TIMBERRRRR!!

Timber!

Well, here goes another tree. I think that pre-adoptive parents must be responsible for many, many acres of the forest being chopped down. First our homestudy, then all of the agency #1’s paperwork, then the dossier, then updates to the dossier, then paperwork for agency #2, then dossier #2 and finally…. Homestudy #2. And boy, oh boy, has a lot changed in GA within one year.

We now need FBI, GBI and some criminal background check as well as a sex offenders check. I think it’s awesome that they are doing so many checks, but the paperwork!!! UGH! Do y’all remember my big mess up with the FBI fingerprints? Well, I have 2 sets of approved prints and so I can use one of those for my homestudy! Go me!

So, here I go again with paperwork! If I thought I could let go of the reigns completely, I would hand everything over to Keith and say “Good luck, honey! See you in a month!” but the control freak in me says “Just do it yourself and get it done with.” So, that’s what I will do.

We now need 5 recommendations letters (that’s up from 3) – 4 from non-family and one from family. You would think I could use the ones from last time, right? Negative. This is a form that needs to be filled out. Back to the drawing board! Oh, dear friends of mine, if you see mail/email from me, please don’t “return to sender”. :-)

Medical reports… one of the most trying parts of the home study process. The new form is 3 pages long for each parent and instead of just submitting Alex’s immunizations, he needs a form filled out too. Have I mentioned that my drs office charges $25 per form? Ohhhhhh yeahhhhhh… just call me rich.

Does everyone remember back in the beginning of the process when we were SO excited to do paperwork? Everything little piece done meant we were one step closer to our referral. And then 3 months passed and your medicals expired. And then another 3 months passed and your medicals expired again. As did your police clearances. And then a year passes and nothing is good anymore. It’s at the year mark where paperwork becomes torture. I’d rather do 100 loads of laundry than have to redo all of this stuff. And I HATE laundry so that’s saying a lot.

Again, I must say that I’m glad that each state requires all of this paperwork as much as it’s a pain in the tuckus. In light of recent events, it’s important that pre-adoptive parents are screened to the fullest. Don’t mind me if I’m lazy and like to complain a lot.

So, my goal is to get the bulk of this done between now and next Friday before our mini-vacation. That will mean that I have less to worry about while on vacation and less urge to try to complete some of it while on vacation (which I totally won’t do because it would be a shame to spill my large fruity drink with the umbrella in it all over my homestudy papers!).

Time for a quick change of topic – what is everyone’s favorite sunless tanner (lotions, self-sprays, tanning bed sprays)? I went to try on bathing suits the other day and I was blinded by my own transparent English/Irish/Swedish/Welsh/Norwegian skin. Of course that was a good thing because I’m not sure I actually wanted to see how much adoption weight I’ve put on. The size suit I bought spoke volumes. I guess Thin Mints are bad before sleep as well as for bathing suit season, huh?