Progress

We've made some progress since our "big announcement" in late May.

• We applied to, and were accepted by, an adoption consulting agency to facilitate our match. Their average timeline to be matched is 7-9 months, so things could move pretty quickly!
• Our home study has been completed and submitted. 
• We received our first donations for anticipated adoption costs. Thank you for your generosity!
• We made our first (of many) fee payments. 
• We had a garage sale this weekend and made some money towards the adoption costs!  Thank you to our friends and family that donated stuff to sell as well as our family and friends that came to help.  We had A TON of stuff - check out the photo evidence below. Rain and flash flooding on Friday disrupted our sale, but Saturday was glorious.  Even with a successful sale, we received so much stuff to sell that we're going to have a second sale next weekend!

During the garage sale, one of the shoppers was asking Jenny about our adoptions (since we had advertised the garage sale as an adoption fundraiser) and decided to ask her if we'd "ever thought of having kids of our own." Don't get me wrong, we're not surprised by questions like this. In fact, we expect them. Jenny does a great job of using these interactions as a way to gently and respectfully educate those that ask the questions.  In this instance, Jenny responded by saying that Bailey is our own, which prompted the lady to uncomfortably try and clarify what she meant, only to land on "well, it's a lot of work anyways. I gained 75 pounds when I was pregnant." Asking us why we don't have biological children would be like us asking how many times they had to try before they successfully conceived.  Do you want to be asked that question by a stranger?? I didn't think so.

What's perhaps most interesting to us is the phenomenon that around adoption, strangers feel free to ask us the most invasive, inappropriate questions. Social norms seem to be thrown out the window.  It reminded me of this video that made its way around social media last year:

We don't get offended or hurt by the questions. After all, we've made a pretty conscious decision to be very open about our story.  Not just the good and flowery stuff, but the hard and sometimes painful realities as well. We know that people are curious and often times just don't know how to communicate their curiosity.  It can be difficult to always respond in an understanding and loving way.  But, ultimately we hope that we help people understand our hearts behind our adoption journey, understand a little more about adoption and perhaps contribute to others deciding to adopt. I'm sure every adoptive family has experienced these awkward moments. Perhaps our response will be different when Bailey's old enough to understand the conversation and hears a stranger referring to her as "not our own."

For those of you that are curious about adoption or an adoptive family's story, just be thoughtful and respectful about what you ask.  Admit your naiveté and your desire to learn and understand.  Or don't say anything at all ;)

Now, onto something a little lighter...

We've been trying to explain to Bailey that we're adopting again. It's fun helping her process that she'll soon have a baby sister or brother, and I think it gives her some context as she begins to process the reality of adoption in her own story. She's changing the words to songs to be about her baby brother/sister. We've got to get it on video...

I went in to wake Bailey up from her nap the other day. After briefly looking at me, her response was:

After a few minutes, she finally rolled over, only to hit me with this look:

Her snoozing habits are starting to really resemble her mama's. :-)

A couple weeks ago, Bailey was "clogged up"...needless to say, none of us was excited about the suggestion from the pediatrician.  I think the only thing worse than administering it is being the recipient.  Needless to say, Bailey wasn't even a little cooperative. After trying to bribe her with watching Frozen, eating a lollipop, and basically doing whatever she wanted, she still wouldn't go for willingly having a squirter shoved up her backside - could I blame her?!?  Before we knew it, Jenny's got Bailey over her legs and I was left with the unpleasant role of "administrator".  Well, it all happened so fast, but Bailey resisted with the full force of her little 33-lb body. "Enema juice" was flying all over the place.  I don't know how she deflected it, but she did. Somehow, the attempt ended as quickly as it began, and I was left with spray all over my glasses and in my mouth. Yay me. Jenny couldn't look at me without laughing and decided to refrain from kissing me until I had thoroughly cleansed my face and mouth.  It was gross. Thankfully, the following morning Bailey did her business and all was right in our world. 

I'm looking forward to the days that I don't have so many poop stories... You're welcome. :)