We went to a branch we'd never before been to, one inside a grocery store. We asked for the notary person and when she came out from their little office you could see her eyes dart carefully from me, to Matt, to Dawson in my arms, to Macy and Parker sitting in the double stroller and finally to Cade who at that moment decided he didn't like where they put their 2 inch stack of savings account brochures. -_- Oy.
As she sat down and began to sign and stamp cover letter after cover letter and saw that this was for an adoption, she made the following inquiries, in this order:
Coming or going? (Heh, she didn't really ask that, though I'm sure she wanted to!)
So, how many do you have now? (Four.)
So, this will make number... (Five.)
And you already have four? (Yes [forced laugh].)
Wow, and you're adopting another one? (Yes.)
How old are they? (4 1/2, 3, 1 1/2, 7 months.)
Wow, and there are four of them? (Er, yes. We had one every year for FOUR years. Four.)
And they're all yours? (Yes. All FOUR of them. And we're adopting ONE more.)
Finally, that was the end of it. I half-heartedly wished she would declare, "Better you than me!" so I could whole-heartedly agree with her. :P
Then as the kids were just a few minutes away from melting down in the overheated store, I glanced down at the stamp on one of the pages and saw "Tioga County" teasing up at me.
Great. We went to a bank just a few minutes from our house, smack in the middle of Broome County, and managed to get the Nosiest Notary Public of The Next County Over. Which means of course we can't have the county certification done here in our county - we have to drive over to Owego and have it done there.
Then as we finally headed out, Cade wiggled out of my grasp and took off around the corner into the toy aisle. We rushed after him to find him playing golf with some plastic club and ball set that some genius decided not to package but to simply leave lying open in a cardboard box for all of the Cades of the world to invade. Matt and I debated getting it for the boys and in the nano second that we spent looking at each other in annoyance, I turned around to find Cade gone. Niiice. I'm sure the notary lady will just love this!
Matt goes one way and I the other, Dawson in one arm and the other struggling to maneuver the double stroller, and an elderly woman scooters past with a, "Wow! You have your hands full!" Then, "Full and a half!" Oh, you didn't notice Dawson? But maybe you saw which way the wild primitive with the yellow golf club went?
Cade was quickly recovered and we quickly left the store, both of us a little dazed. It sometimes seems that although life/God/whomever is on our side in this, the Negativity in the world is trying to kill our plans with sheer annoyance.
It's going to have to do better than that. Annoyance is our specialty. After all, we have four little kids. That's right, four. And yes, they're all ours.
* * * * *
And in unrelated news, Dawson had a re-evaluation this afternoon with the agency we chose to coordinate his EI services. I hate these things, these Let's-Put-His-Delays-In-Writing-In-Case-You-Didn't-Know-Already-Reviews. But what can you do?
Little guy was very tired and lazy (seems I'm always waking him up from a nap for one of these performances *sigh*) but he was still a charmer. They only evaluated speech and cognition since he's already getting PT/OT. I don't remember the specific titles of their little skill segments they were evaluating, I'll have to see once we get the written report, but for Speech on one of the two sections he measured 2 months behind at 5 months old (I think it was Receptive?) and on the other he measured on target at 7 months old (Communicative?? Who knows!) Same deal with cognitive ability - 5 months on one and actually age advanced on the other, 8 or 9 months equivalent I think.
I think he's doing great. :)
