Things Kids Say, Revisited

"If only we had travel tubes, you could go anywhere you want in the world if you just press a button. There would be these buttons surrounding you, even on the door, and you would be able to get anywhere you want in a few seconds. It's like an airplane but shorter. It's like a glass but a lot bigger. I would go to my friend's [house] and I could just like travel right to their front door and then the tube would go back to its place."

Sounds awesome. Beats airline food any day of the week.

Things Kids Say

Here's a sampling of random stuff my kids said yesterday:


"I wish I was an All-Star so I could teleport."

"If I was an All-Star I'd have a sensor that would find animals that didn't have a home and I could take care of them. I'd keep them in my underground command center where it's nice and warm so they could sleep."

"I just saw one piece of water come down from the sky."

"I'm going to be a plane that talks."

"She's a queen. All that's missing is a crown. And a dress. And a castle. And a country. And knights and armor and stuff."


This is gold. I gotta do this more often.

Clearing the Clutter

Hooray for garage sales! We cleared out a ton of stuff, and made about twice as much as expected. Things that did not sell:

-3 child car seats
-A huge pile of paperback books
-2 paintings

There are no laws requiring child safety seats here (or if there are nobody follows them), so no big surprise there.

The books--again, not a surprise. As a rule, you're more likely to see people reading fashion magazines (my Oprah magazines sold like hotcakes). There are many good reasons for this, including the cost of books and the language issue, and some not-so-good reasons, like Manila's incredibly pervasive fashionista fetish. It still makes me sad. Even though I like saying "fashionista fetish."

Flowers of the Philippines

I had this great idea to take pictures of all the gorgeous flowers in our neighborhood and post them online so that during the cold winter months I could look back and remember with fondness the tropical beauty of the yadda, yadda, yadda...

Ok, so I took two whole pictures. But still. Two is more than zero. So...mission accomplished!

Playing Catch-up

So. Peoria, Illinois will be our new home in just over two months. After so many months of not knowing, and another month or so of getting used to the idea, I'm finally excited. House hunting online isn't the ideal, but it has its charms.

Garage sale tomorrow. Quotes from international shippers pending. Final adoption paperwork still MIA.

Summer's here, and it is HOT. The kids are out of school until September. Ack! Thank heaven for the neighbor kids and the pool.

So before we can turn in our I-600 form to the embassy to start the visa application process, we have to have ANOTHER home study report done. Number four. We actually found out about this last month and I'm just cooling down enough to write about it. It has to be from a US-accredited agency and completed within the last six months. Can I just say, "AAAAUUUGGGGGGHHHHH!"? More physicals, more applications to fill out (16 pages this time, per parent), more letters of recommendation, another home visit, lots of photocopies, and another $500. Phooey. Luckily all we have left to do is the physicals. Meanwhile the decree could come through any day--or it could take another two months. After that:

-amended birth certificate
-Filipino passport
-physical and immigration appointment for the baby

Citizenship gets taken care of once we're home, and I have a feeling that compared to this, it will seem like a cakewalk. And then we're going to have the party to end all parties, even if it's just ourselves and some loud music and lots of junk food, since we know exactly zero people in Peoria, Illinois.

Weekend Update

So today I hear my five-year-old tell his brother: "Don't tell me what to do!"

This is definitely a kid who likes to blaze his own trail. Should I be worried?

I think maybe I should be worried.

Adoption News:

We went to the US Embassy Wednesday to file our I-600 form, declaring our adoptive daughter as a dependent. We were hoping they'd accept it for preapproval, even without the Adoption Decree in hand. No luck. The guy gave us a phone number for an immigration specialist at the embassy, told us to make an appointment if we needed more info.

We needed more info. We retrieved our cell phones (they're not allowed inside), went outdoors, and called the number. The woman asked a ton of questions: what documents did we have, what agency did we use, etc. etc. Finally she tells us to come back inside and she'll meet with us. Long story short, she took our fingerprints and documents and told us she'd get the ball rolling while we wait for the Decree. We were petrified that the immigration end of things could potentially take months, but we learned that after we hand in the Decree the approval could be a matter of a few short weeks. So the day was not wasted.

We attended our second court hearing on Thursday. We were last on the docket and had settled in to wait out all the other cases, but the judge sent us straight to the stenographer, who took the statement of the court social worker. We were home by 10 am. The bad news: they set another hearing date for March 27, where the prosecutor would be given a chance to present any appeals before the decision was handed down. After that, it would take 30 to 90 days for the Decree to be issued. Yikes. Our plans to be home by June 1 flew right out the window.

Luckily our attorney is made of awesome. We paid extra for her to rush her pending submission of the final court documents; paid the stenographer extra to rush the transcripts; paid a courier to hand-deliver all pertinent documents to wherever they're supposed to go, and were able to score a revised court date of March 13. Yet another sign that Someone's looking out for us and/or wants us home. Now if we can get the Decree in 30 days instead of 90, we'll be happy campers.

The hard lesson we've learned in all this is not to take no for an answer. Or rather to ask the question, "What else can we try?" I've been amazed that more often than not, when you push just enough without actually being pushy, you quite often get results. This does not come naturally to me, at all. At least it didn't used to. Not sure yet if this is a skill I'm proud of.

We're nearly there. Praise the Lord, we're nearly there.

Staring Contest

Thought this pic from the local outdoor market turned out pretty cool. Wanted to share.