Great news... we have our DTC (Date to China)!!! Its December 27th.

For those that don't understand what this means: our dossier was reviewed by a Notary, Foreign Affairs in Ottawa, and the Chinese Embassy in Ottawa. Now its off to China to be Logged In: nothing too romantic about that, it just means its going to be entered into the CCAA system - and that will be the date that we start counting down from (15 months of waiting roughly now)- January 29th, or there about's. Just before the Chinese New Year - which is Feb 18th this year, the Year of the Pig.

Bouncing off the walls last night when we got the news from Karen - the champagne was sweet, but we are paying for it this morning (we don't usually drink).

Just had to share the happiness in our household! WE ARE GOING TO HAVE A BABY... and its a GIRL this time!!!

Bring on the pink!

What a surprisingly nice Christmas we had! I guess it helps to not have any expectations, and just let things happen as they will. We celebrated on the 23rd, as the boys are with their father this year. Greg and I kept saying how much more relaxed it was to have it a couple of days before the 25th - if you are missing something, its no biggy - the stores are all open. Then when the stores are closed you can actually just veg on the couch - I slept until noon on the 25th!!!

Small amount of presents for all the kids is the trick, let me tell you. Three presents each... ok, 4... oh damn, all right 5 then... made all the difference this year. The other thing that helped is the two older boys got basically the same thing from Santa. The kids had a great time playing hockey in the garage with Grammy Carol - they kept asking and asking her to play. We had a feast and half on Saturday too - I think I just dropped after baths were done. Surprised myself that we could have an adult conversation after the day we had.

My mom really made this Christmas so special for me. For years I have hated Christmas - it would usually involve my father passed out somewhere, or my ex being equally drunk and obnoxious. This year, I didn't have time to think about Christmas past, and like I said, I didn't have any expectations - Greg and I did not exchange gifts this year, for instance. Our gift to each other is to go out on New Years, with our friends, and then to stay at a hotel and have breakfast in bed. Couldn't think of anything more romantic than that!

So back to one gift that I didn't have the proper time to acknowledge, because of everything that was going on. My Mom contacted an Ottawa reporter (Shelley Page) who has adopted two girls from China, and who has written a number of columns on her adventures in China, her adoption route, and her experience adopting during the SARS scare. Mom put together this great package, from Shelley, and I have been reading all of her stories. Did you know that the day before Mother's Day in Ottawa, there is a special Birth Mother's Day celebrated at the First United Church? What a great idea - every birth mother has her own story, her own reason why she gave her child to adoption. Why shouldn't we celebrate Birth Mother's too? Another great idea, thanks to Shelley, is to have a babysitter who speaks Mandarin come in twice a week to give her girls a chance to speak freely in their first language. Another good view point that she writes about is as follows:

"I'm waiting for the day I read a newspaper story that begins something like this: "Joe Blow, a prominent lawyer who was born by caesarean section 43 years ago, was charged with impaired driving yesterday."

Or maybe:"John Smith, the CEO whose life began in a Dixie cup thanks to an unidentified sperm donor reading Hustler, has been implicated in the latest corporate fraud scandal to rock Bay Street."

....

Instead, I've been reading stories like this" "Yellowknife police officers charged Michel Chretien, the adopted son of Prime Minister Jean Chretien, with sexual assault July 27.'

Kids come into our lives in lots of different ways these days. But it's only adoption that is routinely mentioned as a qualifier to the parent-child relationship, particularly when there are criminal charges involved....." (Ottawa Citizen, August 10 2002, Shelley Page)

Write on Shelley, write on...

I have no idea what this images has to do with adoption... but it made me feel better - maybe she is our Adoption Super Hero?!

Got confirmation from Karen, our resource person, that our dossier is still in Ottawa. It should be back at Formons this week. Now, does this mean that its at the Chinese Embassy or at Foreign Affairs, not quite sure. I think that if it comes back this week, then it will get sent to China just before Christmas. Keep fingers and paws crossed that it is sent and received in China before January 1st - I'm not 100% sure if the new fee structure affects us when we send the file to China or not. Karen seems to think not, but we shall see.

What a strange birthday party we went to on Saturday night!

Our friend Connie has finally matured, and is now among the old people - she turned 30! We and some of our friends (35 of us to be precise!) had reservations - I repeat, we had reservations - for 9:15 pm. We didn't get seated until 10:15 pm. The waiter/waitress didn't even acknowledge our presence until 10:30 pm. Orders taken at 10:45 pm! We left at midnight, considering we had our wonderful part time nanny, Pat, looking after the boys. Desserts and coffee hadn't been served yet! Never, never, never going back to l'Academie... ever! The food was passable, btw, but barely so. The veggies were overcooked, and the chicken in a lime sauce had barely the taste of lime. It seems to be the "in" place to go, judging by the amount of young and trendy people there. Quite sad that these 20 somethings have no clue what a good restaurant is. I guess they expect that if they pay $25 for a steak it must be a good restaurant.

Now, on a better note, had quite a good conversation about Australia with Keith and Greg. It seems that their favorite place for wine tasting was Rosemont Estates, and their second favorite was Jacob's Creek. Rosemont Estates was more relaxed and they tasted some Porto which they really seemed to enjoy. Then we got to talking about adoption - the whats and wheres and hows. Quite a few questions from Tasia and George, who are very interested in adoption - we shall see if they decide to go down that route.

I am home today with a very sick baby. Jacob has a very bad case of gastro and a virus on top of that - it might all be the same virus. He was a lump yesterday - he watched TV almost all day. This you think is great, right? Well this child NEVER watches tv for longer than 2 minutes. He couldn't do anything yesterday, except sit there... the crying came later in the day. He is sleeping now, an exhausted sleep I think. He is so much better today - except for the liquid coming out of his butt. I at least get smiles from him and he was wandering around looking for stuff to do this morning. I have to thank Martin L. for this bout of gastro - if he had only kept his children home instead of bringing them to daycare, we wouldn't be in this situation. His son throws up in the parking lot, and he brings him into daycare and leaves him there all day. Then his daughter who looks white as a sheet, with red rimmed eyes, comes in the following day; Martin says to the educator that his daughter wanted to come in, what was he going to do? Maybe say "No honey, your sick, your going to have a fun day with Mommy or Daddy today"?!!! Oh, and for those that don't know, Martin is the president of our CA, which oversees our daycare... I WANT A NANNY!!!!

Oh boy.. am I cranky... I am tired, and exhausted, and I have a tonne of laundry to do, there are dust bunnies everywhere (actually, there more like growing a new dog, then dust bunnies), and, and, and... I just want to go to bed.

Who do I take it out on? Of course, my husband. The problem is he is tired too, so he ain't putting up with nothing.

How do other women do it? Have a full time job, kids, husband, dog, house... I really want to know cause I just don't seem to be able to do it anymore. Oh, and I have been craving chocolate now since yesterday 3 pm (I'm on a diet again... gained 10 lbs since we got married). I've lost 5 lbs so far, so I just have 30 lbs to go - for those that don't know, I gained about 30 lbs with Jacob's pregnancy on top of the 30 lbs or so I had gained during my divorce. I have lost 50 lbs, put back 10 lbs and now I have 30 lbs to go. The math doesn't make sense... don't try to figure it out. End result is I would like to be in the 150lbs one day. The moral of the story is no chocolate.. and that is not helping my mood.

Great.. there goes the buzzer for the clothes.. only ten thousand more loads to go!

I think I have to go with Doris's interpretation of things: although she has been at it longer than me, I think perhaps I am going through something similar. These new rules that the CCAA has come out with are really stressing me out. I am just waiting for the hammer to fall somewhere and there goes out dream of raising a daughter. I wish I knew where our dossier was, that might help. To see the possible new rules, go to Doris's site (3d's) on the right. Too tired to figure out how to paste the link into the text. The thing that would sink us is the second marriage business - we would have to wait 5 yrs before we could submit our application! Jacob would be 7 yrs old by then!!

What a show!

Here are just a couple of the pictures taken at our Christmas show today:





And here are the boys (white helmets, only boys in the long line of girls):







It has to be one of the most nerve racking experiences of my life. I didn't think I would be that nervous... but once I got in position on the ice, I sort of went "what the f*** are you doing here!". I landed everything (almost... the lutz continues to be a challenge), and I didn't fall. I was told that I looked elegant and graceful, and that I had a smile on my face - all good things, as all I wanted to do was not to make a fool of myself. I didn't fall once :o) Now, back to the nerves: it took me over an hour after I was done to not feel like I was going to throw up! Thank Heaven's the first time is over, and I won't have to do that again!

The boys did really well. They didn't race off, and they followed the instructions really well. They really enjoyed the experience too.

I want to send out a heartfelt thank you to all my friends who came out to cheer me on: Julie, Nicolas, Danielle, Micheline, Pierre, Rosie, Patricia, Greg, Tristan, Zachary and Jacob - you made me feel like a million bucks out there with all the houting, clapping and screaming. Just having you all there made this day so very special for me.

Getting ready for Christmas - thoughts of menus, gifts and most importantly what to do with the boys for two whole weeks! I think this year I am going to have a master PLAN, with a capital P, cause otherwise it will be a miserable time for all of us. I am hoping for lots of snow, so the two older boys will be outside. I found a street light, that has red, yellow and green lights, which can be used for noise levels - if its too loud, the yellow light goes on, etc - and I am seriously thinking about getting it. I think I am getting old, I just don't have the patience for the screaming and yelling that the boys are managing to do every night when we get home... but I digress.

So back to getting ready for Christmas: toys for the boys are bought, except for one thing which seems to be sold out everywhere. Its an old toy, as a matter of fact, but the boys really seem to love it: its a hockey rink, with hockey players on top and you pull on the nobs to control a set number of players and the goalie. Can't find it anywhere - sold out! Who would have thought?! It looks something like this:




Thought maybe too the boys could do some scrapbooking of their own, some Bingo, maybe some Logix (game from school that Tristan is having trouble with)... hey I see something forming: a board game day, a scrapbooking day, a snow day, an arts and crafts day, a do nothing day, a pj day, a baking day... boy I'm on a role!

No idea what to get Greg... none, nada. This is going to be hard this year! Besides, he reads this so I'm not about to post what I am getting him.

I've got the teachers/bus drivers/coaches done too: gift certificates :o)

I know what I really want: a night and morning out with my hubby (after all, we are newly weds!) and another dog! Ya, right Stef... 3 kids, one husband, one full grown dog, add a puppy and a daughter in about 15 months... CRAZY!

The Christmas show is on! I will be skating to Tea with Mussolini on December 10th at 10 am, at the Jean-Rougeau Arena in Saint-Basile (10 rue Bella Vista). The boys will be on at 9:45 am. They will be the ones at the end of a long line of girls.

Tristan passed his swimming level (Poisson-Lune) and he is now a Crocodile. Zachary, our fish, however, did not pass Salamandre as to quote his teacher "he is too comfortable in the water"! He just floats or sinks, either one is fine and doesn't bother him - problem is he is supposed to be swimming 2 m and it just doesn't do it.