Mortimer's Mom

Snow Days

on Friday, we finally got a real snowfall. 30 cm (12 inches for you non-metric people). They called a snow day at Dumpling's school. It wasn't really necessary, I mean, people here drive in snow all the time, but since the non-jewish schools are mostly all on winter break this coming week, I guess they were starting a day early! (we had the jewish winter break already 2 weeks ago.)

I'm still very energyless from the B-12 and Iron deficiency, but I got my butt of the couch a couple of times and took the girls to play outside in the snow. We had a great time.

 

and yes, eagle-eyed readers, my husband was outside in doggy-print pajama pants and an Elmer Fudd hat......

T-x and counting

So you might have heard that referrals have arrived in Europe and are expected in North America.... this should mean that our TA will be here soon and we can travel to fetch Sprout..... As a matter of fact, our agency requested our passports and visa applications over the weekend, to get a jump on things, even before they have the TAs in hand.

It's hard to wrap my head around this. After I left the store on the 24th, I totally unhooked. Except for surfing the gossip sites and writing my new years cards, I have done nothing productive. I spent a ton of time with Dumpling, skied, but mostly, I napped. And now, we must switch gears and prepare to leave for China. Unlike last time, I have not started packing in advance, I don't even have a packing list. I can't use the one from last time, as we are bringing Dumpling AND going in winter, so everything is different....  Plus we are both going this time, which means leaving the business in the capable hands of our fabulous manager (aka my own personal life manager), but it is still worrisome... handing over your car, your house, your business.....

So, if you took an almost 4 year old with you to China, or if you went in winter, or whatever, just send me your packing advice. We will NOT be bringing: thongs, inflatable tub or ketchup packets. All other assvice is welcomed!

FINALLY!!!!

What can I say? We are over the moon, and agreed on a name almost right away! She is 11 Kg.... That's right! She is almost as heavy as Dumpling is... The girl better start working out, or she'll be quickly taken over by her *little* sister!!!!

Guess What?!?!?

STILL NO PICTURE!!!!

I spoke to the agency..... I used my clout as a volunteer and told them I needed to update my presentation, since I tell people a day or two after the phone call, they'll have their picture... Apparently, I'm supposed to say.... one week..... yes, read that again, 1 FREAKING WEEK! They have the entire medical report translated now, so people know as much as possible when accepting their referral. So apporximately one week....

Bottles of wine, heavy liquor, mild sedatives can be shipped care of:

Mortimer's Mom, PO Box 666, Insanityville, QC, Canada

In the mean time, I'm off to buy my father a b-day present, because today he is 62 years old. I was totally going to be slacker-daughter and give him a framed picture of his second grand-daughter as a present..... Maybe he won't notice if I put someone else's kid in the frame.....

it's sort of a picture of Sprout

Not of Sprout, per say, but a snow rendition of Sprout by dumpling. There are two snow-children there, the big one on the right is Dumpling. I had to scrap half the front yard to collect enough snow (there was barely a centimeter deep!) for her to make herself out of snow. Then she decided she wanted to make her new baby sister, so we had to borrow snow from the neighbor's yard, but she did make a P'tit Snow-Sister as she called it.

In the meantime, we keep waiting. I am slowly starting to be very annoyed by this wait. Thankfully, I have things and people keeping me busy. During the wait for Dumpling's referral, Shelba is the one who kept me sane and entertained for the 3 day wait between rumors and phone call (ah, good time, right Shel?). This time around, I don't know where I'd be without all of my readers and the KLBs, but especially without Lulu's Mom and Herb Urban, (who happens to be Deanna's husband )

So Lulu's Mom is totally my new BFF (even though she tried to get me to commit a crime by sweet talking my way past the security guard to go fetch the picture of my daughter), we plan on being the slightly more mature version of Paris and what's her name, except with panties on!  I don't know if she knows this, but her chats and emails have totally been a hoot and kept me from seriously going mental!

And Herb, well, he's just hilarious, his blog is Da Bomb, and I'm on a mission to get him a picture, but not of Sprout, of the giant Menorah-Mobile that will soon be making it's appearance in my neighborhood. While readers of AmFam know that it's not a secret I have a huge crush on A and would totally steal him from her if I could, I'm totally developing a crush on Herb... hope Deanna doesn't mind too much!  It's the good thing about being a KLB, we're sort of free with the sharing of husbands.... I mean Mrs. Figby lent Figlet her husband when he was in New York......

So thank you new BFF and Herb. You are keeping a crazy woman from totally loosing her mind!!!!

The no-Sprout news update

A whole business day came and went and still no picture of Sprout... I was OK on the weekend, I mean, it's the weekend, I couldn't expect an update, but at the end of the day today, I was jumpy every time the phone rang....

There are lots of other news around the house. For one, we went from having narrowed our potential-Sprout name list down to two  names to having totally reopened the field and having absolutely no idea what we will name this child. We are waiting for the picture to decide... Have I mentioned we don't have a picture yet....

On the Ballet front, the teacher called and actually apologized, for not speaking to us sooner, for her rude dismissal of Dumpling, for being a bitch (OK, I made up that last one!). She agreed to keep Dumpling for the last 2 lessons of the semester, making sure she gets to say a proper goodbye and not have her back in January. I'm fine with that, because she was going to miss lots of classes because of the China trip and following jet-lag. She was quite apologetic and congratulated us on our upcoming arrival and asked us to bring Sprout's picture to class on Wednesday. Except, we don't have a picture yet.... have I mentioned that?

Also, not mentioned yet, but last Thursday, about 2 hours before the Sprout phone call, I got a call from a producer for a new talk show on the CBC that will start in January. A local 30 min afternoon show that will deal with life in my city (they are making a different one for each major Canadian city) and they plan on having regular contributors on a variety of topics. They wanted to know if I would be interested in being the Gift Guru, once a week..... Why, sure, you all know how I love to pimp myself on TV! So tomorrow I shoot my pilot and screen test. As far as I know, I'm actually the only contender and if I don't screw it up too badly, I could be coming to a TV screen near you on a semi-regular basis sometime early in the new year. The producer was very sweet about filming around my trip to China, since for budget purposes, it's better if they shoot a bunch of them in one shot and split them up over a few weeks, so it won't be a problem if I'm gone for a while. She was very excited for me and said she couldn't wait to see a picture... except, well, you know.....

Also, it was bound to happen. The dog is no longer only a store owner, he's now a blogger too.... (at least he hasn't expressed any interest in seeing a picture of Sprout!)

And finally, just in case you skipped over then entire entry and scrolled to the bottom, we have no picture of Sprout yet...

thank you, thank you

man, you people really know how to make a girl feel loved! thanks for all the messages, I will try to reply to all of you individually, but in the meantime, please accept this as a temporary thank you.

it's only 18 hours, but what the heck: SPROUT!

Our daughter is Zhang Yu Jing, born August 8 2005, currently at Quanjiao CWI in Anhui province.

No weight/height or picutre until file is translated, probably Tuesday, Monday if we are lucky.....

Yes, we were a litte sad to see she is already older at referral than Dumpling was at adoption, but it is what it is and we will love every tiny little inch of her and we can't wait to see her picture!

Sprout watch has begun UPDATED

3:57 PM: I got the call on my cell phone about 35 minutes ago. We have a Sprout.  All *her* details will be posted here tomorrow, but I will honor my agency's request not to do it today. Check back in the morning. Don't expect a picture til next week, we don't get the pic by email, we have to go pick it up after the files have been reviewed and translated. (KLBs, meet me in the secret hideout....)

1:10 PM I'm going to take a page from Lainey the gossip guru and do some live blogging updates throughout The Wait....

I have heard nothing. I cannot even confirm if an envelope is on it's way to our agency because the Canadian DHL site is different than the US one and the tricks my sneaky friends have slipped me don't work on the Canadian site....

As soon as I get The Call, I will post that I got the call and that we have a Sprout. But name, location, age will have to wait 24 hours. Piuc won't come til a few days later, our agency doens't email the pictures, we have to pick themup, ususally 2 to 3 workign days later.....

====================

The CCAA has matched til September 8th 2006. We are September 5th 2006. This means that our phone will ring sometime in the next few days with the name, age and location of Sprout, and we can finally give this child a proper name (not that it will be shared online) and begin planning for the big trip to China.

Stay tuned for announcement, though as per my agency's policy, I must wait 24hours from the phone call to post detail online. Still I will confirm as soon as we hear anything.

A room for Sprout

it's all done. It needs an area rug, and please understand that the table in front of the window and the large TV do not belong in there, they are simply being stored during the basement reno. I tried to keep them out of the pics as much as possible...

click on the pic to go to the photo album.