Remembering Mom

Mom passed away three years ago today from a rare disorder called amyloidosis. Many of you knew her, prayed for her, and shared her struggle with her health during her last year.

The irony of me coming here to our blog to post about her is that she was very anti-technology. She would probably kill me for putting anything about her online. But to follow Jess's direction to remember happy times, I'd just like to post some of my favorite memories of Mom...
...Baking Christmas cookies and bubble bread together for the holidays.
…Learning how to cook and bake by watching her and learning from her.
...Snuggling in the rocking chair while she read to me.
...Marathon mall shopping for the perfect shirt or formal dress.
...The birthday cakes she made me every year -- from the beautiful ones to the one that fell over like the leaning tower of Pisa, causing tears from all the laughter.
...The special dresses she sewed for me.
…Coming home from school, knowing Mom was waiting at home for me with a snack.
…Having her take care of me when I got sick.
…Mom and Dad listening right outside the door while Jess proposed.
…Her knife-waving while she talked and all the food experiments while Jess and I were dating and engaged.
…Every present she gave always had a story to go with it of how or why she got it.

There are many, many more wonderful memories of Mom. Just typing out a few has brought back so many more than what I could put down. Thanks for letting me share them today.

I love you, Mom, and I miss you.

We're Done!!

Today we brought the last of our paperwork to our agency, AAC! There are still a few things we need for our dossier before it can be sent to the US government to be authenticated -- the homestudy report our social worker writes, the central registry clearance, and the 171-H form from immigration -- but those things are out of our control. We've done what we need to do for them. So every piece of paper that we're able to get on our own is done and turned in to our agency! Whew!

Last one!

I'm a little late in posting this, but our last homestudy visit was Monday night. While not quite the grilling of last time, this visit still had plenty of probing questions.

At the end, she once again said that she doesn't have any reservations about us. Now she'll go and write a report on our home and family. We'll get to review it before it's sent to the state and to China. Both of us are relieved to have this part of the process behind us.

We won't see the social worker again for a year when she does our post-placement visits.

Homestudy Visit #2

Wednesday was our second homestudy visit with the social worker, and this time it was a grilling! We had previously filled out very long, detailed questionnaires about our past and present - growing up life, relationships, how we deal with conflict in our marriage, some about our parenting, etc. This visit was basically the social worker meeting with us each individually to go over our answers in detail.

It was a rather grueling evening. But in the end I asked her if she had any concerns about recommending us for adoption, and she said, "No, not at all." Whew!

Monday is the final visit with one more questionnaire to fill out. She said this one will focus on the present - our marriage and family life now.

On another note, today was my physical exam for the adoption (Jess's was last week). This is to verify that we're healthy and have no physical reasons why we couldn't raise a child. We weren't able to see our regular doctor for these, but the guy we got was very cool about the whole thing. He's done adoption physicals before and knows how picky China is about the paperwork, so he made sure to do it right!