Suppressing glee *now stop that!*

We had a great Christmas with family, including with our little niece, who is not old enough to understand the point of unwrapping presents, but old enough to enjoy the presents she gets.

My mother has already hit that *gleee!* stage about the adoption. I think it's brought on by how wonderful my niece is. Twice, my mother has said: "...and I'm looking forward to *another* one!!!!!!!"
Yes, with all those exclamation marks; you know I come by that honestly.

The first time I just said that yeah, we are looking forward to it too, but it was going to be a while.

The second time, I was worried that she was getting so worked up. I told her that I was glad she's excited, but it's going to be at least two years, probably three before she gets a Christmas with our little girl. 2007, 2008, Yup, probably not 'til Christmas 2009, I said.

She looked momentarily distracted by that information but refused to be dampened. "You never know...!!!!" *twinkle twinkle*

At that point, M stepped in and stated it very matter of factly. "No, it'll be at least two years. You should get used to that idea."

That dampened her.

* * * *
I feel bad that we are in a position of squelching her natural excitement at the thought of another granddaughter. I suppose it would not harm anything to let her carry on, except that after a few years of this, we would all be getting worn out with it.

I feel we have a relatively realistic perspective, and I don't want her or anyone else to think that this baby is just going to pop out in a year.

More to the point, I don't want her or anyone else crying from the back seat of the car-- Are We There Yet?? -- when we are nowhere near match time. So it's for BOTH our sakes. Yeah, that's it.

* * * *

On another note, we sent off all 14 documents to our Secretary of State's Office on Friday. According to the tracking system, they were delivered this morning. Yea!!! (So the offices ARE open this week.) If we are lucky, the packet with certifications will get sent out again tomorrow and we'll have them in our hands before New Years.

I also nagged, I mean asked, our placing agency what was up with the home study. We have never seen a final version of that, although we know that it must have been sent to the USCIS in order to generate our favorable determination. But they still have to write up a country report for our dossier. THEY haven't been open, so I also sent an email so our contact would get it as soon as she comes back in. I was trying to be polite and NOT say, "Where the hell is our home study, woman!!" heheh

I know that this is too soon to be gleeful about finishing the dossier, but we can feel the end is in sight.

I have been digging through our dossier instructions to see what the next step will be after we get all documents certified. I know the authentication comes next, but does a copy get reviewed by our agency first? Do we hire a courier to walk our packet in to the Chinese Embassy for translation, or, or does our agency do that for us?? I have gotten info from a variety of sources, so now that is probably confusing me a little. I should look at our official dossier guide to see what they recommend.

Well, if I don't *have* to send it over to the agency twice, I don't mind! I would be happy for our placing agency to take care of all of it! If that is actually true, we might be even closer to the finish than I thought. That would be lovely. Then I could start all those house projects that will occupy me for two years. :)

Actually, I am about to start classes for a slightly new career direction. I am excited about that. Something to take my mind off the dossier after it's logged in. And it will be done well before we are matched... I have at least two years to make inroads (experience) in at least two new directions. Boo-yeah!