Thursday, October 2, 2008

In other news...

I think all of you have met Junior Mint. He's a delicious little boy and I love him. And he talks all the time. I have no idea where that quality came from. Out of so much talking, there are bound to be funny sayings.

Two things he said yesterday are as follows:

We were at the grocery store in the cereal aisle. Always hoping to be the one who chooses the cereal, Junior Mint said, "I want to buy Whities."
"What?!" we said.
He pointed at a box on a shelf and then I corrected him, "No, honey, those are Wheaties."
It did seem pretty funny to us, though, especially with a large African American pro basketball player across the front of the box. (Go Celtics!)

As we sat and ate dinner last night, Junior Mint said suddenly, "I'm isolated."
I looked at my husband. He looked at me. "No, you're not," he said.
Thoughts raced through my mind.... Did someone at soccer practice say something about his homeschooling? Does he spend too much time alone? He goes to church and plays soccer and plays with different friends in the afternoons. Does time spent with me count as isolation? Should we be doing more to cultivate outside friendships?
It was just a few seconds before I turned to Junior Mint and said, "What do you mean?"
His response?
"I'm freezing!!"

Hallelujah!!!

Guess what we got in the mail today??!!! (Imagine a very sing-songy voice because that's what you'd hear right now).

Curly Fry's Amended Birth Certificate!!!

For those of you unfamiliar with the bureaucratic beast that is adoption legal procedure, this means his adoption is now completely done. WOOHOOO!!! It has been legally finalized since January, but we couldn't do any taxes including him without an amended birth certificate. Typically, when an adoption is finalized, it takes just a few months to get an amended birth certificate (with our names on it). Curly Fry, however, was born in California and their Vital Records Office is open for calls all of 15 hours per week. They take 4 times longer than almost every other state to process any information, which is why it took so long.

An amended birth certificate gives us the legal right to apply for a social security number in his name. It's hard to imagine how important those 9 little digits are unless you don't have them. Now we can finally get the numbers the government both supplies us and then requires of us. Then we can amend our taxes so we can actually claim our adoption expenses and claim Curly Fry as a dependent!! Hurray for us!!!

We have always been so thrilled to have him, but it has been a bummer to not get the government kickback that a child brings or claim any of the thousands of dollars it took in legal and other fees to bring him to our family. Children are priceless; but they are also pricey.