Readoption

If even just one person finds this blog post helpful, it will be worth it. I continue to be amazed at how hard it is for the thousands of parents who adopt children internationally to get this necessary information. I'm no expert but I've been through the process successfully myself.

If you have adopted a child from a foreign country and your child came home with an IR-4 visa in his/her passport (not an IR-4), you will need to "readopt" your child in the United States in order to get your child's Certificate of Citizenship.

Each state handles the readoption process differently and in our state (Maryland) each county handles it differently. For our readoption process, we basically had to run through the domestic adoption process.

To determine what you need to do to readopt your child(ren), go to the Child Welfare Information Gateway website - http://www.childwelfare.gov/

Click on the link for the National Foster Care and Adoption Directory - http://www.childwelfare.gov/nfcad/

You can go directly to the Directory but you might find other helpful information at the main site so I posted that link, too.

Select your state and the information you want to know - for readoption info, check the box for "State Foster Care and Adoption Officials." On the resulting page, find the contact info for the State Adoption Program Manager or similarly titled person. Contact that person and they or someone from their office should give you the details you need to know for readopting your child in your state.

Good luck!

After 1, After 2

After "1" (right after removing the bushes and organizing the debris - this was the "After" picture in a previous post)
 
After "2" (after washing the green matter off the wall and removing the debris entirely)
 

Our next step is probably to take care of that awesome walkway. We might do a poured concrete sidewalk - less money and easier to do than a nicer-looking paver-type path. Definitely nicer than what's there now.

Mother's Day Interview

For Father's Day, I always interview Kevin and write his answers down as a gift for Andy (and a source of embarrassment for Kevin in the future.) This year, Kevin's kindergarten teacher did a similar thing for the mom of each kid in the class.

Q: What is your mom's name?
A: Dianne [correct]

Q: How old is she?
A: She's not 40... maybe like 50? [correct answer: 35]

Q: How much does she weigh?
A: I think she's 300 pounds [correct answer: less than 200]

Q: What is her favorite food?
A: Pizza! [correct]

Q: What is her favorite color?
A: Dark blue [correct]

Q: What is her favorite thing to wear?
A: Every day she goes to work she has to wear pants. [correct in that I'm not allowed to wear shorts to work]

Q: What is her favorite thing to do?
A: Work with my dad [lots of correct answers; this is one of them]

Q: What is her favorite kind of music?
A: High School Musical [correct answer: pretty much anything EXCEPT music from a musical; I think Kevin joked this answer on purpose because he snickered when I read this one aloud.]

Before and After

Before
 

After
 

I know that the "After" picture is supposed to look nicer, but we're just not there yet. We removed 5 juniper bushes that have been growing like weeds since we moved in and which Andy keeps "trimming" into bowling balls despite me telling him that juniper bushes are supposed to be scraggly. When they're scraggly and this big, they're really in the way, though.

We plan to put butterfly- and hummingbird-friendly plants in this space but we first need to figure out how we want it edged.

Pulling out the bushes was so much fun. Andy tied a rope around the bottom of the stems/trunks and then we hooked the rope to the car and then I hit the gas. Out came the bushes! We really wish we could've videotaped that process but safety was of the utmost importance, so neither of us could hold the camera while it was going on.

So sour it's goooood

 

Haute Cuisine

 

I'm eating a bowl of cake. It's not a cupcake or a slice of cake, it's a bowl. You could think of it as a big cupcake with an unpeelable paper.

I have a 12-cupcake pan plus a 6-cupcake pan. The problem with that is a regular recipe or box mix of cake makes 24 cupcakes. What to do with the leftover batter? I could eat it that way, but the raw eggs concern me in such a large quantity. I could wait for the first batch of cupcakes to bake and then refill a pan with the rest of the batter. That requires more patience than I have, all that waiting for 15 minutes and then waiting for another 15 minutes.

Conversation

A friend at work (K) walked into my office unwrapping a large box of protein/energy bars.

K: Here, I owe you an energy bar.
Me: No you don't. I only gave you one - I've eaten plenty of yours.
K: But it was your last one, it was special.
Me: No it wasn't, I had 3 left.
K: And you only gave me one?
Me: Yeah, so you don't owe me anything.
K: Ok. So do you want one?
Me: Sure.