A crush, A birth, Coincidences, and Tam has a family

Yesterday afternoon, I spoke with A~, the “waiting child” coordinator at my agency. (The “waiting child” program was the program through which we did NOT get the child, C~H~ Dung.) I wanted to let her know that the referral from the “regular” program had fallen through, and that we were still waiting for our child.

The reason I did this was three-fold:

1. There is a child on the China photo-listing, a little boy, who photo I keep coming back to. I wanted to ask her if any families were already pursuing him. Yes, of course there were already two families in the process of going “to committee on that child”. (A~ asked me if I wanted the information on him anyway. I told her no. I am not going up against another family – I just don’t think we can stand any more heartbreak like that. The fact that she asked if I wanted the info led me to believe that neither of the other families is “homestudy ready” – but, regardless, I refuse to open myself up to that kind of pain again, even if odds are more in our favor this time.)
2. I had also noticed that Tam, the 4.5 year old boy we looked at before we got the file on Tung, had a happy, “I Have a Family” banner across his picture. I just mentioned this because I was, honestly, HAPPY to see that he had a family. But, this made A~ apologize for not calling us first to make sure we had accepted the referral on Tung. But, truly, I was just happy to see the child had a family – we would not have competed with the other family over him, anyway ~ certainly not LAST WEEK. No way.
3. Because we ARE in a position of having our homestudy done, A~ can call us if she gets a waiting child referral that she thinks would work for our family BEFORE she puts that child on the website. I just wanted to make sure she knew we were still open to such a call. I know the odds of her receiving a referral on another child like C~H~Dung (healthy, three year old child) are small, I just want to make sure we are in line, in the event such a thing occurred. A~ said they are expecting a large referral group from China in the next four weeks, and if there is a child in that group that will fit with our family, she will call us.

In the meantime, I keep holding my breath that the Vietnam coordinator will get a child for us…waiting…hoping….wishing…
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In the meantime, my six-year-old has fallen in love with a twelve-year-old girl down the street. What I find shocking is that the twelve year old deigns to spend time with my six year old son and his two six year old friends. They spend A LOT of time playing basketball in her driveway (we do not have a basketball hoop), or soccer in our front yard (we have a soccer net). It might be because there are almost no other “tween” girls in our neighborhood. It might also be because I suspect she has a crush on the 13-year-old boy who lives next door to us, and is the big brother of one of Gabe’s six-year-old posse. The thirteen-year-old boy joins them fairly regularly to play soccer in our front yard. (The family next door is from South America, and they are, in fact, INSANE for soccer. Crazy mad soccer fanatics.)

Anyway, Gabe is just crazy crushing on this little girl. “Maybe she can babysit me some time.” he says. “Maybe when summer comes, she will want to come swim in our pool.” It’s mildly amusing.

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My brother’s wife gave birth to a baby boy at 3:45 AM this morning, making this grandchild number 12 for my mom and step-dad. The baby was born on my sister A~’s birthday, which I find interesting. My sister A~ had a child on my brother J~’s birthday three years ago. And sister A~’s husband has the same birthday as brother J~’s wife. I only share this because I find it astonishing that in a family of 27 people; six of them share birthdays with another person.

On my husband’s side, a family of only 9 people, my sister-in-law and I have the same birthday. This is slightly less weird than that fact that, until my younger brother-in-law got a divorce last year, BOTH of my sisters-in-law had the EXACT SAME NAME. First name, middle name, last name. Identical. It made for some difficulty opening gifts at Christmas…needless to say, my mother in law has, on more than one occasion, called me Kim. Which is obviously not my name, but, the name of the other two. She usually corrects herself by saying, “oh geez, you’re the only one that’s NOT Kim!”

Clearly I am babbling now, so, I’m going to stop.

LM