Freaks R Us

Anyone who knows us well knows that our future child will be macked out for Halloween.

It's probably our favorite holiday because it appeals to our theatrical, creative, silly nature. We even work regularly on the "boo crew" in a local haunted house. We put a lot of effort into our costumes (they are almost always homemade). We truly can't wait to put all that creativity into making costumes for our child(ren)!

These photos of a few of our past getups are some of the non-gory ones; I don't want to traumatize you guys too much.

My personal favorite is when we were the entity of Wal-Mart. Frank was dressed as Wal-Mart (a devil/store manager with a smiley face "disguise") and I was a Chinese factory worker chained to him. We even had a shtick where I would beg him for benefits and he would roar at me to just keep painting the toy squirrel. Yes, we are total geeks.

(click to enlarge)

Have a safe and happy Halloween everyone!

Italy Photos Are Up

We finally narrowed them down from 1,500 to about 240 of our favorites!

http://flickr.com/photos/ruopoli

I recommend watching the slideshow on the fast or medium speed for the best quality. These were uploaded as low-resolution, so let us know if you’d like to have any high-resolution ones.

Enjoy!

(P.S. My "The Last Hoorah" blog entry has been edited to include this link, so I will eventually delete this entry.)

Almost Swimming

We HAVE the magic letter from DSS!!!
It's sitting right here on my desk looking all pretty and smug.

Yes, it's a beautiful thing and it's even more detailed than we needed. Thank you to all involved! Now it just needs to be apostilled.

In addition, we also need one more document for our dossier (aka bundle of joy): a copy of our social worker's license. (We only had her certificate in our dossier.) We can't get that until she returns from vacation Monday, but I feel much better already! Our dossier should swim on over to the Kaz Consulate around the first week of November!

(Italy photo link coming soon...)

The Last Hoorah

Buon Giornio! Ciao! Salve!

Nope, that's not Russian. It's Italian. And why am I saying hello in Italian???

Because we just returned from a vacation in Italy! That's right, ITALY!!! We first soaked up Rome, then Florence/Tuscany and finally Venice. I can still smell the marinara sauce. Oh wait, maybe that's just us after the long trip home!

It was a wonderful experience to say the least, and I could fill up the entire web-o-sphere with a blog entry about our adventures.

We took about 1,500 photos and 2.5 hours of video. You can see some of our favorite photos here:

http://flickr.com/photos/ruopoli

I recommend watching the slideshow on the fast or medium speed for the best quality. These were uploaded as low-resolution, so let us know if you’d like to have any high-resolution ones.

We decided to embrace this lifelong dream before our little one arrives because it may be awhile before we can take a trip like this again. Soon it will be Disneyworld, Carowinds and camping, which are all great too! On the practical side, this trip was also good training for becoming savvy international travelers before our bigger, scarier trip to Kazakhstan.

Sorry for the unannounced absence, but we didn't want to inadvertently invite any intruders into our home. Even though we had a house sitter, you can't be too careful. We want to send out a BIG thank you to Frank's sister, Rosie, her hubby, Fred, and son, Andrew, for housesitting for us. You guys rock!

So it's back to reality and also back to blogging. I missed it! As far as the progress with our adoption paperwork goes -- we came home to find out that we are still treading water. The 'magic letter' from DSS is still eluding our home study agency. Not the happy news we had hoped for, but I hope we can start swimming again this week. Frank even has his Speedo on.

Arrivederci, y'all.

Treading Water

Well folks, we are still treading water.

Due to a strange twist of events in the world of DSS, the site visit to our home study agency didn't happen today. So we don't have that pesky little letter yet.

Drat!

But our social worker, Teresa, assures us wholeheartedly that she will work her magic and make it happen. (This week I think.)

Teresa is one of the two women we are working with closely throughout this process. (She did our home study.) The other one is our adoption coordinator, Andrea. They have been wonderful, and work hard to help make dreams possible for so many families.

Sometimes I don't know how Andrea does it. She is often the bearer of bad or frustrating news, most of it being things that are out of her control. She rides several families' rollercoasters right along with them, and although it's incredibly rewarding, it must also be emotionally taxing. When she first called me to convey this snag I think I felt more sorry for her than us!

So cheers to you Andrea and to Teresa!
Thank you both for trying your best to make this speed bump as small as
possible, and for all you do to help build happy families!

Blog-O-Rama

For anyone interested in reading other adoption blogs (aka blog-stalking), I've added 2 new links in the right column to 2 blog compilation pages. These people have given permission to be viewed by the general public, so it's not really stalking. (If I individually listed all my favorite blogs, the list would be very long, and I'm trying to keep this site easy on the eyes!) The Kaz rules have changed a lot in the last couple of years, so our experience will be somewhat different than what is portrayed in the older blogs.

There is a growing number of other prospective adoptive parents who are following our journey. Many of them have wonderful blogs! You can find their blogs by viewing the comments they've added here in various posts, and just clicking on their profiles. Some are password-protected, but most are open to the public. (Note: We will temporarily password-protect our blog when we travel to Kaz for various reasons to be 'splained later.)

Warning: Reading adoption blogs is highly addictive. Read at your own risk! We do not assume liability for bleeding eyeballs, sleepless nights, missed deadlines, zombie-eyes, crumbling marriages, or nervous facial tics. (It's kinda like when you first discovered eBay.)

Enjoy!

Good News / Bad News

THE GOOD NEWS:
Our dossier is back from translation and ready to submit to the Consulate of Kazakhstan in New York. Yay!!!

THE BAD NEWS:
Our home study agency's license (which is a part of our dossier) will expire in mid-November. According to the new Kazakhstan law, no document in our dossier can expire at any point during our adoption process. We need a copy of the NEW license now. But the SC Dept. of Social Services (DSS) will not issue the new license until after the old one expires in mid-November. This means we will have to sit on our hands (and dossier) until then. Six weeks will tick by with nothing happening. Not only that, but once we finally submit it, our processing time will likely be slowed by the holiday season. Blech.

THE GOOD NEWS:
Our adoption coordinator and home study social worker are trying their best to find a way around this snag. They are asking DSS to write a letter vouching that the 2008 license is forthcoming. IF DSS agrees, then it should be sufficient and we can proceed. Yay!!!

THE BAD NEWS:
They can't ask DSS for the letter until Tuesday, when they have a site visit by a DSS inspector scheduled. And there is a chance DSS won't write the letter because they are ... you know ... bureaucrats. Blech.

THE GOOD NEWS:
We don't want all the other dossier documents to start expiring, so if DSS won't write the letter and everything gets delayed, our adoption agency will try to get us through the Consulate phase as quickly as possible to help make up for lost time. Yay!!!

So that's where we are. It's not soul-shaking news, but a little frustrating.

Frank and I decided last night, over chips 'n salsa and Coronas, that it's time to buckle our seat belts. We've been riding on the kiddie roller coaster up until now. We both honestly feel that the universe will conspire in our favor because we are trying to do something good. We just have to ride it out and not get our proverbial panties in a bunch. We are spiritually saying, "Que sera sera," but we would also certainly accept some string-pulling by anyone out there who has connections to DSS!

I don't think it was a coincidence that last week, during a business trip, I listened to the (randomly chosen) CD of the bestselling book The Alchemist. It's a symbolic story of a boy's journey that is full of unexpected detours and lessons. Each twist makes his journey richer and more complete, and leads him to exactly where he needs to be at exactly the right time. All he has to do is listen to his heart along the way. Very metaphorical!

Impressive Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_oc1j5NakY


(P.S. Oops, this link is no longer valid. Here's another version, but it cuts off the first half: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlY8STkhopc

If that goes away too, just Google Anita Renfro Total Momsense. This is her version of the William Tell Overture, with the lyrics being everything a mother would say to her child during an entire day. Funny stuff.)

Holy Needlestick, Batman!

I know what we can do today! Let’s drop $630 smackaroos to go get injected with a bunch of horrible viruses!

Yes, the time had come to visit our friendly neighborhood travel clinic to get vaccinated in preparation for our adoption trip. The nice staff made this as painless as possible, and we now have superpowers against the following lovelies:

- MMR - Measles, Mumps and Rubella
- Hepatitis A & B (Just 'cause Pam Anderson has it doesn’t mean it’s cool.)
- Diphtheria & Tetanus
- Typhoid (we got capsules for this)

Check out the CDC web site that advises travelers of which vaccines they should consider for which countries. It's chock full of interesting information. For instance, did you know that September 8 was World Rabies Day??? Me neither! I would have celebrated by doing a little foaming at the mouth.

We didn’t get the Rabies vaccine since we don’t expect to do much frolicking with woodland creatures because the temperature will probably be consistently below zero while we are there (shiver me timbers!)

We will have to go back for two more Hepatitis booster shots before we’re officially through. Youch. It’s all for you, Baby R!

The Room

This part is tres exciting, no?

As Frank said, seeing the nursery come together is strangely awesome. Yes, we realize that all this hullabaloo is mostly for us. Our baby surely won't arrive criticizing the decor. We keep joking that Habibi would be content to sleep in a drawer. (Any Simpsons fans know that line???)

I had already painted the walls when we moved in 6 years ago -- waaay back when we thought we'd never want the responsibility of children. This paint job was my 3-day long, arm-breaking masterpiece, done during a time when I was addicted to the Trading Space show on HGTV. (Coincidentally, I recently participated in a day-long meeting with Laurie Smith, the much-loved, red-headed designer from that show. The company I work for is considering working with her on a project, but that's top secret right now so I can't tell you or I'd have to....you know....kill you.)

Where was I? Oh yeah, the walls. They are a faux finished, mottled Tuscan orange. I worked so hard on them and still really like them, so I don't want to re-paint until Habibi has ideas of his/her own. (I can hear it now -- "Mom, I want BLACK walls to go with my new goth look!" "No honey, just because your father and I were goth doesn't mean you can do it. It really wasn't that cool then and it's not cool now. Trust me on this.") But I digress... So we used the Tuscan orange as a jumping point for the color scheme, which is orange and cream, with touches of tan and sage. I really dig it. It's soft, warm and serene, plus it's conveniently unisex!

Here's a link to the organic cotton bedding, which coordinates perfectly. We don't really have an overall motif, but I realized that we're accumulating a few elephant things. I like elephants -- with the trunk up for good luck-- and they had fit well with my original plan to do a Moroccan room (too difficult to find baby stuff and no time to make it myself.)

Although the room is nowhere near finished, I've posted a few sneak peek photos below for your enticement! The adorable, blue ribbon winning painting above the changing table was done by Frank when he was about 4. It was for a state fair contest, and sparked the beginning of his art career. All together now: Awwwww!

Last I heard our dossier is still in the translation process. Our whole life story is currently being turned into Cyrillic, which kinda looks like something you'd see on the master controls of an alien spaceship on an original episode of Star Trek.

We love all the comments. Keep 'em coming!

Франк и Реджина
(Frank and Regina)

Click to enlarge

A Stranger in a Strange Land

Hi everyone. This is Frank. I thought I would give Regina a break and post this entry.

I've never been in Babies R Us until last Saturday. We went shopping for a crib. We were excited and it was fun, but surreal.

I couldn't believe we were actually going to buy a crib.

I was a stranger in a strange land. It started the minute we got out of the car. Everyone in the parking lot was unloading strollers from their trunks and loading babies into them. They were streaming in from all directions. This was definitely not the Home Depot! We walked in the front door and stood there looking around. I felt disoriented. Where was the hardware department? Where were the tools? Regina made a beeline for a little outfit that caught her eye, and I scanned the horizon feeling disbelief. I had no idea you needed so much stuff for one little person. Finally, I saw the furniture in the back. I pulled my wife away from the cute clothes and we got down to business.

I couldn't believe we were actually shopping for a crib.

After making two circles around the department, we decided on a crib and a matching dresser/changing table. They were a nice wood tone, the perfect style and we both were happy. Whew, task accomplished! Oh, but then Regina informed me that we also needed to get a mattress, mattress pad, changing pad, changing pad cover and an entire bedding set with a sheet, bedskirt, bumper pad and blanket. You mean that stuff is not included? And what's a bumper pad? Does this have something to do with cars?

A few more decisions were made, and with my Honda Element packed like a sausage we carted our loot home. I got down to business putting the crib together. Easy as pie.

But I couldn't believe I was putting together a crib.

Then came the changing table, which was more of a pain but we got it done. We added all the soft stuff, arranged the room in a trial layout and surveyed our results.

Very nice. But I couldn't believe I had just put together a crib. OUR crib.

Since then, several times a day we find ourselves looking in the bedroom. We say to each other, "Hey, did you know there is a crib in here?" Seeing this tangible evidence of a future child is bizarre for both of us. Not bad bizarre -- good bizarre. It's kind of like when we decided to have a family. The world was suddenly different.

I think we will feel the same way when there is an actual baby inside that crib. We will look at each other and say, "Psssst....there's a baby in that room!" I guess by then I will feel like an old pro at Babies R Us. I might even have to be dragged away from the cute outfits.

Edumacation

Talk about a learning experience.

I am a research junkie anyway, but in the past 6 months I have read hundreds (thousands?) of articles, websites, blogs, books and web group postings about anything and everything to do with our adoption. Not a single important decision has been made without sufficient research.

I've found the adoptive community to be incredibly supportive and helpful, especially through the several internet message boards for adoptive parents in Kazakhstan. Everyone is so generous in sharing their experience and advice on every little detail you can imagine.

I am no expert yet, but I've learned more than I ever thought possible about different adoption programs & processes, the best agencies for each program, the political history, culture and customs of Kazakhstan, international travel tips, the best strollers/carseats/bottles/cribs/food, which pediatricians specialize international adoptees, potential medical problems and so on... I even know the difference between an embassy and a consulate, as well as how to pronounce 'apostille' and what the hell it means!

If that's not enough to make your head spin, we were also required by our agency to complete an online course from www.adopteducation.com. This was nerve-wracking since the topics were mostly about problems that can arise in some children from being institutionalized. Most of the research is derived from extreme situations, so we had to keep this in mind as we read about a few jaw-dropping cases. We took this information seriously, but we certainly can't dwell in our fears of a worst case scenario, just as a pregnant couple should not dwell in theirs. You just have to have faith, trust and pixiedust. :-)

So our next big thing is to learn a little conversational Russian! (It's more widely-spoken than Kazakh, the official language.) We will have a translator with us most days, but we will spend a lot of time over there and will probably need it. Plus, it's the respectful thing to do, and being able to say even just few social niceties is deeply appreciated by the locals.

We have only just begun dipping our toes into parenting techniques, the best toys, books, schools, local events and resources. We're even noticing signs in restaurants that promote free kids night! A new door has been opened and it leads to an enormous world of information. It can be overwhelming. We will prepare as best we can, but in the end we will have to trust our intuition and just start parenting. Imagine that!

Speaking of Russian, our dossier is officially in the translation phase! I wonder how you say "woo-hoo" in Russian. "Voo-hoo?"