Friday the 13th

Friday, April 13th, 2007 was the second worst day of our lives.  My father-in-law died (suddenly, unexpectedly, tragically, you name it) on Monday, April 9th, 2007 and we laid him to rest on Friday, April 13th.  We've had a few miserable, and a couple of slightly less miserable, April 13ths, but the tide changed with the anniversary of this Friday, April 13th.  Little Macey must be our good luck charm!

This was my Friday the 13th:

After I dropped the little guy at preschool and the big kid at kindergarten, I met a dear friend for coffee.  Triple bonus morning - coffee + friend + lots of laughs.  Parker called me 3 times (another triple) while I was chatting with my friend.  I was mad at him that morning because I needed 1 thing from the grocery store the night before, milk.  He ran out to get his corrected background clearance letter notarized and then he stopped at the store for milk and wine (to take to his fantasy baseball draft).  Only he forgot the milk, which I didn't realize until breakfast that morning.  So I thought his blowing up my phone was all about the milk incident. He hates arguments and it kills him when I get mad at him. If he could live the rest of his life without arguing with me once, he would, but I won't let that happen. I promise.  So anyway, when I got to my car after saying goodbye to my friend, I finally called him back.  It wasn't about the milk, but instead there was some really great news he wanted to talk about.  I'll just say hallefreakinglujah for capital losses.  Parker was a partner in his company before it was sold last year and while it hasn't been unicorns and rainbows, this is one little happy dance inducing result of all the crap he's endured, and the money we've lost, in the last year or so.  Really, really great news regarding our tax burden, or rather, lack thereof for the first time in about, forever.

And just when I thought the day literally couldn't get any better, it did.  I picked up the little guy from preschool and we went grocery shopping to pick up a few things I needed to make a fancier, tastier meal than normal thanks to friends braving the Bay Bridge on a Friday night to come out and have dinner with us.  After we got home from the store, I put away all of the groceries, then while the little guy was on the pot (i.e. BUSY and QUIET) I decided to call US Citizenship and Immigration Services to see why the on-line tracking for our I-800A wouldn't work.  Not twenty seconds into the call I hear the little guy yelling "Mommy it was just a accident!"  Somehow, he managed to pee on the floor, pour water into the trash can AND pull down the shower curtain. Thankfully he heeded my one request, which was not to yell bottoms up as he normally does when he's ready to have help getting cleaned up .. and instead whispered it to me while standing in a puddle of I-held-it-so-long-I-started-to-go-as-I-pulled-down-my-pants-pee.  I was trying to have as normal a conversation with the customs official as possible while running back and forth to get info I needed from my office space in the kitchen (because I can't really work in the real office when all the action goes on in the kitchen) and also get the kid and the floor cleaned up as quickly as possible before there was pee tracked throughout the house.  I finally just apologized to the customs official and told her I was dealing with a 3 year old potty accident. She laughed.  She was having trouble finding our case and asked for all sorts of tidbits of info.  She kept saying she couldn't understand why nothing was coming up.  Then music to my ears.  "Well, I think I actually have some good news for you. Are you ready?"  Uh yeeeaaah!  "You're approved!"  WE ARE APPROVED!  Already!  Amazing!  I was so caught off guard by this, that I was literally speechless. I couldn't formulate a coherent sentence.  She asked if she just made my day and I said of course, this is the best news!  She told me good luck with the potty incident and to have a very nice weekend.  I have to say it was refreshing to work with such nice people.  The staff at the Application Support Center and the woman who delivered the good news about the I-800a approval.  I had it in my head that dealing with these people would be like going to the DMV (which in California is about the worst thing you could ever experience) and this couldn't have been more the opposite. Pleasant, friendly, helpful, I could go on and on.  Hats off to the Department of Homeland Security. Perhaps they could have a few words with the Department of Motor Vehicles.  My $.02 is that the conversation would start, and maybe even conclude, as simply as this:  "Hi folks, we're here to teach you how to stop being such a$$holes."

The next step on the adoption train is receiving the actual document stating our approval of the I-800a, which is called the I-797c, from the National Benefits Center. As soon as the approval document is in my hot little hand, we will run to the UPS store to get it notarized then I'll turn everything over to our agency.  They'll take care of state certification, and authentication.  One caveat is that our coordinator has been traveling so I'm considering getting the state certification done myself in order to save time. That would mean I may or may not be heading to Sacramento on Wednesday.  If I can get up there and back in time for kid pick up at 1:45 and 2:30 I'll do it, but if I can't then I'll let the agency handle it. I'm going to call the Secretary of State's office tomorrow to find out the hours they're open and about how long it would take to get the certifications done.  So tbd on the state certs.  Once everything is state certified, it goes to the Chinese embassy in the city to get authenticated then off to China.  Wow!  I can't believe all of the paperchasing is 99% complete and we're that much closer to little miss Macey!

Problem / Issue / Confession

I have a few issues going on right now but I'll start with the first one, which is that my husband has 2 middle names.  What?  You think that's crazy?  Yeah, me too. You don't even really need 1 middle name, so why 2?  I have always thought it was a little much and now, of course, it's causing problems.  It was inevitable.  Things were coasting along a little too smoothly for a while.

PROBLEM - Parker's big, long, fancy pantsy double middle name, name is so long that it takes up 2 lines on his driver's license.  2 middle names = 2 lines. Isn't that special. But guess what happens folks?  His first and middle nameS take up the first line while his last, and more important name, falls to the line below in no man's (i.e. not noticed) land.  So all of the final notarizations we had done were for Parker William. As in Parker Andrew William, but we don't use middle names so of course it was just Parker William.  And his background/clearance letter from the town of Moraga?  Well, it was for Parker Andrew William.  CRAP!!!  We have documents that need to go to China in like 2 weeks. I don't have time for mistakes and delays.  So I ran around town yesterday politely asking for new documents.  The notary kindly obliged and apologized, commenting that he thought something seemed "funky" with Parker's driver's license. I said "Yep, it is funky, as in 2 middle names funkin' things up if you know what I mean."  He got me and gave me the raised eyebrow and knowing nod.  The police chief wasn't in yesterday so I had to stop by this afternoon.  I was really hoping they would keep the original date on the letter (February), but they changed it to yesterday's date.  That meant a new notarization because the notarization was dated the 10th and the corrected clearance letter, the 11th.  I made Parker run out and get it done today before he went to his fantasy baseball draft.  I would poke fun at it, because it is really funny to me, but he plays with a bunch of old codgers so I'm biting my tongue instead.

ISSUE - I was totally freaking out about today's fingerprint appointment. I was so nervous I had to pee about every 15 minutes. I haven't done that since my first presentation at PepsiCo. a dozen years ago! (after exactly 1 month on the job).  I don't know what I was so nervous about!  All we had to do was ... get our fingerprints done. That was it!  Easy peasy. But for whatever reason, I was a total wuss about it. Maybe it's because it's the last real step that we have any control over?  I don't know.  Bottom line, it's done and over with so now we wait for the approval.  I just signed up on the USCIS website for email updates.  I've read that the approval may be given in as little as 8 hours or as long as 1-2 weeks.  All of this waiting is not good for my drinking habit.  Better than a problem!  Remember that and don't judge!  We all have our little issues, people.

CONFESSION - As exciting as it is to announce we have a little girl, it's also TOTALLY FREAKING AWKWARD!  Oh yeah, a daughter?  Are you pregnant? What, no?  Who?  How old is she?  WHERE is she?  I was at a party last night and we all had to tell the group the ages of our kids and where they go to school.  I was conflicted.  If I didn't mention her, I would feel terribly guilty, but I don't know many of the women in this group that well yet, so to tell them was weird!  It's like keeping your pregnancy secret till you're out of the woods and find out the alien in your belly is actually going to turn into a healthy human by the time it comes out, and because you've kept it secret for so long, it's totally anticlimactic by the time you are able to share that it's easier not to mention it and hope people just figure it out and then you just play stupid when they bring it up as if you thought you had already told them, but of course you hadn't because you kept it secret and feel guilty about it kind of thing.  Not that I did that, of course.  Do you get what I'm trying to say?  And even deducting all the run-on sentences of weirdo pregnancy bs above, it's just plain weird to say it out loud.  I have a daughter. I have a little girl.  It's strange. Maybe it wouldn't be so strange if I hadn't become a mother the more conventional and natural (to me) way 2 times previously?  I don't know.  It seems pretty ridiculous as I write it. Kind of like worrying about getting your stupid fingerprints taken.

PS! I hope you weren't too disappointed by my "confession" not being something totally juicy like I got botox and filler.  Because I did that too, by the way.  That's what my husband gets for working every day of spring break!