Thursday, April 18, 2013

Where's my baby?

Now that Seven is over a year old, I understand why so many siblings are two or so years apart. I get a lot of reminders these days that Seven is no longer a baby! It seems the frequency with which I hear that phrase "he's growing up" is increasing. First it was his doctor telling us to transition him off the bottle. Then it was his daycare teacher, who thinks he needs to move up to the toddler classroom. Even Seven is telling us how it is, with his nap schedule changing to have one mid-day nap rather than a morning and afternoon nap. Not to mention all the new words he is learning and how much we can tell he understands.

Now don't get me wrong, Seven is still super cuddly and loves to snuggle like a baby. But he is ready to move on to the next stage of toddlerhood. And I still want my baby!

Saturday, April 13, 2013

Adoption costs

We are finally getting around to doing our taxes this year. It was very frustrating that we only received our final two documents about some investments this week since they were do, oh, two months ago! But even more frustrating since I've been very motivated to get our taxes done this year so we can get the adoption tax credit.  But they are finally done and hopefully it won't take too long to get the refund. I know the adoption credit will slow it down, but we can always hope, right?

Back when I had blogged about our total costs related to trying to get pregnant, we were moving towards adoption and I had planned to also blog about our final costs related to the adoption. But now that everything is done, I am hesitant to do so. Logically, paying a doctor huge fees to get pregnant is just as much "buying a baby" as paying a lawyer or social worker to process an adoption. Yet emotionally it feels different and that makes me want to keep it private. I could blame it on Seven and say we want to keep it private for his sake. But that just begs the question. Why should it be more private to know that your parents paid a doctor something like $20,000 to get pregnant than to pay other types of professionals to bring you home? And we didn't even have much in terms of birthmother expenses or vague agency match fees, which are the grayest areas of all to me in terms of the costs related to adoption. The overwhelming majority of it was the homestudy and post placement, court costs, attorney fees, birthmother counseling, and travel to North Carolina. We didn't spend in areas where we didn't feel comfortable spending and the amount was within the target we started with. Still, putting all the details out there doesn't seem quite right.

Monday, April 8, 2013

Hello Everybodyyy!!

Hello Everybodyyy!!!

Imagine me saying that in my best Grover voice (which, admittedly, is not very good). Seven has a toy Grover remote that says that when you turn it on. I have a friend who is a big Grover fan so I always think it is funny.

I know I have been neglecting this space. With the increase in spam comments I've been getting, I figure it is either time to return or close down. But I have gotten a lot out of this space and the community I found here that I don't want to give it up. So let's take one more shot.

Work continues to be very busy. My travel has slowed down to just two trips a month, but there are a lot of deadlines. I find myself working most nights after Seven goes to sleep, which doesn't give me a very good life balance. We did have an absolutely fabulous weekend these past few days. We had beautiful weather and I enjoyed it with my beautiful family outside. The weekend started with a leisurely breakfast outside in our backyard, followed by a picnic at the botanical gardens, and dinner on the patio of a new restaurant. We visited E's parents on Sunday, and then broke in our new grill in our backyard. Spring has been slow to come here, so it was especially nice to enjoy the outdoors.

Seven is 13 months old now and, despite his small size, seems so grown up. He is very mobile and babbling so much. He even speaks several words. And he is amazing with his sign language. He mostly knows signs related to food, but it is so cute.
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