nasty black eye during an especially violent tantrum on the long trip to the child psychologist in Singapore. This year, after intense therapy and even more intense prayer, my son did something that we weren't certain he would ever be able to do...he started school. Even 4 months ago Elijah panicked, fought and hid when we tried to leave him for a few hours with his grandparents. But on January 9th, he took his little school basket said "Bye Mama!" and walked right to the car for his daddy to take him to school. As he was going into school he paused and looked at his daddy and said "This is awesome!" Indeed it is. Feel free to pause and reflect on the goodness of our Lord.