In Which We Do A Whole Bunch Of Stuff And Jer Takes A Vacation

Well that was a busy day!

I'm happy to say that little guy slept quite a bit better last night!  We made it all the way until around four in the morning, when he woke up with a stuffy nose (pretty sure he's got some allergies going) which made him cry.  This of course, made him more stuffy, which made him cry more, and then we spiraled down into a vicious, snotty, crying cycle that ended with me sitting on the floor of our guest bathroom rocking the little guy with the door closed, the shower on as hot as it would go and the vent off.  Thankfully the steam did the trick and he was able to go back to bed around a quarter to five, though it's not a remedy I'd like to try often as I enjoy having paint on my bathroom walls.

Anyway, so after I got up again-- this time for good-- and took Connor to school I spent an hour or so with Jeremy making the house look spic and span for the visit from our social worker today.  Our I-800A paperwork, which allows Ellen to immigrate to the United States, expires in December.  So we needed a homestudy update to be able to extend our I-800A.  As usual I completely freaked out and cleaned the house from top to bottom, just in case she decided that we would be unfit parents for Ellen because our mantle wasn't dusted or something.  I'm pretty sure every adopting couple (or in our case, half the couple) freaks out about social worker home visits.  It's an adoptive parent rite of passage.

Anyway, so the home visit went swimmingly, which is to say that she stayed on the living room couch and didn't so much as glance at the inside of my closets or the state of my mantle.  Since our house had already been inspected to make sure it was suitable last year and we hadn't made any major changes to it, she didn't need to go over that part of things.  So the meeting was pretty quick and painless.  Our paperwork should hopefully be submitted next week and then once we redo our fingerprints (yes, we have to redo those too, though as Jeremy pointed out it's not likely they've changed) we shouldn't have to renew our paperwork again until June of 2013, and we're hoping we'll have our girl home before that.  We'll just have to see!

Jeremy, by the way, wasn't just off work for the home visit.  He's on vacation!  He's built up so much leave time that he was about to lose some of it, so he's taking a couple of weeks off.  We have big plans to spend a bunch of quality family time together, and I'm excited about having him home! 

So after our home visit was over and we picked Connor up from school, Jeremy spent some time doing yard work outside while Connor and I ran errands and then headed up to Pike Place Market for a little pre-holiday rush Christmas shopping.  Unfortunately when we got there we discovered that a large chunk of the market is under renovation right now, and the stores that I wanted to buy specific presents at were closed.  Oh well; we've still got plenty of time to go back before things get super crowded.  I'm just going to keep telling myself that.

I realized about halfway home that I'd overdone it today.  I'm still feeling under the weather, though it's less a definable illness and more a distinct feeling of malaise, which makes me unsure of whether or not it's being caused by an actual illness or if it's the ridiculously small amount of sleep I've been getting lately that's the culprit.  At any rate, I had to stop for coffee on the way home and resort to calling various friends and relatives to keep myself awake behind the wheel.  Falling asleep while driving on the highway would have put a serious damper on Connor and my afternoon.  Luckily the caffeine and conversation did the trick and I didn't have to pull over at a rest stop and nap in the van or anything.

So I took the rest of the day easy, and now I'm off to bed.  It was a pretty busy day!

~Jess