The longest wait

We are officially in our wait for travel approval!!  Our Article 5 was picked up on 1/5 – later that it should have been, but don’t get me started on that right now. Each step in the process has really moved pretty quickly and believe it or not I have been pretty patient during the wait so far which is so out of character for me.  But now?  Now that I know we are maybe a month away from meeting Nathan?  Yeah, not so patient.  Can you blame me?

So the average wait for TA (not that I’ve been obsessing and number crunching) is 16 days.  We are officially on day 11.  For those of you that are just as over analyzing as I am, you will realize that day 16 is on Friday.  Friday, January 20th.  The last business day before Chinese New Year.  If I was a betting woman, I would bet that we DON’T get our TA on Friday, but instead get it two weeks after Chinese New Year.  Not sure why I think that, but it’s what my gut is telling me.  Let’s say, best case scenario, we did get TA on Friday.  We wouldn’t be able to get our consulate appointment confirmed until the first week of February because the consulate is closed for Chinese New Year.  I vaguely remember being caught in the holiday hustle and bustle with Andrew’s adoption too! :-)

I’ve begun “nesting”.  Getting Nathan’s room ready, cleaning out Andrew’s room, moving his older books into Nathan’s room, cleaning the house and trying to tie up loose ends at work.  In all reality I have so much to do before we leave that I should be grateful for some extra time.  I still need to send off for our visas, get new bills, figure out what we are packing, get things lined up for the animals, freeze some meals and much, much more.

Andrew is excited.  For what, you ask?  The plane ride.  It must be so nice to not have any concept of what 14 hours on a plane will be like because this mommy  and daddy are dreading the 14 hour plane ride.  :-)  We will survive though – we really will!  Just ready to get there!

In other news, we got Andrew’s report card a few weeks ago.  Great, great grades – we couldn’t be happier.  He is still struggling with his writing and it’s not because he CAN’T do it, it’s because he doesn’t WANT to do it.  It’s partly poor penmanship but he is also struggling with his creative writing.  Andrew is one of the most imaginative kids I know and so he is not short of great ideas!  The issue?  He knows that the more involved the sentences, the more he has to write.  I have a meeting with his teacher this week to talk about how we can hold him accountable.  He has figured out her “system” and is getting away with murder which I’m not happy about.  The “master negotiator” is what he is called at our house.

So grateful for a 3 day weekend this weekend!  Dentist appointment for Andrew tomorrow, grocery shopping and maybe a nap! :-)

Have a great one!

Becky