I'll start out with two little bits of good news about our fingerprints:
--The USCIS does have a clear and reasonably sensible procedure for what to do when somebody's fingerprints are unreadable. The person must make two attempts at the fingerprints, and if both attempts fail they can submit local police clearances for everywhere they have lived for the past five years. (Why we can't submit the FBI clearance we got for our home study I don't know, but no, if their FBI check doesn't work then they'll only accept local police clearances as an alternative.)
--The office where Tim needs to go to do his fingerprints will let him come in anytime (so we don't have to wait weeks for an appointment). The woman from the USCIS that I talked to today didn't see any regulations about a minimum time between attempts, but I doubt we could get away with doing it twice in one day.
The bad news:
--The nearest USCIS fingerprinting place is an hour and a half away.
--Tim's first failed attempt at fingerprinting does not appear to have made it into the system, so he will have to go back twice.
--The spot on his finger has gotten worse again, and a couple of other fingers are threatening to develop spots.
--One of the places we have lived in the past five years is China. We actually already have a police clearance from there, but it will need to be translated, and I'm hoping it doesn't give us any problems.
--Another place we have lived within the past five years is Maryland. Maryland, I just found out, doesn't do name searches when they produce local police clearances. They require fingerprints! (Kind of ironic, considering why we need this clearance in the first place.) They will do a name search if they can't read the first set of fingerprints. (And I do hope the woman was right about first--this is, after all, the state that made me re-do my fingerprints three times for Esther's adoption! Although I think that was for a different category of background check.)
By far the easiest solution would be for Tim's finger(s) to clear up, pronto. All prayers appreciated!
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Monday, March 28, 2011
mixed results
Well, we went to get our fingerprints done today. They let us in early, and my prints scanned without incident. But Tim's first set of four was rejected, presumably due to the spot of psoriasis on his little finger (the tech aborted the process at that point). Tim has permission to come back any time he thinks his fingers are clear, no need for an appointment. BUT, this being psoriasis, there is no way of guessing how long it will take to clear up. He's had this spot for at least three weeks already, and sometimes they persist for months! So the first thing on my to-do list while Esther is gone at daycare tomorrow morning is to call USCIS and see what procedure we can follow (doctor's letter? documentation of a certain number of attempts?) to get permission to submit just the rest of his fingerprints if this one doesn't heal up soon. Sigh.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
DC trip
I've been MIA on this blog for a while, but there's been a reason--we've been busy! Last week we had a wonderful visit with my whole family, which I'd like to write about soon. But before that we had some travel, so I'll back up and talk about that in this entry!
Once we finish our current step in the adoption process, we will be ready to send our dossier (packet of documents) to China for their final approval of the adoption. But China needs a way to ensure that adoption documents are legitimate. So, each document must first be notarized at the time it is produced. Then, the department of state of the state in which the document was signed must review the notary's signature and attach the seal of state attesting that the signature is genuine. Then (not in all cases, but in our case), the U.S. Department of State must review the state seal and attach the Department of State seal attesting that the state seal is genuine. And then the Chinese embassy reviews the Department of State seal and attaches their own seal attesting that that is genuine. And only then can the documents, duly proven to be legitimate, be sent on to China.
So a couple of weeks ago we drove up to our state capitol and got the state seal on all of the documents (like police reports and letters of employment) that had been produced locally. We didn't have time to mail all of the documents to the State Department in DC, get them back, and then mail them back to DC to the Chinese embassy. We could have used a courier to get our stack of documents efficiently through both sets of authentications, and in fact it would have cost a little less than traveling there ourselves. But Esther has been showing signs of really missing her friends again, so I thought that since we were going to be spending money on these documents anyway, why not use it to buy train tickets for Esther and myself to go up to DC, see friends, and walk the documents through their authentication process in person. So we made plans, and on Wednesday, off we went.
The train ride was fun. Mostly. It's about seven hours, which is a long time to be asking an active child to do quiet activities in their seat. (We did take some walks up and down the cars nearest to us, and of course to the bathroom.) Esther did very well, though, and I got a feel for what activities are absorbing to her now--information that will be very useful on our long plane trip to China this summer! (Yes, she is coming with us.) The scenery was beautiful, particularly on the trip up, when very wet weather caused little waterfalls running down the side of the forested hills. And we had a cool view of the Jefferson memorial and Washington monument coming into DC. I did learn that I need to work with Esther on concepts of personal property. The woman we sat next to at first (who was quite friendly and kind to Esther) had an I-phone, and Esther kept reaching over and trying to grab it out of our seatmate's lap and play with it!! Then on the way back she spontaneously shared her address and phone number (or as much as she knows of them) with someone we had just met--I guess I'm going to be working with her on privacy too. Sigh. She did nap in both directions, though later than usual and under protest.
We had a great time with the friends we stayed with. Their younger daughter was unfortunately feeling under the weather, but their older daughter (about nine months older than Esther) and Esther had a great time playing together. We wished we could have seen other friends as well, but really didn't have time, as I spent almost the whole day on Thursday dealing with documents downtown.
Our paperwork process was a "That's Good, That's Bad" sort of experience.
We got the documents to the Department of State Authentications office in time to get them done during their morning hours. That's good! But when we headed out towards the Chinese embassy I stood on the wrong side of the street to catch our bus, missed it, and ended up spending 45 minutes standing in the rain next to a busy street, with a backpack of important documents, a bored preschooler, and only one umbrella. That's bad! Oh yeah, and because of the delay we missed the morning office hours at the embassy. That's also bad! But when we finally got on the right bus, it turned out that the bus route went right by the Safeway where we had met a friend for lunch last time we were in DC, so we hopped off the bus and shared a strawberry-banana smoothie for lunch in a nice, dry spot. And I had time before the embassy re-opened to stop at a Fed-Ex location and check that I had filled out my airbill for return mail of the documents correctly. That's good! When we got to the embassy, we didn't have to wait too long before we got called. That's also good! But the embassy requires people submitting documents for authentication to make photocopies of all their documents, and while I had copied the documents themselves, I hadn't copied all of the prior authentication pages. That's bad! But the embassy had a photocopier. That's good! But the copies were 25 cents each, and I had twelve documents. That's bad! But the photocopier was broken that day, so copies were free. That's good! So I copied all of the extra pages, carefully put everything in order and double-checked it (meanwhile Esther had fallen asleep in the carrier on my back and my back was killing me), and went back to the window. This time all the paperwork was in order, but when I went to hand the woman my carefully-prepared FedEx envelope she said, "We don't do mail-back service for walk-ins, only if you mail it in." That's very, very bad! So I told the woman at the desk that I needed a minute to think about what to do, and quickly reviewed my options. The documents were supposed to be ready for pick-up in four days, at which point I would no longer be in DC, so I couldn't pick them up myself. I hated to carry them back home and mail them in after having gone to all the trouble of making a personal trip. I definitely couldn't afford to pay the fee to get one-day service so I could pick them up the next morning before leaving, and I wasn't real thrilled about paying for a courier service after making the trip in person, either. Then I remembered that my friend whom I had met in that area for lunch in January actually lives and works within walking distance of the embassy. So I made an urgent call to her cellphone to see if she would be willing to pick them up for me and mail them to me, and she said yes. That's GOOD! So I turned in the documents, double-checked that it would be okay for someone else to pick them up, and heaved a sigh of relief. We had a further minor mix-up as Grace rushed to meet me at the embassy while I rushed to meet her at her work, but we finally connected (at the Safeway again!) and had a nice little visit while handing off paperwork.
The rest of the trip went smoothly. The properly authenticated documents are now at WACAP's (our agency's) office, getting ready to be sent to China as soon as our immigration pre-approval is generated. Meanwhile, our immigration process seems to be going a little more quickly than the norm, not due to any human intervention that I'm aware of, but I know there are people praying! Our fingerprint appointments are for this Thursday, but we're going to drive up tomorrow morning and see if they'll take us early. We are praying that a spot on Tim's finger won't cause any problems.
On a side note, I made a discovery in this authentication process that saved us a good bit of money as well as some time. We had documents produced in four different states, each of which happened to fall under the jurisdiction of a different Chinese consulate or embassy. If we had sent the three documents that didn't go to the Chinese embassy to their three respective consulates, it would have meant paying additional mailing costs for two of the consulates, and a rather exorbitant (for just one document) fee to use a courier service for a third consulate that doesn't accept mailed-in applications. But it turns out that the Chinese embassy in DC can accept documents from ANY state as long as they go through the U.S. Department of State first! (That meant paying for one extra level of authentication, but it was less than the cost of mailing the documents would have been, let alone using a courier service.) Since most of our documents HAD to go through the embassy, it was much more convenient and less expensive to do them all together. Yay for that discovery, and for one more step checked off our list!!
Once we finish our current step in the adoption process, we will be ready to send our dossier (packet of documents) to China for their final approval of the adoption. But China needs a way to ensure that adoption documents are legitimate. So, each document must first be notarized at the time it is produced. Then, the department of state of the state in which the document was signed must review the notary's signature and attach the seal of state attesting that the signature is genuine. Then (not in all cases, but in our case), the U.S. Department of State must review the state seal and attach the Department of State seal attesting that the state seal is genuine. And then the Chinese embassy reviews the Department of State seal and attaches their own seal attesting that that is genuine. And only then can the documents, duly proven to be legitimate, be sent on to China.
So a couple of weeks ago we drove up to our state capitol and got the state seal on all of the documents (like police reports and letters of employment) that had been produced locally. We didn't have time to mail all of the documents to the State Department in DC, get them back, and then mail them back to DC to the Chinese embassy. We could have used a courier to get our stack of documents efficiently through both sets of authentications, and in fact it would have cost a little less than traveling there ourselves. But Esther has been showing signs of really missing her friends again, so I thought that since we were going to be spending money on these documents anyway, why not use it to buy train tickets for Esther and myself to go up to DC, see friends, and walk the documents through their authentication process in person. So we made plans, and on Wednesday, off we went.
The train ride was fun. Mostly. It's about seven hours, which is a long time to be asking an active child to do quiet activities in their seat. (We did take some walks up and down the cars nearest to us, and of course to the bathroom.) Esther did very well, though, and I got a feel for what activities are absorbing to her now--information that will be very useful on our long plane trip to China this summer! (Yes, she is coming with us.) The scenery was beautiful, particularly on the trip up, when very wet weather caused little waterfalls running down the side of the forested hills. And we had a cool view of the Jefferson memorial and Washington monument coming into DC. I did learn that I need to work with Esther on concepts of personal property. The woman we sat next to at first (who was quite friendly and kind to Esther) had an I-phone, and Esther kept reaching over and trying to grab it out of our seatmate's lap and play with it!! Then on the way back she spontaneously shared her address and phone number (or as much as she knows of them) with someone we had just met--I guess I'm going to be working with her on privacy too. Sigh. She did nap in both directions, though later than usual and under protest.
We had a great time with the friends we stayed with. Their younger daughter was unfortunately feeling under the weather, but their older daughter (about nine months older than Esther) and Esther had a great time playing together. We wished we could have seen other friends as well, but really didn't have time, as I spent almost the whole day on Thursday dealing with documents downtown.
Our paperwork process was a "That's Good, That's Bad" sort of experience.
We got the documents to the Department of State Authentications office in time to get them done during their morning hours. That's good! But when we headed out towards the Chinese embassy I stood on the wrong side of the street to catch our bus, missed it, and ended up spending 45 minutes standing in the rain next to a busy street, with a backpack of important documents, a bored preschooler, and only one umbrella. That's bad! Oh yeah, and because of the delay we missed the morning office hours at the embassy. That's also bad! But when we finally got on the right bus, it turned out that the bus route went right by the Safeway where we had met a friend for lunch last time we were in DC, so we hopped off the bus and shared a strawberry-banana smoothie for lunch in a nice, dry spot. And I had time before the embassy re-opened to stop at a Fed-Ex location and check that I had filled out my airbill for return mail of the documents correctly. That's good! When we got to the embassy, we didn't have to wait too long before we got called. That's also good! But the embassy requires people submitting documents for authentication to make photocopies of all their documents, and while I had copied the documents themselves, I hadn't copied all of the prior authentication pages. That's bad! But the embassy had a photocopier. That's good! But the copies were 25 cents each, and I had twelve documents. That's bad! But the photocopier was broken that day, so copies were free. That's good! So I copied all of the extra pages, carefully put everything in order and double-checked it (meanwhile Esther had fallen asleep in the carrier on my back and my back was killing me), and went back to the window. This time all the paperwork was in order, but when I went to hand the woman my carefully-prepared FedEx envelope she said, "We don't do mail-back service for walk-ins, only if you mail it in." That's very, very bad! So I told the woman at the desk that I needed a minute to think about what to do, and quickly reviewed my options. The documents were supposed to be ready for pick-up in four days, at which point I would no longer be in DC, so I couldn't pick them up myself. I hated to carry them back home and mail them in after having gone to all the trouble of making a personal trip. I definitely couldn't afford to pay the fee to get one-day service so I could pick them up the next morning before leaving, and I wasn't real thrilled about paying for a courier service after making the trip in person, either. Then I remembered that my friend whom I had met in that area for lunch in January actually lives and works within walking distance of the embassy. So I made an urgent call to her cellphone to see if she would be willing to pick them up for me and mail them to me, and she said yes. That's GOOD! So I turned in the documents, double-checked that it would be okay for someone else to pick them up, and heaved a sigh of relief. We had a further minor mix-up as Grace rushed to meet me at the embassy while I rushed to meet her at her work, but we finally connected (at the Safeway again!) and had a nice little visit while handing off paperwork.
The rest of the trip went smoothly. The properly authenticated documents are now at WACAP's (our agency's) office, getting ready to be sent to China as soon as our immigration pre-approval is generated. Meanwhile, our immigration process seems to be going a little more quickly than the norm, not due to any human intervention that I'm aware of, but I know there are people praying! Our fingerprint appointments are for this Thursday, but we're going to drive up tomorrow morning and see if they'll take us early. We are praying that a spot on Tim's finger won't cause any problems.
On a side note, I made a discovery in this authentication process that saved us a good bit of money as well as some time. We had documents produced in four different states, each of which happened to fall under the jurisdiction of a different Chinese consulate or embassy. If we had sent the three documents that didn't go to the Chinese embassy to their three respective consulates, it would have meant paying additional mailing costs for two of the consulates, and a rather exorbitant (for just one document) fee to use a courier service for a third consulate that doesn't accept mailed-in applications. But it turns out that the Chinese embassy in DC can accept documents from ANY state as long as they go through the U.S. Department of State first! (That meant paying for one extra level of authentication, but it was less than the cost of mailing the documents would have been, let alone using a courier service.) Since most of our documents HAD to go through the embassy, it was much more convenient and less expensive to do them all together. Yay for that discovery, and for one more step checked off our list!!
Saturday, March 26, 2011
relationship advice, and other mix-ups
Lately Esther has been combining lots of ideas in her little head, with...interesting results.
An example. We have been trying to find "family movies" that we can all watch together. One of our recent successes was Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. I explained the kidnapping part ahead of time, and Esther did not seem too disturbed by it. She loves the music and dancing, and "the part where the barn falls down." So from time to time she will go around singing snatches of one of the songs. Recently her favorite lyrics have been, "Goin' courtin', goin' courtin', sing a song of Jesus!" Not bad advice, actually! (The real lyrics are, "Goin' courtin', goin' courtin', always sets your senses in a whirl; goin' courtin', goin' courtin', dudin' up to go and see a girl...")
Then the other day she was paging through my Chinese book, shortly after a discussion of childbirth. She told me, "I have to find 'kumbilical cord, your sins are forgiven,' page 92."
And THEN she tried to serve communion (bathwater in the cap of a detergent bottle) to her toy stingray! (She was originally going to serve it to me, but I declined.) She told it, "Stingray, this is the blood of Jesus!" I hope that's not sacrilegious...but actually, I think that at this age, the fact that she is thinking about communion and exploring it through play is a way of valuing it, not devaluing it. (Esther has seen us take communion a few times, and is fascinated by it. She really wants to take communion herself and doesn't get why we won't let her yet--she keeps asking me, but isn't satisfied with my answers!)
Esther has also had some interesting word mix-ups lately.
For example, soda, which she consistently calls Minnesota. ("Daddy, I want some of your Minnesota! Pleeeeease!")
We were discussing ethnicity, and I told her I am European-American and she is Chinese-American. She heard the word "your" in European and asked, "Myapean-American?" Likewise, when we went to the police station to notarize some documents, I heard her murmur something about "yesarize."
She heard somebody talking about a baby shower and was shocked and amused that somebody would give a baby a shower.
And when she tried her first local gymnastics class (which went great, by the way!), she immediately noticed the other girls' cool outfits. I told her they were called leotards, but she didn't quite catch the unfamiliar word. She told me, "I wanna tarp! I want one a dose!" (pointing to the ones hanging up in the lobby available for purchase). I checked out the prices on the ones hanging up and told her she might get one for her birthday. But this morning we checked a consignment store and scored two leotards, one of which fits and the other of which is only a little too big! She is thrilled, and alternated wearing the two of them all day from when we brought them home until bedtime.
An example. We have been trying to find "family movies" that we can all watch together. One of our recent successes was Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. I explained the kidnapping part ahead of time, and Esther did not seem too disturbed by it. She loves the music and dancing, and "the part where the barn falls down." So from time to time she will go around singing snatches of one of the songs. Recently her favorite lyrics have been, "Goin' courtin', goin' courtin', sing a song of Jesus!" Not bad advice, actually! (The real lyrics are, "Goin' courtin', goin' courtin', always sets your senses in a whirl; goin' courtin', goin' courtin', dudin' up to go and see a girl...")
Then the other day she was paging through my Chinese book, shortly after a discussion of childbirth. She told me, "I have to find 'kumbilical cord, your sins are forgiven,' page 92."
And THEN she tried to serve communion (bathwater in the cap of a detergent bottle) to her toy stingray! (She was originally going to serve it to me, but I declined.) She told it, "Stingray, this is the blood of Jesus!" I hope that's not sacrilegious...but actually, I think that at this age, the fact that she is thinking about communion and exploring it through play is a way of valuing it, not devaluing it. (Esther has seen us take communion a few times, and is fascinated by it. She really wants to take communion herself and doesn't get why we won't let her yet--she keeps asking me, but isn't satisfied with my answers!)
Esther has also had some interesting word mix-ups lately.
For example, soda, which she consistently calls Minnesota. ("Daddy, I want some of your Minnesota! Pleeeeease!")
We were discussing ethnicity, and I told her I am European-American and she is Chinese-American. She heard the word "your" in European and asked, "Myapean-American?" Likewise, when we went to the police station to notarize some documents, I heard her murmur something about "yesarize."
She heard somebody talking about a baby shower and was shocked and amused that somebody would give a baby a shower.
And when she tried her first local gymnastics class (which went great, by the way!), she immediately noticed the other girls' cool outfits. I told her they were called leotards, but she didn't quite catch the unfamiliar word. She told me, "I wanna tarp! I want one a dose!" (pointing to the ones hanging up in the lobby available for purchase). I checked out the prices on the ones hanging up and told her she might get one for her birthday. But this morning we checked a consignment store and scored two leotards, one of which fits and the other of which is only a little too big! She is thrilled, and alternated wearing the two of them all day from when we brought them home until bedtime.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Does this look like rain to anybody?
I think our local forecasters need to look out the window, because I haven't seen any rain today since about 9 AM! Plenty of the white stuff, though. We still made it to church and back, and Esther and I got some outdoor playtime after her nap.
Meanwhile, it's a good opportunity to post some older pictures of Esther in the snow. I think I've covered the traditional activities--shoveling, snow angels, sledding, and snowman building--plus pushing a toy truck and looking for animal tracks--in previous posts. But Esther is nothing if not creative, so besides those stereotypical pursuits we have:
Digging with a trowel (she also spent a long time one day "cooking" snow with a trowel, but I didn't get pictures of it)
Climbing snow mountains
Writing/drawing with a stick (which reminded me very much of the Chinese grandfather I saw one frigid winter day in the square near the university where we taught in China, guiding his grandson to practice painting characters using a long paintbrush and water--which froze on contact and looked quite lovely).
Sucking on an icicle
Riding her tricycle through the path Daddy made
We're all looking forward eagerly to the spring, but...it's been a fun winter!
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
diplomacy
We have entered the era of negotiation. And, apparently, a solid comprehension of early numbers. Not too long ago, Esther and I had the following conversation:
Mommy: Esther, would you like a cookie?
Esther: How about two cookies?
Mommy: That could probably be arranged.
Esther: How about four cookies!
Mommy: No, that's too many.
Esther: How about three cookies?
(Occasionally her math skills fail her, however--today I told her she could watch half an hour of Monsters, Inc. and she said, "How about if I watch it for three minutes!" Well, yes, three is more than half, but the units of measurement are important too!)
Yesterday she told Tim, "Daddy, I have to talk you into something!"
A dorm-mate of mine in college had a T-shirt that defined diplomacy as "letting others have my way." Well, Esther has that quality in spades! Actually, I've been pretty impressed at her ability to think through what might motivate other people, and to use it to influence them.
For example, when she wanted us to take her to the play place at our local mall, she said, "I have to get those wiggles out!"
And when a grandfatherly stranger in the grocery store teased that he would share her lollipop, she clutched it protectively, thought for a moment, and then announced (mindful of all my instruction about not sharing germs), "Man! I have a cold."
Mommy: Esther, would you like a cookie?
Esther: How about two cookies?
Mommy: That could probably be arranged.
Esther: How about four cookies!
Mommy: No, that's too many.
Esther: How about three cookies?
(Occasionally her math skills fail her, however--today I told her she could watch half an hour of Monsters, Inc. and she said, "How about if I watch it for three minutes!" Well, yes, three is more than half, but the units of measurement are important too!)
Yesterday she told Tim, "Daddy, I have to talk you into something!"
A dorm-mate of mine in college had a T-shirt that defined diplomacy as "letting others have my way." Well, Esther has that quality in spades! Actually, I've been pretty impressed at her ability to think through what might motivate other people, and to use it to influence them.
For example, when she wanted us to take her to the play place at our local mall, she said, "I have to get those wiggles out!"
And when a grandfatherly stranger in the grocery store teased that he would share her lollipop, she clutched it protectively, thought for a moment, and then announced (mindful of all my instruction about not sharing germs), "Man! I have a cold."