Adoption progress, and small emergencies

Today Mr. B. and I met at the USCIS office to be fingerprinted.  Mine were OK, but they had trouble with his because of his dry hands.  They took them several times, and now we just have to wait to see if they go through or not.  I'm trying not to be upset, and hoping that one of the "takes" is good enough.  I brought Jose with me, because the conflict level in the house required me to remove an instigator, so my mom could have some peace while she babysat the others.  He was very impressed by the security routine at the USCIS office, going through the metal detector and taking off shoes.  Afterwards, we had quite a lengthy conversation about that.  He wanted to know why we had to take them off, and I told him that they wanted to make sure bad people didn't hide stuff in their shoes.  So then of course he wanted to know what they would hide in their shoes, asking me if they would put a rifle in there.  I assured him that they wouldn't be able to fit a rifle in their shoes. Our conversation became quite philosophical, as he wanted to know why they would want to do that.  Even a chocolate chip granola bar didn't slow down the questions.  I need to work on the not talking while chewing thing.

After the USCIS office, we went to the state capitol to get the bulk of our dossier documents authenticated.  Jose was impressed at the building and while we waited the 20 minutes they told us it would take, I gave him a tour.  I needed to distract him anyway, since he wanted to go on and on asking questions about rifles or whatever can be hidden in shoes, and that isn't the kind of thing you want to discuss in a government building, even if the person you are talking with is 5 years old.  We peeked into the empty gallery of the state House of Representatives, climbed a lot of marble stairs, and looked and all the murals, paintings, busts of previous governors, and, his favorite, a bigger than life sized statue of a Native American.  My little Mayan loves anything like that.

I was able to get all the documents copied and assembled, and off to the courier via Fedex before the drop box pickup time.  Now they have to get the Chinese stamp of approval.  It feels strange sending those precious documents away.  I've worked for so long to collect all of them.  Some of them required quite a lot of effort, diplomacy, begging, and of course, money.  The medical form for me was the worst.  They put the wrong date on it when they notarized it, and then wanted to charge me for another medical exam to fix it!  All adoptive families have frustrations with the dossier. Getting those documents just right can be complicated when you involve multiple other people, who don't know why they have to be done this way.  Now I will have to wait nervously to see if all the documents pass muster at the Chinese Consulate.

The children had a great time playing in mud puddles this afternoon.  Then we had the exciting opportunity to play in clean water, because the city workers were flushing the fire hydrant on our block.  We had a swift little river flowing down the street, perfect for getting very, very wet.  So after they got wet and cold they had a warm bath.  While they were waiting for dinner, Catherine fell asleep on the sofa.  She really played hard today.  We had a nice supper of dal soup and fresh bread.

After everyone was tucked into bed, there were outbreaks of talking and giggling in the boys' room.  The small emergency of the day was Jose running to me as I was getting some computer time, his hands covered with blood.  He had bashed the back of his head against the edge of the trundle bed, and blood was just dripping off his head.  I was trying to stop the bleeding and assess the damage, and he kept crying and crying, and finally he choked out, "is there a really big hole in my head?"  It was a small wound for all the drama, and after an application of ice he went to bed to sleep this time.  I'm going to have to re-evaluate the trundle.  It would probably be safer to get rid of the nice frame, and just have the mattress on the floor for now.  Since we have laminate flooring it would be easy to slide out at night.  I do think they could figure out how to hurt themselves even if we had a padded sleeping room, but if they are safer without the trundle frame, it would be worth it to sacrifice style for safety.