Father Time

After taking off out of the adoption paper-chase starting blocks at breakneck speed, we’ve slowed to a crawl.  We are seriously in “wait” mode, aka “stuck” mode, waiting for several things to happen, none of which we can control.  The good news is, we’ve done the hard stuff.  The bad news is, I must be patient while our paper trail catches up to US!  Now, Patience is not my middle name.  Patience is not my friend, not even an acquaintance, and surely not a virtue.  I am, after all, a Virgo, and when I say now, I mean now. 

First and foremost, we are waiting for our social worker to complete our home study.   Rather than get myself in a dither over something I can’t control, I remind myself on a daily basis “this too shall pass” while sending him seething “Hurry! Hurry!” messages via telepathy when Patience isn’t looking.  We have our last appointment with our social worker scheduled for next week, and he’s promised to have a draft of our home study in hand.  Let me tell you, there’s nothing like an occasional home study to prompt a spring cleaning, any season!   All the places that no one cares about have never looked so good: the closets, the kids’ clubhouse, the linen closet, the underside of beds...  And speaking of looking good, how did I manage to limp through life without a Bissell?  After decades of rental and hauling the leaky Safeway contraption to my home twice a year for a carpet-cleaning blitz, I finally splurged on my very own Bissell.  It has already landed itself high on my Love My Gadget List, right under the Coffee Pot. When I finished every carpet in the house , I turned my focus on upholstery!  Then throw rugs! And when the entire house was pleasantly damp and smelling of chemicals, I did the carpets again --just for the fun of it.  I did turn it off when I caught myself pointing the super-cool upholstery tool toward our long-haired black cat, whose hair I’d just spent 48 hours plucking from the underside of my gadget.  


"Don't Bissell the cat!"

Being a Virgo does have its advantages:  If there’s one thing that makes me crazy is a job half done.

Secondly, we remedied our passport fiasco:  My newest passport (my third this year) arrived, bearing “McCracken” all beautifully squished together.  Unfortunately, it also bears a brand-new passport number, which means the final third of our dossier documents will need to be re-done.  For now, we wait (im)patiently for our friend  the UPS Driver to deliver Peter’s passport; then will come Operation Dossier Repair. 

Thirdly, the State of Pennsylvania Department of Vital Statistics clearly doesn’t drink the same caliber of coffee as its Washingtonian counterparts.  In all fairness, it’s probably not the coffee but rather the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy which has caused a several-week delay in mailing out Peter’s birth certificates.   This is okay, as we don’t really need them until our home study is in hand. 

Then we’ll be back in our foot race against Father Time.  In Eastern Europe, orphans who are deemed “disabled” (for something as menial as a cleft lip or a physical deformity of a hand or an HIV+ label) are stripped of family and human rights and spend precious time, day after day, week after week, year after year, waiting and wasting.  It is estimated that less than 50 percent of Eastern Europe’s orphans, “disabled” or not, will live to see their 20^th birthday.  Almost all of them have living parents who’ve cast them away.  Children such as Melody who are in need of medical or therapeutic advocacy will be lucky to reach the age of five.

If anyone is reading this blog who has yet to be convinced about the severity of the situation involving these orphans, I dare you to spend one night – just one precious hour -- watching this video which demonstrates the reality for children who live and die in state-run mental institutions in Eastern Europe.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-6Yv5GbZ7Y&feature=youtu.be

Coming next, the Tale of Twinkle Toes!