The Cluttered Pantry

A quick look at the calendar and we can tell that if we don’t keep pushing to knock “to do” items off our list we will be setting ourselves up for a trip to Russia in the middle of the winter to pick up the Wee Kahunas. Now, don’t get me wrong, we like the snow. We love living in Chicago, and other than the long stretches of frozen days with blustery wind, we even like the winter. But let’s be real here. If you had a choice between late summer/early fall and traveling through Russia with two small children in the winter you wouldn’t purposefully choose to need that parka that you bought because you like the nickname Nanoock of the North.

So it may seem like we are rushing about, but it’s because every delay pushes what is meant to be a 9-12 month process further into the year.

We won’t know what region of Russia the children will be in, until we get the actual refferals (this is the packet that comes with the children that have been matched to us along with their medical histories and any other information that will help us make the decision that they are indeed the Wee Kahunas.) from the agency. It is just as likely that the children will be near the Black Sea where temps in the winter stay in the 47 degree range as it is that they will be much farther north where temperatures (according to weather.com) tend to drop as low as -60 degrees. If nothing else we want to try to get the kids back to Chicago before that cold settles in so that they don’t have to contend with it from within the orphanage.

The reality of trying to collect, fill-in, verify and duplicate all of these forms while we are traveling around the world has started to settle in on us. Most, if not all, of the documents require a notary seal and than a state seal that verifies that the notary is certified to work in that state. Those items will have to wait until we get back at the end of March to be completed since we have to sign/fill them out in front of the notary and we just don’t think adding the complexity of Cairo, or Bratislava verifications of our signatures will help the Russian process go smoothly.

In the mean time, we’re seriously thinking about hiring an agency that specializes in the paper-chase process, to keep the other documents moving while we travel, and having them get it all ready for us to jump into when we get back. The Home Study agency has completed their interviews with us, and have begun collecting responses from the people we listed as references. If you are one of those people, thanks for taking the time to fill in the forms and send them back…and of course for the glowing reports about us as humans!

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