Racial Awareness

On the news last week, there was an incident in our country(I can't remember where but it truly could of been anywhere), that has made me more aware of racial issues around me. I am very much a momma bear with my children, and I feel it starting to come out in the child(ren) that soon will be mine as well. There was a woman stop by police because they thought she was driving a stolen SUV, she had two children in the back seat and was five months pregnant with her 3rd. When she was stop she was dragged out of the car and forced to lay on her belly, pleading with the officers she was pregnant. Eventually they caught on to the mistake that they were making and had her get off the ground and belly. This woman definitely looked 5 months pregnant and she didn't even look the part of a car thief. I watched the interview of the superior officer of the policemen who were involved on GMA, and he kept saying how this was a standard stop and the officers did everything correctly. Yeah, Chris Cuomo didn't buy it either. Any how discussing this with my husband he pretty much could see how the officers would handle it that way, until I asked him would this be aceptable treatment for one of his daughters. He couldn't really see Katy Rose being in a situation like this but when I said we could be adopting a daughter and fast forward 20 years she would be a woman of color and would this be aceptable treatment for his daughter of color? And of course his response was absolutely not. Well, we are not by any means a racist family, we accept people as sons and daughters of a loving Heavenly Father. However with that said, I don't do anything to stop racism. When I get a joke via email, I will delete rather than email back and tell them that is not acceptable to me or when I hear a rude comment or remark I am ashamed to admit I will stand silent. What if my silence has ever been mistaken as acceptance? Lately I have been thinking on myself and maybe the changes I need to make on this topic. This momma bear might be coming out of hibernation on this issue!

Clarification

After reading that post, I do want to clarify, I know what they are looking for in the Home Study but my husband doesn't or isn't really sure. That is why I am taking advantage of him and going to get the extra work done. I know the don't care if my kitchen has a border up.

Home Study

My husband isn't quite sure what is meant by the Home Study and is relying on me(of course) to do all the paperwork and gather the information. So, my plan is to get him to do all those little Honey Do projects he has been putting off before we have our Home Study. I know that is kind of mean but it is either that or I schedule some sort of home demonstration party because that is the only way I can get him to work around the house. Any way it was his idea I am just adding to the list of projects. For those of you who know my husband will understand that he needs to have motivation or my Uncle Ron supervising for him to get anything accomplished. Soo, I am seizing this opportunity to get our downstairs painted and the wall paper border put up in the kitchen that I bought two years ago. My son being the cutie he is and 9 years old was a little confuse on why this will cost money. In his mind he didn't look at the money going out as to pay fees but pay for his new sibling. I quickly cleared this up that we would be paying fees for document processing. His next question was what would it cost for 2 siblings, I explained that if we got them at the same time we would only have to pay the document fees once. So he said "basically nothing extra" My reply was pretty much. Then he suggested us adopting as many children as Columbia would let us. He amazes me how ready he is to welcome more into his family knowing it might mean he gets less. He had been an only child for 5 years when his sister was born, and reflecting back he adjusted quite well. Maybe he has always had the understanding he would be the oldest in a family. I am lucky and blessed!

THE PAPER WORK HAS ARRIVED!

The Postman actually brought it to our door, because it wouldn't bend to fit it in our mailbox. So I calmly took it from his hands and shut the door and let out a wooo hooo! My family wanted to know what had arrived, my son thought this was it time travel and now he can start telling people. Ummm, NO. I said this is just the beginning in a process that will seem like it just might take forever. So I have had time to read the folder of info from cover to cover and no real big surprises. Although they wanted to know how much I weighed, yikes. I also let out a chuckle when they asked for hair and eye color, I thought is that because they try to match a close as possible, good luck with that(I am red hair and blue eyed with the fair freckled skin to go along with it). With our info arriving today, made for some very interesting dinner conversation. We are about 99.9% positive that we will check off for a sibling group, that last tenth of a percent is me and my self doubt of capabilities as a mother and can I handle it. Especially since my 4 year old started preschool and gain an attitude that can be aspirating at times. Also, we talked about whether or not to change their given names. I have noticed on different blogs some do and some don't. I inkling is to change, so it would not be so different from the rest of us but by no means do I want to take away from who they are. This is when my daughter and the wisdom of her 4 years thought that if it was a girl we should name her Dora. Any who back to the paper work, it didn't seem to intimidating at all. I think that we are going to wait until we have cash in hand, to send it back, which I am told by my husband will not be long.

I am at the very beginning of this journey. We made the decision about 1 week ago that we were going to adopt from Columbia. Why Columbia? It's okay you can ask. That is where my child(ren) is/are. I don't know why Columbia, we just know that is where we will meet up with the rest of our family. I requested the paper work about a week ago now, I it has yet to arrive. I have checked our mailbox every day, and if you know me you then know how much I hate mail and getting from our box. I usually check it so infrequently that sometimes it gets so full that the post man will take it back to the post office and I have then will have to go to pick it up and get a lecture about how I need to check the box more often. My postman even commented this week when he left a package at our door how empty the mailbox is and that I was doing a good job. Any how I want my PAPERWORK! I am ready let's get started. I feel like it took so long to know what I needed to do and where to go that now I am ready.

When in the day I find a peaceful time that my mind can drift I find myself wondering about the child(ren) who are waiting for me. In Columbia, you are able to adopt sibling groups and we have decided if it is meant to be we would adopt siblings that were younger than Katy Rose. We would like the birth order to continue the way it is in our family. We know we will have who is meant to join our family. MG was particularly excited about this possibility, it made perfect sense to him that as long as we are down there might as well bring home as many siblings as they will let us. At night as I drift off which is hard to do I find myself thinking about them and wondering if they have been born yet. Katy Rose doesn't have a full understanding about the journey we are embarking on but she would like a sister who looks like Dora. Malcolm is the more practical one he is the one getting the financing together, he tells me he will be more excited the closer we get. He also made me promise that I would try and sleep, because I tend to be grouchy with not enough sleep and he doesn't want to live that way for the next year and a half.

Here is the time frame we are looking at:

• My goal is to have all our paperwork into LaVida to be sent off to Columbia by Easter. That means I will need to be very diligent on getting everything done and organized. But this is a very realistic goal.
• Then, the paperwork sent to Columbia is called a Dossier, after that is received and reviewed it can take up to about 15 months for us to be assigned a child(ren). Now sibling groups can be referred as soon as 2 months.
• After getting our referral, then we will travel 2-3 weeks later. And stay in Columbia 3-4 weeks.

We are planning to travel as a family, if MG is in school then we will take him and all his school work with us.

I just want my paper work and my child(ren) to know, Mommy is coming.