The home study home visit was totally anticlimactic! We
had this long checklist from the adoption agency that we killed
ourselves making sure we'd done and the social worker didn't even look
at a lot of it (just asked us about it). We definitely could have gotten
away with a lot less work! But oh well, our house is cleaner than it's
been in years, we've taken several safety precautions we've been meaning
to take anyway, and WE ARE DONE. Well, almost - turns out she forgot to
ask us to get driving record checks, and she never got the questionnaire
from one of our references (although the reference says she sent it).
But we can hopefully fix those things quickly (Bob's already ordered his
driving record). She said it would be a week to two weeks for her to
finish writing it up. In that time, we should be able to finish up the
last few items for the dossier - then off to whatever INS is called
these days, and we will have to set up a fingerprinting appointment.
I also graduated from the Virginia Natural Resources Leadership
Institute last night, so that marks another major effort concluded! I'm
starting to relax (more like collapse) - although I'm feeling my one
last trip to Pittsburgh (to get stuff that didn't fit in the van last
time) looming over my head. I know that the hardest time leaving that
house is going to be the last time. 
At this point we're planning that for next weekend, although I have to
admit that between my complete exhaustion and the fact that the work on
the house won't be completely done (I really wanted to see it when it
was all finished), I'm wishing we could put that off. I don't feel right
trashing Father's Day for Bob, though.
Anyway. We are past a major milestone in our adoption journey, I've
passed a milestone in my professional development, and Bob's 46th
birthday was yesterday. We should celebrate - as soon as we peel
ourselves off the floor!
Finally - before and after pictures of Laurel's room!
Before:
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After:
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We did the final touches just before the home
study visit, but I hadn't had a chance to post pictures before. It
really was nice to finally not have curtain rods and pictures sitting
around, and to say at last, "Laurel's room is DONE" - which
was actually not something we could ever say before, because there were
a couple of things we kept meaning to hang in her room with the moon
& stars theme and never got around to! Oh well, we are just saving
them for the baby now. 
BTW, Laurel picked the zebra pattern from a series of pictures I showed
her from the Penney's and Sear's kids' room catalogs (I did two at a
time and asked her to look at the one she liked best - this is how she
picks Halloween costumes, too). Of course, she can't comment on the
change, but since pink and red are her favorite colors (and blue, the
old color, is her least favorite) and she picked the pattern herself,
I'm hoping she's enjoying it!
Way past time for a Laurel update (long, of
course) - I think as usual, it's mixed news.
Mostly good news on the seizure front, but it's still a developing situation...she was seizure-free for about a week and a half, but has started having a few strange little arm jerks in the morning. We're not 100% sure whether they're seizures or a pain response - but that's not the first time that's been true. Like with the Topamax, we had tried going up a little higher on the Keppra and things actually got worse, so she is maxed out on the Keppra. We have another appt with the neuro's assistant in two weeks.
She has been a sad girl a LOT lately. We're not sure what's going on. She's drooling a lot too - maybe six year molars? (It does look higher and whiter back there than it used to.) Or maybe she's been having the same nasty sore throat I've been having for nearly a week (if it's not better by Monday, I think I'll see the doctor). A couple of weeks ago, she had a blister on her right tonsil so large it was touching the back of her tongue and we dragged her in to see the pediatrician, who said it was hand-foot-and-mouth disease (we were glad that we had postponed going to Pittsburgh for a week - which we'd done because the work on the house was running behind schedule and I wanted to go up at the end). But she should be past that by now. She did have some days this week when she felt better, but she's miserable again today - we were going to take her to see "Cars" but had to cancel that idea. Bob thinks it might be the Limu we gave her last night (someone gave me a bottle of this stuff yesterday, it's brown seaweed extract and fruit juices - I wanted to try it with her because it's supposed to be good for gastrointestinal problems and it has a lot of nutrients in it that she doesn't get), but I don't know, she's acted this way enough in the last several weeks that I think it could be a coincidence. She was pretty much the same way for a lot of last weekend, putting the kibosh on any ideas of doing anything recreational in Pittsburgh (although things took longer than I expected anyway...I know Bob hadn't bargained on spending part of Father's Day helping the painter move drywall!).
But. When she's NOT being an unhappy little kid (and even when she is!), she's doing some awesome stuff! Her tone has improved so much over the last few months. She isn't going into extension, even when she's unhappy, like she used to. She can actually sit with just some side support for quite a while, aod one of her favorite things to do lately is to side-sit or sit cross-legged with just a bit of help from us to keep her from falling sideways. We got her this teddy bear-shaped floor chair from Ikea before Christmas, which we liked because the arms provided side support, but we were stumped on the extension problem - we couldn't keep her from going stiff and sliding down within a couple of minutes of putting her in the chair, and we had tried putting a pillow in between the teddy bear's legs (OK, that was kind of a sight, actually, being a longish, thinnish pillow) but she was so strong she was pushing right past it. Not anymore! She sat in that chair for half an hour the other night, playing with some toys.
And that's another thing - she has been experimenting with her hands a lot more lately. Still not consistently doing anything terribly functional with them, but boy is she trying more. She is at least working now on things like a pincer grasp, even if she doesn't have them. Her hands are frequently in motion now - definitely not the kid who seemed like she didn't know she had arms anymore!
Her mouth has loosened up, too, and she is doing a great job with the speech teacher that we are still working with for private feeding therapy. We have her working with much thicker textures now; they still have to be fairly uniform, but she can deal with things that are much pastier and require a lot more jaw/tongue movement. I've been having to grind stuff up for her because none of the prepared things are really the right consistency, but she really enjoyed the spaghetti, tuna casserole, and deviled egg stuffing (that last was as-is) that were leftovers from things we ate that I prepared for her. The speech therapist has also started working with her with a special cup with a straw with a valve on it. She still doesn't have much stamina, though.
At school, the staff was really pleased at how much better she was dealing with the environment this past year, but we are all really disappointed that so far, she doesn't seem to be getting the idea consistently of using switches placed by her head to make choices. Sometimes she seems to, sometimes she doesn't, even in situations where the staff know from experience that she really greatly prefers one choice over the other. And I haven't been having much luck at all working with her with the switches at home, because we have gone into another period of major wheelchair intolerance. I should probably figure out how to set them up with her stander (which she likes better) - but when she's in a mood like today even that sounds like a bad idea. Well, FWIW, after the Fourth of July a teacher is going to come out once a week for four weeks to work with her with the switches and computer, and teach our sitter how they do it at school (I showed her how we do it here in the wheelchair, but I don't think she has much more stomach for the Battle of the Chair than I do). The training will be good for our sitter, because she is going to be one of Laurel's two part-time aides in kindergarten. I so hope Laurel can get the switch thing - it's what I want more than anything else right now, because it will make the difference between whether she will be able to communicate, or not.
I think that about covers it! I should go join in the sad-girl duties. I sure wish I knew what was up with that...
These are the pictures I'm thinking of using for our China dossier...
We have to have 6-10 pictures, including one of just Bob and me, at least one of the inside of the house, at least one of the outside of the house, and three or more additional photos reflecting our family life.
We're getting near the end of the paper chase. I have to mount and label these pictures (I've already printed them) and send them along with all our TB test results (negative, of course) and some extra passport photos to the Harrah's main office; get the okey-dokey from our dossier consultant on our application letter to the China Center of Adoption Affairs and our financial statement, then make our last trip to the notary (yeah!) with those and one other document; then as soon as we get our notarized copies of the home study report (hopefully this coming week), we can send one along with the other notarized stuff to the dossier consultant and another to the USCIS (think this is what they're calling INS these days) with our application to them. Then we wait for that to come back. The only report I saw from someone else who'd used the D.C. office was nine weeks (rackin' frackin'...NOW I wish I lived in Pittsburgh, that office only takes ten days!). Once we get that back the dossier is ready to go to China, so I guess if it's still nine weeks we're looking at a DTC date in September and probably traveling fall of 2007.
Anyway, these are the pictures:
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Well, this is it...the listing for the house I grew up in. It's
been repainted, the vinyl flooring and carpeting replaced - the
carpeting, that is, in the one room that didn't turn out to have
hardwood floors. (It was all the same wall-to-wall carpeting I grew up
with until the workmen pulled it up while Marie and I were there, and
surprise! Hardwood floors that were mostly in a lot better shape than
ours.) Anyway, here's the listing - it's making it kind of a sad day for
me today:
http://wpn.mlxchange.com/Pub/EmailView.asp?r=70867845&s=WPN&t=WPN
I'm about to go incommunicado...our internet
went out last night and the cable company says they can't fix it till
next Wednesday (DSL, anyone?). Meanwhile, I'm going to be off work until
next Wednesday - we're meeting Bob's family (parents, two sibs, one SIL,
and three nephews) at the Smithsonian's Udvar-Hazy Center tomorrow and
spending through Sunday with them in the D.C. area, then Bob's parents
are coming back here to spend a couple of days with us. Could be that
we'll have some internet at the hotel - otherwise I'm just going to have
to go through massive withdrawal. 