"Peas Porridge in the Pot, Nine Days Old"

So it's Tuesday, one week after we brought Jessica home ("home" read: hotel in Birmingham) from the hospital. The hotel provides breakfast and lunch, we go on walks and putter around the hotel room working (Dave), making phone calls & writing emails, napping, and holding our precious bundle. There's a SuperWalmart and a Babies'R'Us across the street, and we have books, movies, birthfamily visits, and things to do. But we are getting a little antsy.



When are we coming back to Florida? Although all the paperwork was sign last Monday, and we had a hitch with resigning paperwork last Thursday, we tracked down our LDSFS caseworker today (& everyday), and she STILL HAS NOT SENT OUR PAPERWORK to the Alabama government for approval to take the baby across state lines. (Best scenario: back on Saturday for work/tennis/piano lessons next week.)

{She's newly transferred from Utah to the Atlanta office, and we're her second Alabama interstate adoption. She said her first took SIX WEEKS. She promises us everyday that today she will FedEx overnight-it. Her excuse was she is "busy" and she had to "make copies" (even though we all signed 4 copies of everything). She didn't have our background check from Florida (although our Florida caseworker called & emailed several times 2 weeks in advance of the birth.) She admitted she doesn't read her full email in-box, her voicemail is full, and 4 times she remarked about sending our stuff to Georgia, not Alabama.}

If we call tomorrow and she hasn't sent it, Mr. Diplomatic will had the phone calling over to Ms. Get-This-Done. We don't mind the vacation, as long as we're not losing $400/day waiting on a disorganized whim.

Anyways. Jessica & her family are great. J.K. is slightly bigger, pays attention a little better, needs lots of holding, and really charms us. She sighs in her sleep, sometimes between every breath, and she sounds like a baby bellows. (huh)"hmm"(huh) "nnn"(huh) "yunn"(huh)"aaiiaa? "(pause) "hhhhh hhhu" . . . Sometimes she sounds likes she's a baby pig, sometimes like she's quacking with her mouth shut. There's no music in the world to compare.

We drove over to the birthgrandparents house last night (Monday). The birth great-grandparents drove down from Tennessee to meet us and the baby. Picture Colonel Sanders and Janice Kappy Perry--and so nice. They told hunting and baby stories, and we had another good chat with the birthmother while getting lost in Birminghan on the way home. Great people that we are happy to be linked to now.

Sunday we went to church in a ward full of kids and babies. We did not pay a lot of attention to the thankimonies/storimonies/repeatimonies when we had children to dream about and admire. (We kept Jessica covered and just went to 1 meeting--Jessica's immune system in mind.) She started to wimper for milk with 10 minutes left in the meeting, and Dave wanted to split. But I said we had to learn to cope eventually. We made it through the longest prayer ever with a pacifier and rocking her carrier. Whew!

After baby's first day of church, one week old, and hungry.

Saturday, to get out, we went with the birthparents to see Avatar 3-D; grandparents were awesome and babysat. My brother describes Avatar as "Fern Gully meets Pocahontas". It's visually very rich; I loved the ocean/prehistoric plant theme, the computer technology (when do I get to have that?), the lead actors, and the music. The plot has 10 different angles: technology v. culture, colonizing nation v. natives, war v. diplomacy, secularism v. pagan religion, military v. business v. anthropology, romance, disabled vets, and a lot of action. Dave liked it too.