happy new year!

Ok, I'm back! Time to stop moping about winter! I live in Chicago. Winter happens. Time to move on :-)
I hope everyone had a great holiday season. I have to admit, I'm glad that's all over. We had a pretty lame December. It was dreadfully slow at my work, I couldn't focus on anything important, and to top it off, we were supposed to go to Seattle to see Matt's family for Christmas but our flight got canceled so we just stayed home. And I got a cold.

But it's a new year! And it's time to get back to the business of adopting!

Soooooo, we still have paperwork, all of it for our dossier. And we have two more classes to take in person (on the 11th and 15th) and we have to do some online classes too. But that's it. Our goal is to be done by the end of January, or possibly even before. Then we just wait.

And that brings me to what I believe will be our theme this year: Waiting. Once all of this work is done, we will be placed on the waitlist with Gladney. And we wait for our referral. I believe we will be waiting about 6 months. Then we get our referral. Then we wait for our court date. 1 or 2 months. And in this time we will also be waiting through the rainy season (August and September) when the courts in Addis are closed. God willing, we will pass court on the first try. But I don't count on that. So we wait to pass court. For some families this takes months. Once we do pass court (hooray!) we wait 3 to 4 more weeks to travel. Oh Tom Petty, its true; the waiting IS the hardest part.

Patience has never been one of my strongest qualities. But in 2009, I will learn to be patient. I don't have a choice! I am looking at it like this: When we are put on the waitlist, I will consider us pregnant. Ok, so our gestation period will be a little longer than normal, but that will give us more time to save money and, of course, to buy baby stuff! I can't wait to buy baby stuff! Then, hopefully at the end of this year, there will be a baby to go along with all the baby stuff. I can't wait! Oops, I mean I can wait! I will wait! I loooove waiting!

Happy 2009 everybody!