Yes!

Christianity in America did itself a grave disservice when it relegated its concept of "moral values" toward issues of sex and drugs and away from issues of food, community, and economy. Among other things, this focus has made it easy for many of us, for a long time, to turn a blind eye on our own sins while pointing with laser sharpness at everyone else's. By turning morality into a set of simple rules--don't smoke, drink, curse, do drugs, or have sex--we have made it easy for ourselves to think we are righteous while actually living exactly the same as everyone around us.

Anyway by The Christian Environmentalist

Backyard camping

For Memorial Day we had some friends over for a campfire and set up tents in the backyard.




Food


Fire


Homemade Ice cream


And the few of us that made it through the 40 degree night had french toast for breakfast. Mmmm.


Brent's dad called us 'cheap', but we had a lot of fun. :)

Hi Lori and Jill

Hi Lori and Jill! I know what you're here to see, so just click here and scroll all the way to the bottom.

:)

Random Life News

I haven't been able to post as much as I'd like mostly because things are super busy around here, but also becasue my life is more boring than normal at the moment. I have been having a lot of extra work hours because of vacations. Good because of the extra money, bad because I'd like to get more than 5 hours of sleep once in a while. At least it's a holiday weekend coming up.

After a much too long sabbatical, I'm following Weight Watchers again. That's taking some getting used to, but mostly I feel good because I'm eating less junk. Much easier to avoid the vending machine when your choice may use up half of your point allotment for the day. Brent finally hit 50 lbs. lost too - I'm so proud of him!

I was going to write a whole post devoted to how I tried Diet Coke Plus - the new Coke beverage with vitamins. But I can pretty much sum it up in two sentences. It did not taste like Coke or Diet Coke. It gave me a headache and kind of made me ill. As much as a Coke addict I am, I was ashamed to throw half the bottle away, but it was really that bad.

Hmm, what else is new? I am making Pad Thai for dinner tonight. Did I link to the recipe here before? Even if I didn't, it's so yummy, it bears a repeat - so here it is - Pad Thai for Beginners via Chez Pim

Last week was my mom's birthday - happy birthday a little late, mom! Her birthday gift has not arrived yet. I have been very bad ordering online lately. I don't think her mother's day gift has arrived yet either. And I apologize in advance to Lincoln, because I have a feeling his birthday gift will be late also - but I don't think he'll notice much :)

Since I have nothing interesting to say - I'll link to some interesting blog posts I have enjoyed lately

- My problem with prayer via Internet Monk

- Grace is as dangerous as ever via Internet Monk

- Thoughts that come when immediate gratification is gone via No Impact Man

Stillness (on being a Stay at Home Mom) via Close to Home

And a comic about how to be environmentally friendly the easy way - here

Parenting class part 2

Saturday was our second parenting class - this one an all day from 8-4. It was much more interesting and informative than the first one.

There was a guest speaker that came in and talked about normal childhood development and some things that may inhibit it. Then she talked about different stages of attachment that all children go through. She said there is a range all the way from completely unattached (RAD - uncommon but very difficult to get over) to securely attached. Most institutionalized children fall somewhere under 'incomplete attachment' which means they sort of went through all the stages, but maybe missed some points along the way. If a child has some trauma during one of the stages then they might get 'stuck' and need some help moving forward.

We asked some questions about A's behavior and she noted that he was very self-sufficient and trying very hard to please us. With a securely attached child that would be no big deal, but it seemed like he had learned to parent himself and that he can only rely on himself. With trying to please us, he was trying to see if he made us happy, then maybe we would care for him. It was kind of sad. She also said it may take up to 2 years to bring a child up to normal attachment.
We also learned of some things we can do to help him realize that he can and should be depending on us. We can still let him do a lot of his own things because that gives him a sense of control and accomplishment, but we should be very involved and make sure we do them together and not just let him be on his own.
Also we can teach him about how families depend on each other and helps each other by saying things like, "Mamas comfort their sons when they are hurt" or "Families cuddle on the couch together because they love each other"

There are also many other things that can be done to foster attachment:
- Feeding each other (finger foods for a game)
- Hide and seek
- Eye contact games (peek a boo)
- Lots of touch - tickling, hugging, stroking hair and rubbing back
- Rubbing lotion on their skin after a bath
- Bottle feeding, even if they don't take a bottle any more - probably not for A though
- Skin to skin contact and baby wearing (if you can - A is way too heavy)
- Copying games - I touch my nose, you touch your nose
- Family traditions - Friday is pizza night
- Co-sleeping
- Avoiding big events with a lot of people at first, and avoiding using a babysitter at first
Basically it comes down to spending as much time as you can with your child, interacting and loving on them.

For real first parenting class

I said before that we didn't have to go to the first class in Green Bay because we went to that class in Milwaukee, but we did actually have to go, and it was last night.

There were three other couples there from the hosting program and one couple that didn't host, but is adopting two children that another family hosted. Out of the eight hosted children, seven are being adopted. Actually there were 16 couples there, some domestic, some international, and some foster parents. Since the class is new, we're all lumped together, but in the future there will be seperated classes for international and domestic.

There were two social workers teaching the class. They started out with an overview of the class, and asked if anyone had any fears about their adoption that could be addressed. That took up about an hour, and then there was a guest speaker on SIDS and Shaken Baby Syndrome. That started out interesting, but she soon delved into the entire history on research about SIDS and repeated herself a lot. I realize it was not relevent to us, but to others in the room, and I agree that it was important, but it got kind of long. Then she talked for about five minutes about Shaken Baby Syndrome and that was the end of the class.

Our next class is on Saturday.

Personality Test results

I talked last week about Brent and I taking our MMPI tests.

We went back for our reading today and the phsychologist was kind of hesitating about writing our analysis. He asked if he needed to interview us or just write something based on the results of the test. I didn't know so I left the room to call our adoption facilitator. When I came back the psychologist said Brent and he were talking so I should wait in the lobby. It took about 45 minutes and then the Dr. called me in.

He said Brent had scored high as manic, egomaniac, compulsive, controlling and irresponsible. I was visibly shocked, and the Dr asked me if DH had ever had any problems with being irresponsible. I said never. He asked me if DH had issues with drugs or alcohol - I said he doesn't drink, and has never done drugs. He asked about our marriage and I said it was perfect. Those are the only things he asked me, but apparantly he gave Brent the third degree while I was in the waiting room.

The Dr. said he thought that the test was maybe scored wrong and he would have it reread. I'm supposed to call on Friday and see what the reresults were. He said after talking to Brent he saw no concerns and nothing like what the test indicated.

Brent is admittedly a very bad test taker. He gets hung up on exceptions. One of the questions that the Dr. cited was "Do you ever do dangerous things just for the fun of it?" Brent said - well, what little kid doesn't? Hmmm...I don't think that's what they were asking. The Dr. asked Brent if he was messy. Brent said that he wasn't exactly clean (but he's definately not living in squalor).

So he might have to retake the test, and I know he's going to be super paranoid about his answers now. We were joking and laughing about the whole thing but I know he feels so badly.

Sucks.

Letter from Immigration

We got a letter from Immigration yesterday saying that they got our paperwork and we're in line for processing. They estimated about a 90 day wait (from when it was recieved), so that puts us at the beginning of August.

So that gives us plenty of time to put the rest of our dossier together. I figure we'll have that finihsed by mid June. Then we just wait. After our immigration clearance (form I-171) comes back, it will probably take a week or two to get the final documents together and send to Russia. It needs to be translated, and then we're on the waiting list again - this time for a court date.

I've heard that Russia kind of shuts down in August for a nationwide vacation time, but now I can't find anything that says that. I'm not sure how that would effect our paperwork. Our original guesstimate was for a September court date, but now it looks like it will be more like October or November. I really really hope it's before Christmas and A's 7th birthday.

Money tip

toothpastefordinner.com

Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to Mom and Margaret!

And Happy Mother's Day to A's Mother.
I wonder if she misses him as much as I do.

The Controversial ABCs

Animal testing: For or against? Against
Bush, President George W.: Like him or dislike? Both
Corporeal Punishment: Yes or no? No
Death Penalty: Yes or no? No
Euthanasia: Yes or no? No
Flag burning: Okay or not? Don't care - don't think it should be illegal
Global Warming: Exists or not? Not as bad as they make it out to be
Harry Potter: Read it or not? Read it and loved it
Iraq: Stay or get out? Finish what we started - undecided I guess
Jam: Strawberry or Grape? Strawberry
Kids (do you want them if you don't already have them): Yes or no? Yes
Legalization of Marijuana: Yes or no? Don't care
Minimum wage: Raised or not? Not flat out - maybe in some situations
Nuclear weapons: Should they be banned or not? Banned
Operating System: Windows or Mac or Linux? Mac
Politics: Which party? Undecided - I prefer not to affiliate with one or the other anyway
Quebec: should be own country or not? Don't care
Routine Infant Circumcision: For or against? Against
Stem cell research: For or against? Against fetal stem cells, for otherwise
Tobacco: Illegal or not? Not, Don't care
UN: good or bad? Don't really like them
Vaccinations: All, some, or none? None or very very few
Wal-mart: Great store or Evil Empire? EE
Extra-terrestrials: Yes or no? No
Year round school: yes or no? Sure
Zero Tolerance: Good idea or not? Not


No flaming now
Post your answers on your blog - and if you don't have one, start! :)

In search of the perfect breakfast

Here's my criteria for the perfect breakfast:

Can prepare and eat in under 15 minutes
Healthy
Not too expensive
I make it until at least 8 AM until I'm hungry again.


I think my metabolism must be much higher in the morning, because I can go hours and hours in the evening without even thinking about dinner, but every morning is a struggle to make it through work without stopping by the vending machine. (I stopped bringing money with me, but there is an ATM if I get really desperate) Maybe it's the bordom factor also, or just mentally used to sitting at my desk and eating.
I eat breakfast at 3:30 and am finished with work at 9. If I'm hungry when I get home, I can still make it to lunch, but sitting at my desk I can barely stand it 5 minutes.


I have found that the closest thing to a perfect breakfast is homemade granola cereal with soy milk, and then bring a piece of fruit as a snack.
But somedays you just don't feel like granola, and that leftover Pad Thai looks so yummy. And then you're hungry in an hour so you eat your snack which is much smaller than you thought. And then you find out that one of your coworkers is sick and you have to stay late and you have no food and you just waste away in your cubicle and they find you the next day with a half eaten pad of paper next to your skeletal corpse.

Ok. Heh.

Well, what do you eat for breakfast?

Last Homestudy visit and first parenting class

Our last homestudy visit was yesterday. This should have been 'the long one' but it wasn't that bad. Brent and I were interviewed seperately and the social worker just asked questions about our parents, childhood, school, faith, etc. Mine was about 45 minutes and Brent's was 25. Very easy. The whole homestudy was much, much easier than I anticipated it would be.

We also had our house inspection, which was also very easy. I was afraid that this guy would be more particular than our mini-homestudy social worker, but he wasn't. He just looked in every room, told us to put the plate back on the side of the furnace and that was that. He didn't even comment on my awesome cleaning skills. :)

So now our part of the homestudy is finished - we just have to wait for the social worker to write it up and send it to us. He said he should be done with that in a week or two.

Then last night was our first parenting class, sort of. There is a new Wisconsin law that says that every new adoptive parent needs to take 16 hours of parenting classes, covering specific adoption topics. The law is so new, however, that our homestudy agency doesn't have a class formed yet. But their sister agency (not in our district) does have one. So instead of going to Milwaukee, we're going to Green Bay for our classes.
But, after all that, part of the training is an orientation class which our agency does have in place, so our social worker wanted us to take that class with him. So last night we went to Milwaukee. Whew - got all that?

Since it was just an orientation, everyone else there was only thinking about adoption, we were the only couple who was already halfway through the process. Our social worker even told us that the class would be all things we already knew and probably be boring, but we had to go anyway. He was right - it was kind of boring.
The class was about 2 hours long they talked about the history of the agency, what to expect in the homestudy, and then the difference between domestic and international adoption. I didn't really know much about Wisconsin domestic adoption so that part was interesting. I was disappointed that they didn't talk more about being open to older children. Not older as in school-aged, but even just toddlers. They pretty much only talked about domestic as adopting a newborn. Most of the families initially said they were interested in domestic, but after hearing about the possibly long wait, some of them at the end were asking more questions about international.

The only irritating thing about these parenting classes is that they are in the evening, and an hour away from home. So my goal of being in bed by 8PM every night is out the window. Last night we didn't get home until 10 and of course Brent and I were having a lively discussion so I didn't get to sleep until much later. *yawn* The soda machine is calling to me, I must go now.

I sometimes blog about my life

Yesterday Brent and I had to take MMPI tests for the adoption - Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. I had to call around quite a bit to find someone who would give us the test, because it had to be a certified psychologist, and it had to be that specific tests. I had some interesting conversations with secretaries trying to get us to take different, better tests. And one lady thought we needed a whole phsych evaluation and quoted us $2000 for the cost. Finally we just went with our tried and true clinic that we go to for everything else.

Brent said he wanted to grab a coffee before we went in, and that was the best idea of the day. The nurse gave us both our packets and sent us to an office with two couches and left us to ourselves. We were not allowed to take the test together, and we probably weren't allowed to even talk to each other, but we joked and laughed our way through most of the test. It was the longest freaking test ever! 567 true or false questions - it took us about an hour.

Most of the questions were grammatical disasters with double negatives and weird qualifiers. I had to read them a couple times just to figure out what they were saying. Some of the questions it was obvious what they were trying to diagnose (I hear voices that no one else hears. I count things such as lights or stairs.) Then there were quesitons that were just weird (I would like to work as a librarian. - does being a librarian indicate mental instability?). A lot of the questions were just repeats with different wording. Hmm, what were some of the other ones.. I like to tease animals. Women should have as much sexual freedom as men. I think people are trying to steal from me. I often do not have pain in my stomach. Men should be the head of the house (This one Brent and I argued over afterward - haha). I have strong political views. I like to let people know when they are wrong. That's all I can remember. They should have asked - "I am paranoid that I answered some of these questions incorrectly"

Anyway, it was long. But being with Brent made it much more fun. We have an appointment with the psychologist next week where he will bring up anything that he is worried about and then write a report for us saying that we are all okay in the head. One more thing finished for our dossier.

-------------
After some googling about the test, these are the 10 things that it is looking for:
Hypochondriasis, Depression, Hysteria, Psychopathic Deviate, Masculinity–Femininity (Homosexuality or Gender confusion), Paranoia, Psychasthenia (OCD), Schizophrenia, Hypomania, and Social Introversion.
Some of the questions make more sense now. Still not that librarian one though...

Weekend Review

I spent a lot of time in the kitchen this weekend - felt inspired I guess. Here's what I made and did:

Rockin' pizza - best I had ever made.


Bread


But it kind of stuck to the pan a bit


Tortillas


Mmmm granola


The rest of the weekend I spent on the couch with a box of kleenex and a yucky cold


Church Sunday morning


I stayed in the sound booth by Brent so as not to spread my nasty germs


And then Brent and I went to a lovely dinner theatre put on by the church drama team - great job everyone!


I say a dee-lish-us weekend :)

Kids and TV

I started a Netflix profile for A today. It has 12 movies consisting of Sesame Street, Electric Comapany, and Mr. Rogers. I'd put School House Rock on there, but we own it. Also I like Magic School Bus, but I think that is a little to advanced for at first.

We don't have TV at all outside of movies, and we don't really have many kid friendly movies. I know some families severly limit TV and some watch none at all, but I really think that it will help him learn the language faster - especially when it comes to reading.

Also, I may be overanalyzing, but I think that getting mail with his name on will be exciting and help him feel part of the family.


Anyone else have any educational movie/TV show suggestions? I know Netflix has Baby Einstein, but I didn't know if that would be too young for him. He seems to like real people better than cartoons anyway. Let me know what you think. Uh, no Dora please....

May challenge: Line dry all of our clothes

Now that the temeperature is above 50 degrees, I can hang our clothes outside again. I used to hang our clothes out exclusively when we were on a super tight budget, but got away from that because of laziness.

If it rains, we have lines in our basement. Also, these will be used for the few pieces of clothing that I don't want seen blowing in our backyard.

So here's what I hope to accomplish:
-Spend more time outside
-Save money
-Use less energy
-Think ahead and keep on top of laundry, instead of waiting until we have run out of clothes.

I even taped our dryer shut as a helpful reminder. :)

Homestudy visit #2

I feel bad for our homestudy guy. He had to drive to our house - over an hour. Then we sat down and chatted for a minute. He got out his paperwork and pretty much realized we had nothing really to talk about. I think he was here for 30 minutes at the most.

So that was easy.

Next week is our last home visit. This is the long one where he interviews us seperately, and does the home inspection. Then we're done with it already. Nice.

For our dossier:
-Today I'm going to the police station to request our clearance letter (says we have a clean record)
-Have an appointment on Monday to take our psych exams
-Fedex called and asked if our immigration paperwork should be going to a bagel shop like the address said. I guess they typed it in wrong. I sent them to the right place.

Thats it for that. :)