Brian's old! Well, older anyway!

We celebrated Brian's birthday pretty quietly. We had some cake and he opened presents. I got him gift certificates but Traci picked him out some cute stuff for upcoming Daddy and me fishing trips. I think he liked the Daddy's Little Helper jumper best of all.

Things here at the old homestead having been moving along. Brian (with Jason's help) finished up one side of our rental property. He called the realtor who is helping us to get it rented on Wednesday and it was rented by Friday morning. We both are super relieved but still pretty surprised it was rented soooo quickly. Not complainging though!
I went to the Harry Potter midnight book release Friday and I have some fun pictures I will have to post later. I was tired but when are you ever going to go to a midnight opening for a book again! I still cannot believe it sold 8.3 million copies in 24 hours just in the United States. Michael at work decided to do a math activity on how much space all those books would take up - how much they would weigh - so on and so forth.
Anyway I have many more fun pictures from the Harry Potter release and MadLab's fundraiser, Volatility, that I will post later.
Nothing really new on the baby front. What are you going to do...

Bad news was bound to come...

So Brian has been dying to know when all this was going to happen. Meanwhile, I have been telling myself late September or early October and I am not going to pay too much attention. He finally convinced me to email the agency and ask for some more information. I did. And the response was not what I wanted to hear.

We knew things might slow down. And all things considered it has been relatively surprising that it hadn't yet. But now it has. Instead of the 6 - 8 month waiting time we had been working off of, it has extended to 9 - 10 months waiting time. Which puts us in December. She sent me the list of everything left to be accomplished and it isn't short. We are in family court, which is a good step, but it is really only the beginning. We still have to wait for the social worker in Guatemala to meet with the birth mother and file their report (which could take 4 weeks) and for the DNA testing to be completed (which can take 65 days) and then we have to wait for something else (that can take 5 - 7 weeks) and then we are submitted to PGN (which takes a minimum of 40 days).

For how difficult the wait has been getting now I have to tell myself we are only about 1/3 the way through! Very disappointed. The longer we wait, the older he gets and the harder the transition can become. We just have to keep our fingers crossed that the go in alphabetical order and Barlup is towards the top!

I have decided to take a breath and slow down. While getting the nursery set up and starting to get things unpacked was a positive step I need to keep myself occupied for a longer stretch than I had imagined. I will move forward on getting registered, but I might drag it out awhile... And in the short term, we will celebrate Brian getting older tomorrow and the new Harry Potter movie and book this month!

Oh the baby's room...

This last week or so has been really stressful for me. I don't know exactly why. Cannot quite put my finger on what is truly bothering me. I think some of it is that we got the pictures of him smiling, and while I am glad that he is happy and healthy, I cannot believe I missed the first smile. Whenever I think that way it makes me very sad. And it makes it feel like this process is just taking forever! Everyone said the wait would be the hardest part, and I thought (maybe, hoped) that with all the things we had to get done I would be able to keep myself occupied. But getting ready hasn't even been easy. I keep feeling like I am playing pretend...

My poor Mom felt the brunt of it this week. Considering I have only had a couple of major freak outs - and most have been private moments - I think I am doing pretty well. But when I spoke with my Mom, I let it all out. I didn't even realize how much I needed to cry until I started.

Kate came down over ComFest weekend and I was so glad to see her. On Sunday we decided to go shopping and buy a crib. Brian and I had been given one, but it needed some work and we just decided we didn't have the time to mess with it. Anyway, Kate and I went to a million stores and finally picked a crib and mattress. It was the first really big purchase (of many, I am sure) and I was feeling pretty happy. Then Kate started in. I never said, "I am scared." Or "I am dragging my feet because I am afraid it isn't going to really happen." But somehow she knew. And in the most loving way possible she read me the riot act. She told me to quit being afraid, and get to work. I don't think I even realized how scared I was until she and I spoke.

I took it to heart, and my friend Traci came over both Saturday and Sunday and helped me to get the walls painted.

I will admit I didn't love the colors, but now after living with it for awhile, they are starting to grow on me.

Yesterday the carpet was installed and it looks great. There is still some touch up painting, but for the most part it is good to go. I put together a little shelving unit and finally got everything Judy has sent us out of the boxes.

Already it is starting to look like a baby's room... And I think I am finally allowing myself to truly get excited.

I talked with Missy and she has all her buying guides left over from registering for Julian. She said she would give them to me so I could use them to start picking what I wanted. Brian said maybe she should go register with me... She's done it before and I am a girl, so he figures we'll do fine on our own. I am fine with that mostly because he has been so busy trying to get the rental done, I know he doesn't really have the time for it right now. Anyway, after we get the crib together I figure I will start picking out things and get registered. Then I guess we will go from there!

On our way to having a baby's room...

I painted the ceiling in the baby's room awhile ago. Well, yesterday Traci came over and helped me to paint the walls. They look really good. We need to get a second coat on them and Brian is going to cut in the trim and ceiling but we got a lot of the work done yesterday. Today I have to get the closet painted. I am glad Traci came over to help because for some reason it has been hard for me to get motivated.

Carpet comes on Tuesday and if we get the bulk of the painting done I hope to spend the 4th putting together the crib. I am getting very excited.

Things are still moving slowly but it looks like our paperwork has finally been submitted. I really don't have a clue what the time frame is at this point. Just trying to be patient.