Alexandra is fascinated by pictures of babies

The Global Babies book she received at the yoga ladies' shower is her current favorite. She smiles & laughs when she sees pictures. She especially likes the pictures of the babies from India & Iraq!!

Smilin' girl!

It's really hard to catch her smile on camera ... but she has one, that's for sure! She is getting very interactive & just more adorable by the day!!!

Alexandra is 1 month old

I see you! Alexandra is having great fun on her play mat, especially looking in the mirror. Is that another baby? WOW!

Day in court ... and more "oh, by the way" news we are coming to loathe

We 3 went to court yesterday. The paperwork process to legally adopt Alexandra is officially underway. It won't be finalized for about 6 months. And we found out that it may not be until JANUARY that we get her birth certificate! That's news. We're getting kind of tired of getting news like that.

While in Georgia we had "Oh we just need to fax you paperwork." This is once we've left the hotel & are at a location with no fax. We got the pediatrician to receive it for us ... and it turned out we had to notarize it & fax it back. THAT took 2 hours.

Then we had "Oh, yeah, you need to be in court as soon as possible." once we'd returned from being gone for 2 weeks. Uh, people ... that would've been good to know ahead of time. We were just GONE for 2 weeks from work. Taking off more time is difficult AND costs us money!!

Day before court it was "Oh, and you need to bring an itemized list of all adoption expenses." Oh, sure. Yeah. I've got nothing else to do for the afternoon. (Thankfully I am genius & did find it squirreled away under a section of our budget!) Still ... really?

Yesterday we found about the delayed birth certificate, and also that the ICPC permission thing has nothing to do with traveling with Alexandra out-of-state before her adoption is finalized. We have to beg permission from the courts & from our overseeing agency. Really???? Come ON!! When are we going to be entrusted to parent this little girl & just get all of the documentation to do things like, oh ... open a savings account, file our taxes, allow her to be cared for by a licensed agency, start a college fund ... all manner of things require a birth certificate and/or a social security number. We won't have either until next YEAR.

We had said we wanted 2 kids ... but I really don't know if we can tolerate constantly being evaluated & judged like this. There's a reason I'm self-employed.

We thought it was just an accident ...

This afternoon, I attached these dangling "Go Bugs" to the edge of her cradle. (They're meant for her carseat, but since when does Mommy do as directed?) I turned her on a side & rattled the one behind her. Sure enough, she rolled over to see what was making the noise! She then turned her head all the way around and watched it intently as I jingled it. I called Ken in to see & asked him to bring the camera. We thought what we caught was accidental, as shown here:








She batted at it & we figured it was just a fluke ... but then several more times later this evening, she's very intently reached out for it, and not even right after we make noise with it & move it around! Is that even possible? I didn't think that 3 week old infants could make those kinds of connections. Whether it's a fluke or a genuine learning moment, we're pretty darn pleased!