After a lot of work, our daughter's room is finally 100% ready! All the boxes of books have been removed and shelved, her dresser is getting some clothes in it, she has nice warm flannel sheets on her bed, and her bookshelves are filled with fun books from I Love You Like Crazy Cakes to Walter the Farting Dog.
With nine days to go, we have still not received our home-study addendum specifically clearing us to adopt Xiao-Ling. We talked with the social-work agency yesterday and was told it was sent out priority mail a week ago - and that we are the fourth family to have this same problem. (It seems they're having some issues with their mail service.) If needed, the social worker who did our home-study will FedEx the documents to us directly.
We're also reading Our Own, a book about adopting and parenting older children. It's something of a harrowing read, as it details the many problems that can result when raising institutionalized kids. We know a lot of it does not apply to us since Xiao-Ling is not institutionalized in the accepted sense of the word (she currently lives in CHI's Beijing foster-care center) but it still makes an impact. It will certainly be different than raising Harry, who arrived when he was just 4½ months old - after all, our daughter will have her 5th birthday just two weeks after we get home.
I'm also wondering what will happen when Christmas comes around and she sees no tree and no decorations. I'm putting in a call to CHI to see if they celebrate Christmas at the foster-care center and how we can manage her expectations. We will be celebrating Chanukah with her in China, as it runs from December 4-12 this year. Hopefully, she'll enjoy it.
UPDATE: CHI says China does not celebrate Christmas (or indeed any Western holidays) the way it's celebrated here in the US, so Xiao-Ling won't look up at the roof and ask where Santa will park his sleigh.
With nine days to go, we have still not received our home-study addendum specifically clearing us to adopt Xiao-Ling. We talked with the social-work agency yesterday and was told it was sent out priority mail a week ago - and that we are the fourth family to have this same problem. (It seems they're having some issues with their mail service.) If needed, the social worker who did our home-study will FedEx the documents to us directly.
We're also reading Our Own, a book about adopting and parenting older children. It's something of a harrowing read, as it details the many problems that can result when raising institutionalized kids. We know a lot of it does not apply to us since Xiao-Ling is not institutionalized in the accepted sense of the word (she currently lives in CHI's Beijing foster-care center) but it still makes an impact. It will certainly be different than raising Harry, who arrived when he was just 4½ months old - after all, our daughter will have her 5th birthday just two weeks after we get home.
I'm also wondering what will happen when Christmas comes around and she sees no tree and no decorations. I'm putting in a call to CHI to see if they celebrate Christmas at the foster-care center and how we can manage her expectations. We will be celebrating Chanukah with her in China, as it runs from December 4-12 this year. Hopefully, she'll enjoy it.
UPDATE: CHI says China does not celebrate Christmas (or indeed any Western holidays) the way it's celebrated here in the US, so Xiao-Ling won't look up at the roof and ask where Santa will park his sleigh.
No comments:
Post a Comment