Within an hour of meeting our future children, we’re put to the test! We go out as a group to lunch. Though our social worker and foster mom are with us, clearly we’re the “Parents on Duty!”

My youngest son, continues to shadow my oldest son and sits by him at lunch. It’s a buffet, so we fix plates for the kids, and my daughter parks herself beside me, as advertised! The staff at the restaurant soon learns what’s going on, and all three kids get lollipops and yo-yos. So, we begin the very normal, “How Many More Bites Til I Get My Stuff” game that we take for granted as non-adoptive parents!

My daughter is proud of all her counted bites. She asks my oldest son to teach... more

After A fitful night of sleep, morning finally comes! I say fitful, because our son’s blood sugar continued to fluctuate, and due in part that and in part to the excitement and a new room, he had trouble sleeping. We were on fumes anyway, from the last few days, and being so near and yet so far away, we had trouble sleeping too!

Morning finally came, and we got ready quickly, and checked out. As mentioned yesterday, my son gets easily attached. Since we are due back to Memphis Friday evening at this same hotel, my son really wanted to stay in this particular room again. So at check out he said, “Excuse... more

The middle leg of the journey took a couple of hours. The weather was nice, the flight was on time and I got several inches of sock knitting done. I feel like the Yarn Harlot and her Mighty Traveling Sock! (And I do have pictures of it as she does, which I will have to post).

I spoke to our social worker – she, the foster mom and the kids will all meet us at 10am tomorrow morning! I can’t believe we will finally get to meet them!

After touching down in Minneapolis/St. Paul, and having a very hasty meal (we only had a little over an hour between flights and they were at gates very opposite each other!), we boarded the plane for... more

After going to bed for just a couple of hours at 1:00am, we woke up at 3:00am and went to the airport shortly after 4. Note to self: Night owls, do not attempt this at home! What was I thinking?

Remember all that yesterday about the wonders of the internet and e-ticketing? Scratch that! We still had to stand in line and check in (albeit it not a very long line!).

All three flights left and landed on time and were uneventful. For a domestic adoption, I still call this trip Adoption via the Trans-Siberian Express. Five states and 14 hours? Oooookay … However, it was my son’s first time flying and... more

Well, it’s finally here! We’re furiously packing and taking care of last minute details! Up until a couple of business trips last year, it had been almost 20 years since I had flown! Now with the ease of purchasing tickets online, printing e-tickets and boarding passes, I can just relax and enjoy the trip! Of course, that’s once this flurry of pre-travel activity is over!

We had to get a house-sitter for Her Divaliciousness, Catherine (otherwise known as our cat!). It seems there was no end to the number of Target trips, with other... more

We’re going to be traveling next week, and you get to come with us! That’s right! I will be blogging on the road, as we meet our children for the first time!

Even though this is a domestic adoption, it feels like an international one! All told, it will take us some 14 hours of travel time, three airplanes, two layovers and an hour’s drive in a rental car to get there!

The social worker handling the adoption told us today that she told the kids about our visit yesterday. The conversation went something like this:

Foster... more

As with most things, I came to adoption in an unconventional way. Most folks decide that they would like to adopt … do the mountain of paperwork … get the approved homestudy …get a referral … then are matched with the child who will most likely become their own.

Not so with me. Though we talked about adoption forever, it wasn’t until I sat in front of my computer, just as I am now, tooling around reading posts from some of my e-mail discussion loops. Usually, I will just scan the e-mail headers in the digest version, and even at that, I don’t... more

Excitement is in the air! Finally, all the waiting is nearing an end! We have the consents signed and a birthmother on board! All that remains is 1) to tell the kids and 2) go to the courthouse and make it official!

We needed to have the consents signed before telling the kids. Now that that is complete, our social worker has planned to let them know shortly (not too far in advance, lest we have a two month “Are we there yet?” type atmosphere!). Meanwhile, the (wonderful!) foster parents our children are with have been dropping increasingly less subtle hints. Thus, on our last call to them this past Sunday, our youngest son informed me, “I’m getting a new daddy!” I asked him if he... more

OK, as the "new blogger on the block," I missed out on this whole Love Thursday thing. But it's "Love Saturday" here at Casa Stro - the long-awaited "love letter" I discussed in my first post here at AdoptionBlogs arrived today!

We got two precious little letters from our daughter! One you will see below; the other has our names and a big, red heart and her signature.

My letters to her often involve "big girl homework" - some small thing for her to do, for which I send her stickers. Her foster... more