pop quiz 2 (electric boogaloo)

Dear Dad, I'm sorry to say, you were right. Every time you send us money, our car dies. I don't know why this is. I have tried talking to her nicely, telling her the money is for the baby, not her. But she just won't listen. I think she thinks she is the baby.

Yes, that's right. Last night, after picking Matt up from work, our car (the beloved Subaru) began a new round of dying gasps on the way home. It seems she is trying to tell us that she is old and not long for this world. So sad. And to make matters worse, I was supposed to go to an all day ethics class today as a part of my required continuing education requirements, but after only 4 hours of sleep, the thought of sitting in a classroom for seven hours while somebody tells me not to touch my client's private parts makes me want to barf. So I'm skipping. I'd rather spend the time feeling sorry for myself. Wah.

In other news, the adoption process is progressing. We had our meeting with a social worker from our homestudy agency this past Thursday. I thought it was a really good meeting. She asked us a bunch of questions about ourselves, our lives and adoption. But it really was more like a lovely conversation between three people. About us. And I must admit, I really like talking about us. Is that vain?
We were, however, dismayed to learn that with this homestudy, we have inherited a whole new pile of paperwork. In Illinois, it seems you are required to see and spend time with your child before you can adopt. So when we bring the baby home, in the eyes of IL, we will be considered foster parents. Which means we have to get a foster parenting license. It's not really that big of a deal, just so much more paperwork.
This will be piled on top of the paperwork we have to do just to set up our homestudy. Many forms to fill out, including a trip back to Doc Brown to have him fill out another form for us. And kitty cat inoculations. And, much to our delight, another set of fingerprints! This will make it three rounds of fingerprinting that we will have to accomplish. Seriously, can't these people just share?

We did get one more big thing done. We sent in the first part of our big Gladney application, along with our program fee deposit. It felt great to get that in the mail. In the next week or so, we will be sending in the next two parts, and then we can start working on our dossier!
Do you all understand how happy I am going to be when the paperwork is over? If that day every comes, it's going to be beautiful.

In the meantime, apparently life doesn't stop just because you are adopting a baby from Ethiopia. So, maybe the next time I write, we will have a new car. And then Dad, you can feel free to send money again :-D