Dumpster Diving

This post has one purpose: my admission of guilt. What! Yes, I am guilty of a wrong. I know...it's hard to believe the gal who's always right has made a mistake. But I have. And it was a big one.

So, I have purposefully failed to mention the paperwork we've been completing since the boys' homecoming for two reasons. 1) I would hate to dissuade any of you in your own adoption pursuit, whether it's currently in the works or just an idea you're contemplating. 2) Paperwork is boring. Reading about someone else's trudge through mounds of it could bore you to death...or at least put you to sleep.

Wait! Don't fall asleep yet. I'm not going to talk about paperwork.

Well, just a smidge.

After another endless stream of documents that had to be notarized and certified and signed in blood, we appeared in court with all 3 kiddos. Umm, that was fun. It was the final step in getting the boy's birth certificates as American citizens with their new first and middle names. Our last name had already been given to them and put on their Ethiopian birth certificate in March when we received final approval. Next, we can apply for U.S. passports and social security numbers, although Keith is considering letting them spend their lives running from the government since it's too late for him. Hey! Are you still awake? My story's about to get good.

We left court with 2 documents. I wish I could tell you the name of these documents, but Keith has hidden them from me...for good reason. You know they're special because of their swirly gold paper and fancy shmancy gold seal. Well, before I could even retrieve these from the vehicle we noticed the birth year for one child was wrong. Wah, wah. When I heard the word "wrong," I took a good sorrowful look at those documents, folded BOTH of them in half hamburger style and slipped BOTH of them in the kitchen trash.

Fast forward about 5 days when Keith, who has made all trips to the courthouse and all phone calls to our agency and taken care of all documents for the social worker, called me one afternoon to inquire the whereabouts of the sole correct swirly gold document with that fancy seal. My heart sank. But quickly rose along with my anger to combat that of my husband. Why was I angry? Obviously because he was really the one at fault, right? He knows not to trust me with fancy documents. I'm lucky to have my license, credit card and library card in my wallet.

When I returned home, I found Keith outside donning blue latex gloves, digging through the garbage can which held 2 weeks' worth of trash. After sifting through the contents 3 times, he told me I didn't throw them in the trash. "Yes, I did!" I vividly remember folding without even creasing the documents and slipping them in the side of the trash. I knew I was right!

Fast forward another few days and Keith has been attempting to obtain the corrected version of one fancy gold document (the one that was wrong) and a re-creation of the other one (the correct one that I threw away). On this particular day, Keith had asked me to take our decree of adoption to the courthouse, a document way too official to be left alone with me much less entrusted unto me for transportation. On my way out the door, I reached into my "purse" to grab a post-it note, and when I looked, there peaking above the rim were those swirly gold documents, the ones with that fancy seal that had been folded in half hamburger style, the ones I swore I threw into the trash.

Well, it turns out my purse is indistinguishable from a trash can. Either that or God performed a miracle by placing his hand over those gold documents, saving them from the trash, and guided them into my bag so that they emerged from my the top just in time.

In the end, Keith's dumpster diving was just for the fun of it, and I cleaned out my purse. Oh, and I won't fight Keith next time he refuses to let me hold my own passport and plane ticket.

Again, here are more pictures unrelated to this post.

After several boo boos including a little bleeding and a huge protrusion from a forehead, Keith took the kids to pick out helmets.

Fun times with play dough...that I made with a large pot, ingredients from the pantry, and the full force of my upper body strength. I say this with pride as I am not at all crafty.

Random picture of Garris...I am guessing after a bike ride, although he sweats like this even while playing inside the house.

What are they watching? Horton Hears a Who. Why are they sitting in little chairs and not snuggled on the couch? They don't know how to "sit" on furniture. Therefore, they aren't allowed to sit on it. Before you go thinking I'm the worst mom ever, let me tell you that their sitting quickly turns into wiggling, then rolling, bouncing, jumping, and gymnastics. We use things for which they were created, for the most part. I'm old school.