Thursday, December 3, 2009

So much to do, so little time!

Wow, my blog is a ghost town lately, isn't it?! I've been so ridiculously busy lately that I feel like I'm constantly playing catch up. I have a big to-do list of things that aren't getting done and updating my blog keeps making that list!

But I can't complain because life is going pretty well around here these days. We left Thursday morning and drove four hours to my hometown to spend Thanksgiving at my moms house. Clarissa did amazingly well on the trip! I was nervous about our first out of town trip with all three kids, but it went well. Clarissa is a good car traveller, thank goodness! It helps that there were two goofy brothers back there with her who love to make her laugh. :)

We had a really fun time catching up with friends and family for a few days and on Sunday morning we made the trip back home. I have a few stories from the trip that I intended to blog about, but time keeps getting away from me and I never had the chance. I'll try to get to them, but I still have four days worth of Korea trip that I still haven't gotten around to blogging about, so I'll have to put it in my mental file of things to discuss later. :)

While we were at my moms house I took a few silly pictures of Clarissa that I put up on my dropshots page. (www.dropshots.com/wenders11) She found a squishy ball in my moms toys that she really liked and she kept crawling around with it in her mouth like it was a big pacifier or something, lol. She's such a funny kid, she makes me laugh all the time. I also posted a photo that I took this morning when I was fooling around with my camera.

When we got home on Sunday it was time to get back to work! The boys were out of school for the whole month of October for their schools track break and Monday they went back. As much as I loved having them home it was kind of nice on Monday morning to be able to get back on a schedule around here. Clarissa sure misses the boys during the day though. She gets SO excited when they come home from school!

Monday evening we had our first post placement interview with our social worker. Before we can go to court and legally adopt Clarissa we have to have post placement interviews with our social worker at two months and four months and then we have to submit a report ourselves at six months. Once all of that is done they'll give us the go ahead to legally adopt her, probably around the end of April.

I was a little nervous about the social worker visit, although I have no idea why. Things are going really well with Clarissa so it's not like she'd have anything negative to report, but I think in the back of my mind I just keep worrying that someone is going to tell us that they've changed their mind we have to give Clarissa back or something. I tend to do that in my life whenever things are going really well. I find myself just waiting for someone to pull the rug out from under me. The chance of that happening in this case is pretty much zero (the birth parents rights were irrevocably severed when our plane left Korea and the agency wouldn't remove Clarissa unless there was abuse or something), but I'll feel much better when April rolls around and the judge declares her ours forever.

Our social worker is really nice and we always enjoy having her here. The visit was really quick and painless. She just asked us several questions about how things are going and then took a quick look at Clarissa's bedroom and that was it!

Oh, the sweetest thing happened while she was here! I had explained to Josh and Matthew about why the social worker was coming and that she was just making sure that everyone was happy so that we can work towards having Clarissa legally adopted. I thought I explained it well, but aparently what Matthew got out of the explaination was that the social worker was coming over to decide if we could keep Clarissa or not. I didn't realize that and he didn't say anything about it, but when the social worker got up to leave he got a really worried look on his face and said "do we get to keep Clarissa?". Bless his sweet little heart, he had been worried the whole time that the social worker was going to take Clarissa with her when she left. The social worker assured him that we got to keep Clarissa and he was very relieved. :) I take it as a good sign of Matthews adjustment that he didn't offer to pack Clarissa's suitcase and help her with her coat, lol.

The rest of this week has just been full of meetings, apppointments and other things not interesting enough to blog about. I've been super busy every day this week and today is the first day that I haven't had anything scheduled. So me and Clarissa have been hanging out around the house enjoying the fact that we don't have anywhere to be today.

And speaking of Clarissa (aren't I always?), tomorrow she'll officially be 10 months old. Time is flying by so fast! She has changed a lot since she came home a month and a half ago. She's army crawling around the house like crazy, she pulls up on things, she has learned to wave and clap and as of today if I ask her where my nose is, she points to it. Super cute! I sometimes forget that she's had to learn to process a whole other language because she's done amazingly well with it. I can tell that she understands lots of things that I say to her. It's amazing to me how quickly babies learn and adapt. Watching her learn and grow has been a joy. I sometimes still can't believe that she's finally here.

Last night I was giving Clarissa a bath and Matthew was in the bathroom with us and I said something about Korea and Matthew said "Sometimes I forget she came from Korea! I think that she came out of your tummy!" It feels that way to me too sometimes. The other day I was watching The Office and when the theme song came on Clarissa perked up like she recognized it (she probably does, I'm a little bit of an Office addict!). and for a split second I though "I wonder if she heard that song when I was pregnant with her...". I had to stop and remind myself that I didn't give birth to her, lol.

So yeah, I'd have to say that things are pretty good here these days. I'm incredibly busy, but happy. It is driving me crazy that I haven't blogged the rest of my Korea trip yet! I am going to get around to it, I promise! I need to get it all written down while it's all still fresh in my mind. I'm in the process of putting together an adoption book for Clarissa to read later and I want all of that in there.

OK, so I guess that's my update for now! I vow to try harder to blog more often! :)

3 comments:

My5Blessings said...

Awww Wendy you are so sweet and conciderate. We all know you are tremendously busy! I am so glad that Clarissa did well on your Thanksgiving trip. I am sure that everyone just adored her! You had a lot to be thankful for this Thanksgiving! The new pictures are adorable! She has changed so much!

Happy 10 month Birthday Clarissa!!!
Michelle

maila said...

I am a total lurker here but your post today just really made me want to share something with you!!

When I was 8 my mom re-married and my step-dad's family totally took me in. They love me just like they love my little brothers who are biologically related to them. At Thanksgiving my brother's girlfriend was going through my grandparent's scrapbook. The scrapbook celebrated their 50 years of married life and there are lots and lots of baby pictures of the whole family in there. My step-dad's sister pointed out to everyone how much my 4yo ds looks like my step-dad's brother. Everyone in the room agreed. It didn't occur to anyone in the room that room that my kids didn't share the same DNA as the rest of the family. I got a little teary eyed!! Even though I wasn't born into that family it is definitely the family God intended to place me in.

When my yds was about 2 my bff from grade school commented that he reminded her so much of my step-dad that she often forgot that technically they weren't related by blood but by love instead:) I love when people forget that I started out life with a different dad!

I bet you and Clarissa will have many many moments just like I described:)

Unknown said...

That is so sweet how everyone has fallen in love with Clarissa. Glad you had a good Thanksgiving.