The Waiting Game

Time is an interesting commodity. At times it flies. At times it stills. And sometimes in some areas in our life it is able to fly, yet feel as if no time is passing at all. I don't understand it. We have successfully completed the first month of school. Isaac is doing well and earning stars for being a good boy every day. Craig and I are now signed up to take a class called "It Takes Two to Talk" which is supposed to help give us strategies used by speech and language pathologists to help Isaac continue to develop his speech. It was funny because when we were asked to evaluate what he did at our orientation I thought, "He still isn't doing that much talking." But this morning as I tried to sleep in (after he woke me up at 2:45 for company and milk) I realized that he is a chatterbox of the first order, we just don't understand most of what he is saying. It must be even more frustrating that we realize for him because he is trying and trying to communicate, and in his mind doing a lot of it, but we aren't getting it. I hope that this class helps the three of us help each other in this journey of communication. We are still awaiting word of our LOA (Letter of Acceptance). We sent our LOI (Letter of Intent to Adopt) to our agency on August 18th. Our agency successfully uploaded our LOI to China's system on August 19th. When we adopted Isaac it took one month to receive LOA and we hope that we receive our LOA this week. According to Craig's fortune cookie (he got take out after our orientation class on Wednesday) we are going to receive good news in the mail. Well I know the fortune cookie isn't a fortune teller, but we are expecting good news in the mail and we hope it is soon!! Once we receive our LOA we have to send it back to China and send a copy on to US immigration where we will recieve another paper to send to China that makes Aryn an immediate relative or something like that. Once that paper comes and we send it to China we can begin looking for our travel approval (TA) which is what we need before we can begin the most wonderful task which is preparing to travel to meet our little girl!!! We appreciate your prayers because we are hopeful that we can travel to meet her this year and would love to travel near Thanksgiving, but of course God's timing is better than mine and I am learning to be patient.

We are working on a photo album to mail to Aryn at her foster home in China. Our agency says that we must send everything through them which is a major disappointment because with Isaac we could pick someone in China to deliver things and I think it was easier and frankly I did it much more quickly than I'm making it happen here because I want it to be perfect. When we were waiting for Isaac I picked a package from a website, came up with some questions I wanted to know the answers to and selected several pictures to send to Isaac. We were even allowed to send a small toy (which I don't think he got until Gotcha Day, but at the time it made me feel good). Now we are limited to a photo album and I wonder how long it will really take to get from my house, to the agency, to their Beijing office, to the orphanage, to the foster family... Oh well. All of that to say today we bought Aryn her first baby doll. The doll is a You and Me doll and I was so happy to find an Asian baby doll because earlier this week I had made a trip to Toys-R-Us in hopes of getting a doll only to find that their inventory said that they did have one, but we couldn't find it anywhere. Today we went to a different Toys-R-Us and found one! I was so happy because I want to take a picture of her baby on Aryn's new bed. I've tried and tried to find a quilt for her bed, but I can't find one that I like so I am going to use the quilt my grandmother made for me when I was in high school. I love this quilt, but it's starting to fray since I've been loving it for over 20 years, but it has so much love wrapped up into it. It's no Bai Jia Bei (100 Wishes Quilt) but it is still filled with love. My grandma and great-grandmother both sewed on it for me and now my daughter will sleep on it.So What is a Bai Jia Bei? The Bai Jia Bei is a 100 Wishes Quilt that families in Northern China made for their babies. Family and friends would contribute a piece of cloth to help the family make a quilt for their new child. When we first started the adoption process in 2006 we began collecting squares to make a bai jia bei for our babies. I have squares from where I have traded with other families in the adoption community and many friends made squares for Isaac at his baby shower. I still have not reached 100 for him and am still collecting squares for my little guy. All along we knew that we would be blessed with at least two children from China and all along I have been collecting squares for my sweet baby who I now know is Aryn Rachel. I am now anxious to start working on collecting enough squares to make quilts for both of my children. If you would like to contribute squares for my little miracle babies I would love to include them in our quilt and if you are making a quilt we would love to contribute to your efforts as well. Even if you have not adopted a child and have no ties to China I still think the Bai Jia Bei is a wonderful way to let our children know that they are loved by so many. As the African proverb goes, "It takes a village to raise a child." In that way they are wrapped in love by the village of people who surround them in some way. I'll post some of the quilt pieces we have so that you can read the blessings and see the beautiful squares that we have collected. I am trying to keep all material to 100% cotton so that it sews together nicely and hopefully will last a long time.