Horticulture and Handcuffs

Another Monday, another trip to the police department. The truth: no handcuffs were placed ... at least not on any of us (though I think they thought maybe George would be safer if he were in them). In addition, the masses waiting for their numbers to be called were probably wanting to muzzle Henry who, because he was not with Grace, George, and me on my first trip down there, was rather curious. "What did HE do?" "Why is SHE here?" "Is he going to jail for the rest of his life?" was the gyst of the endless verbal rampage he was on the entire time we were in there. It was great.

This past weekend, David and I went to a nursery in Scottsdale that specializes in --- no, not babies --- Bonsai trees. Since we have been interested in Bonsai for a long, long time (especially David), we decided we'd get our own for our anniversary. Turns out everyone was interested in them, So we got one for each of us (except George, who is partially responsble for David's). Here's a picture of us all working on them.

Our first visit with our social worker on Saturday went surprisingly well. The kids were very cooperative, and at one point George came up to the table, pointed at the social worker, and asked, "When her leaves, do we get our baby?" We all just stared in awe. Peggy asked if he actually understood what was going on, and we said, "Well, we guess so!"

She'll be back in a few weeks and then our home study will be complete. Of course, I thought that was almost it. I was wondering what everyone complains about regarding paperwork. I mean, sure, there were forms to fill out and notarize, but it wasn't THAT bad. However, late on Friday we received the dossier packet from our agency. The dossier is the entire packet that goes down to Guatemala, and the home study report is only one small portion of it. The rest of it is comprised of more documents than you could imagine, all of which have to be not only notarized, but state certified. Suddenly, I thought, "OHHHHH - THIS is what people mean by being buried under an avalanche of paperwork!"

I'm basically in the middle of re-acquiring all the documents I acquired the first time, but this time absolutely everything has to be notarized and then state certified. So, my birth certificate and marriage certificate not only have to be certified originals, but I then have to send them back to Delaware to be state certified. And our reference letters have to be not only notarized, but the notary's name must be known in advance of having it notarized so it can be typed onto the document before it's printed. It's insane.

This morning, we took all four kids to the blood lab to get bloodwork done (which, of course, must be notarized and state certified) and, unbeknownst to me, I had to have a urine test as well. No idea what that is for. Since I'd been fasting and had no idea if I could drink water, I didn't. Try peeing on demand under those circumstances! I swear, I willed my bladder to function as it was designed to function. But anyone who knows me well knows that I'm like a camel. I can go DAYS without peeing if I have to. So I sat there visualizing a waterfall, Niagara Falls, anything. Thankfully, it worked, which was good because the tech said that if it didn't, I'd have to sit in the waiting room (with the rest of the city and all my kids) waiting until it DID work.

After that was the aforementioned trip to the Phoenix police department for set #2 of fingerprints (don't even ask; I barely understand it myself). This one is for the FBI to confirm that I don't have a record. I am now not even sure what the first set was for. Aside from Henry's endless inappropriate questions, the trip went fairly well. We had to park six blocks away, so Henry was pretty much a mile behind us by the time we got back to the car but all's well that ends well. Plus, it only hit 97 today, so it could have been much worse.

This evening, the kids were outside studying a cricket that was busy hiding on the side of the house. They'd go look at it and then flee as though it were a scorpion. At one point, Grace no longer wanted to go see the cricket, but Henry did. So Henry said, "Fine Grace. I'll go and panic by myself."

I shall now do the same regarding the 785 documents on my schedule to acquire tomorrow.