Bringing Home Baby Norton!

     So sorry for the lack of updates on the site.  Once we hit the "waiting" mark I think we both needed a breather from all things adoption for a while.  We have now been officially waiting over two months!  Yeah!  Two down, 10-16 to go!  Some good news has come through our agency.  Last week alone they referred 29 children, that is more than what the monthly average had been  Apparently they are now taking in children from several southern regions who because of certain paperwork issues (I think...) had not been able to be processed into any orphanages.  This is now increasing referrals, at least for the moment, and hopefully will continue to do so which would decrease our total wait time.  Math = more babies, more referrals, less wait.  In the meantime, we have been trying to mark our monthly milestones with different activities.  For our month one mark on June 15th, we went to the Melting Pot for dinner.  This was supposed to be our celebration once our dossier was complete and we got our official wait date, but things kept coming up.  This month we celebrated at a restaurant downtown called Kuba Kuba, which was really good.  They specialized in Cuban food and it was yummy.  

      I have also taken to buying the Kohl's books and stuffed animals each month on the 15th.  So far I have two books and three stuffed animals.  I plan to keep doing this each month to mark the time that passes, and to have gifts to give the baby which show what we did while we were waiting.  Books seem to be my purchase object of choice.  We recently went to Washington DC for the weekend and searched out the Museum of African American Art.  It was beautiful, and in the gift shop I found a great book called "On a Road in Africa" all about oprhaned animals.  I thought it was perfect.  It even has translations for all the animals in one of the African languages (not Amheric which is the predominant language in Ethiopia).  I was read to all the time as a child and am sure it is why i love to read so much today.  I plan to do the same when we bring our baby home.  Now if only I could find a copy of "Stop That Ball!"

Here are the animals and the book I bought at Kohl's this month.